Reply to School flexibility for sports in Arlington

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I find it interesting that the default response seems to be:  "No, why would the school work with you on sport-related absences?"

Maybe because schools aren't prisons?  And parents are able to see how their kids are doing and work with schools on flexibility (IF the child is excelling and not struggling)? [b] No one is suggesting the school do extra work other than possibly send homework, lists home...[/b] Sure it wouldn't be fair to ask for special tutoring or extra attention for absences, but if a child is excelling and the parent willing to put in extra work to make sure things are tracking...why not allow for exceptions in some circumstances?

This is just common sense- and this is why so many parents end up home-schooling, because of these attitudes of unflexibility.  The market is speaking, in terms of people fleeing public schools for private or home-school.  Not this is this the main reason, but it's part of it.  Public schools would be wise to think of how to bring people in, not push them away, such as with part-day options for home-schoolers, or approved flexible options for elite athletes or gifted kids.  (Granted Arlington public certainly has the opposite problem of too many students, not too few - but in other parts of the country, people are exiting public schools...)

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It sounds to me like you have no idea how an elementary school classroom works. And, yes, that would be a lot of extra work for a teacher, particularly one with a class of 25-30 students, many of whom probably have their own extra needs that are more relevant to an education than accommodating a mom who doesn't want to schedule her DD's extracurriculars around the school schedule.[/quote]

I don't know enough to dispute that this would involve a lot of extra work for the teacher and school.  I do have an issue with the characterization of "a mom who doesn't want to schedule her DD's extracurriculars around the school schedule."  As was pointed out earlier in this thread, there is very little ice time available after school gets out (perhaps as little as none).  The mom is not making the determination that she can't schedule after school, its simply not a possibility. [/quote]

How about instead of spouting off and criticizing the schools when you "don't know enough to dispute that this would involve a lot of extra work for the teacher and school," you sit and think for a moment about how this would work in practice. If the kid's class does math in the last couple of hours of the day, how do you think it's going to work when the kid is missing 50% of the class's math sessions? Do you think she's going to pass math if she misses half of the tests? OP says she doesn't want to homeschool her kid, but she effectively would have to in all of the subjects her child misses for skating. Do you really think the classroom teacher should have to reconfigure the class routine every couple of days to make sure OP's kid doesn't miss too much of one subject? The whole school should have to switch around specials every couple of weeks to make sure she doesn't miss too many sessions of those? What if one class has a student who leaves two hours early 2-3 days per week for their sport, and another who arrives two hours late 2-3 days per week for theirs, what do those classes do?[/quote]

Two things:  First, I didn't criticize the schools.  I said explicitly that it might be too much work for the school to accomodate.  I was merely defending the mom, who is not considering this approach on a whim.

Second, if leaving early every day means the kid is going to miss math every day, that would be a problem.  But what if the part of school she was going to miss was PE, music, and art.  Do those have some importance?  Of course.  But missing them regularly would not be the same as missing, for example, math.[/quote]

You don't have school-aged kids, do you?[/quote]

I actually have two HS age kids.  Which part of what I wrote made you think I didn't?[/quote]

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