Reply to Increase Absenteeism in Midle/Upper SES students not due to illness?

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Increase Absenteeism in Midle/Upper SES students not due to illness?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I blame the pandemic for why I am more likely to let my teens stay home but not because of online learning. For me, it was a mental reset about what was important. And prioritizing our mental health and relationships have just become top for our family. I take mental health days; why shouldn't my kids?

Is school stressing them out? I would argue that academics are rarely the cause of their stress. That would mean they are being challenged in a way that holds them to a higher bar. My honors middle schooler and IB high schooler both have classes with 100% in their gradebooks (I kid you not!), how am I to justify that they need to be in school? They are clearly performing in a manner that is more than acceptable to their teachers.

And while they are not getting perfect scores in standardized tests, they are demonstrating a solid understanding of the content. I will also say that both are smart enough to know when they do need to be in school: a test, directions about a summative project, a fun day with group or lab work, starting a new unit. So yes, when they say they can catch up, and they have proven that they can, I am fine with letting them have a day to disconnect. They are also expected to behave in class and be respectful to faculty. In fact my oldest freaked out last week when she went to talk to a teacher about an in-school activity and a classmate said, "Are we doing anything important in your class next week?" I'm proud that she called her classmate out and said, "That is not how to ask to miss class, because all classes are valuable."

Truthfully, I wish it were harder for them to make up the material at home. But I think block scheduling is also part of the problem. When I was in school, one day would cost me 7 subjects worth of work. One day for my kids is only 3 or 4. And both have advisory when they have nearly all of their elective classes. So they rarely choose to stay home on the day that is stacked with core classes.

But we also require a mental health day a day to disconnect. There are no electronics between school hours. Instead, they sleep, go for a walk, clean their rooms, play with the dogs, read a book, bake, do art. (One of us is usually WFH so we can enforce this.) And to me, vacations in the middle of the school year work the same: it's a time for us to connect as a family, which is more important than school.

I am a third generation educator. (Grandmother was a business teacher; mom teacher to principal; I am a college faculty member.) School is something we all love. But it is no longer designed with the students' best interests in mind. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics