Reply to Richard Montgomery High School teacher complains about chronic absenteeism

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't think this problem is at all limited to first period, but I do think having such early start times might contribute to overall truancy because for parents who struggle to get their kids to school on time (or kids who struggle to get there on their own) it starts the day off on the wrong foot.

I've worked a lot with kids who have school avoidance issues. One thing you discover is that for a kid who is has a lot of reasons for not wanting to be at school (the most common are social issues or learning problems that make school a stressful and unwelcoming place for them), how the day starts matters. You can turn around a kid who is very school avoidant with a good homeroom teacher who starts the day off on a good note, for instance. It doesn't change the rest of the day at all but it will help that kid get through the door and in the seat, and once he's there, he is way less likely to leave.

If, on the other hand, there are major obstacles to the very first part of the day, the avoidance is triggered first thing in the morning, and it's hard to get that kid to go in even after that initial obstacle is over (i.e. to get the kid to go to 2nd period even if it's a class they like okay and it doesn't have the issues that homeroom does).

So having an early start time and a culture of absenteeism in homerooms, and then the school just tacitly overlooking that absenteeism, is going to impact the full day attendance because for any kid who has reasons for wanting to avoid school, you've just provided them with multiple reasons not to show up for the start of school, which is going to roll into the rest of the day for these kids. You need to find a way to get them sitting in that homeroom seat to start the day.

I think pushing start times back 30 minutes would help a lot. I know there are issues with buses and coordinating with elementary and middle school start times. But that doesn't change the fact that the early start is likely contributing to overall truancy.[/quote]

Pushing back the start times is not going to address the issues you are discussing and its going to hurt kids who work and have after school activities.  For kids in MCPS sports and sports related activities, it would also be a problem as not all the schools have outdoor lights/facilities to make later in the evening practices happen and some kids are aready there from the beginning of the school day to 9-10 PM at night, especially on game days.

For those kids, there needs to be a better focus on addressing the learning and mental health issues and actually making these schools more inclusive and safer.  These are two seperate issues and moving the start times isn't going to fix that.[/quote]

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