Reply to Attendance pressure

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Attendance pressure"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]If I encountered it I would probably discuss our plans with our pediatrician and see whether they thought the kids socioemotional health was best served by being in school or with family.[/quote]

If your child does not need the instruction and is not missing anything important--then why are you worried about it being excused?  Why are you demanding that the teacher provide work if she is not teaching?   PP claims her child will be just fine academiclally.[/quote]

If she’s not teaching there wont be any assignments to provide.

If [b]i[/b] was taking a long flight or had significant downtime [b]I’d[/b] ask for the material. If [b]i [/b]got pushback[b] id [/b]seek an excused absence. [b]I [/b]wouldn’t follow an arbitrary rule so a teacher felt powerful not doing what others do hsppily.[/quote]

So, who is the one here claiming to be powerful?

[/quote]

What a weird reaction— parents get work for their traveling kids every day.  Isn’t this what you want? Parents working with their kids out of school?

Really nothing will satisfy you. Don’t take kids out — even if there is a sub or non important materials. Don't fall behind but don’t keep up! [/quote]

Your kid actually can’t “keep up” with 4 weeks of packet work. What we can’t send along is all the instruction and activities we do to help them learn the content and master the skills that work should assess. [b]At BEST we can send 4 weeks of busy work which is pointless to ask us to put together and pointless for your kid to do. [/b]We can’t send the next 4 weeks of lessons and new content. I’ve mentioned in this thread before the kid who went to India for over a month last year and the dad wanted us to have 1:1 Google meet lessons (this was denied). But we did post all the work for him online, even though in my class no assignments are even done online. Nevertheless I did it. He emailed us saying his son was having trouble understanding the material posted in Schoology. No duh!! He was not here to be taught it! [/quote]

Wait a second— we just had a retired teacher tel us that busywork was SO IMPORTANT that kids should come to school to receive instruction from her pre-positioned busywork folder instead of spending time with their families. [/quote]

LOL!  I'm the retired teacher whose words you have conveniently twisted.  You skipped the part about the detailed plans and the materials for the lessons that were left on my desk.  The folder of "busy work" was "just in case."

But, the part I really don't understand is the parent who thinks that lessons go in "lock step."  This assumes that every lesson is a complete success and that all of the students clearly "get" it.  Gee, sometimes a lesson needs repetition and more practice--and sometimes, the kids get it so quickly that you can skip along to the next one.

But, PP has decided that the teacher is supposed to anticipate exactly what her child needs.

And, as preparing the lesson for the kids with "strep."  If she cannot see the difference here, then she cannot be helped. And, kids are seldom out sick for weeks--and, believe me, most teachers would lovingly do as much as possible to help that kid.  But, traveling mom thinks this is the same thing.  And, FWIW, a sick child definitely suffers and a really sick child is going to need lots of extra help on return--because they likely have not been able to keep up because he does not feel well.

[b]As for the doctor--sounds like a quack if he is giving excuses for travel.[/b]
[/quote]

If you don’t know how over FCPS most local pediatric practices are you’re living under a rock. There are memes about them printed out in the nurses station of ours.[/quote]

Is it a school’s responsibility to keep pediatricians happy?

No. 
[/quote]

Of course, not, but don’t be shocked that many pediatricians are more than happy to make sure their patients aren’t being arbitrary penalized by FCPS. They remember being at work while their kids were at home “learning”[/quote]

Ah one of the idiotic “Schools were closed during a pandemic when millions of people were dying” geniuses. I can’t wait for you rkid to get to college and watch the Professors laugh at her COVID is the excuse of everything attitude. [/quote]

COVID may not be the reason for everything but its definitely the reason my pediatricians office has FCPS memes on the wall and has no problem keeping their patients insulated from dumb policies.

They also require vaccination so don’t worry its not only MAHA fringe who is over FCPS.[/quote]

Complaining about COVID policies on the one hand and claiming that expecting kids not to take extended vacations while school is in session is a little ironic.

I hated the COVID policies and think they made terrible decisions.  I also think kids should be in school when school is in session.  [/quote]

It may seem ironic. You concluded that kids should be in school whenever FCPS decides they feel like having school. I concluded that FCPS doesn’t remotely care about the well-being of their students or their families, and so that— and not FCPS’ whims— is my primary concern. It’s in my child's best interest and mu families best interest that we travel and spend time together. That this doesn’t help FCPS meet their attendance metric is for them to worry about.[/quote]

You do realize that the attendance metric influences funding for your child’s school?

[/quote]

You keep saying this. Here’s an easy fix:

The day before winter break has a very high absence rate. Next year make that a teacher planning day.  Now the school average attendance is higher!

Why doesn't FCPS take the steps within their control?[/quote]

DP. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, are we? If you make that day a planning day, parents will treat that as the start of winter break and take their kid out a day earlier.[/quote]

Try it and see. Or put planning days on other high-absence days like the Monday after Thanksgiving. FCPS has 100% control over where those days are and 0% credibility with parents, so start making the decisions within their control, it will help with both problems.[/quote]

Parents already take off days before and after planning days so all that would happen is instead of taking off Friday if is a planning day, parents would take off Thursday on same theory as being used in thread now. Will fix nothing and parents wanting 3 weeks or 4 or whatever want in Dec will still be mad.[/quote]

Or obvious answer:  go in the summer

Or, again, go.  But, your child's education is on you.  You obviously think he is missing nothing.[/quote]

This isn’t your logic when teachers vacation during the school year. [/quote]

That is extremely rare.  I was a teacher--I only took a week off once for an extreme family emergency.  It was far from a vacation.[/quote]

I know two teachers who did midweek Disney last year and I’m a different poster than the earlier one who posted about Orlando.

It’s clearly not that rare.[/quote]

I agree it’s not rare. I’m a retired teacher substitute and I’ve done a few 5 day jobs this year for teachers away on vacation. I think it’s more common for teachers to be out multiple personal days in a row now than it used to be. I don’t blame them though. I retired with way too many hours of accumulated leave. I should have used more of it when I was younger. [/quote].

If teachers can be out taking vacations, so can students. Adapt.[/quote]

What, are you serious?? This makes no sense. Teachers have already been students themselves and have completed their education. They are working professionals no different than the rest of us. They earn vacation time to use as part of their jobs. Students are students. They have not completed their education and do not have employment that grants them vacation time. You can't compare teachers taking vacations to students. [/quote]

Your hypothesis is that the teachers who took off to go to Disney…left their children in school and went without them? [/quote]

+100 they took a family vacation.

FCPS’s motto: Do as I say, not as I do.

Sorry, it’s falling on deaf ears now.
[/quote]

I don’t begrudge them their family vacation. It just astonishes me that their colleagues would come here and preach the gospel of perfect attendance, murdered teachers chained to their packets, attendance based funding etc. without realizing the incredible hypocrisy.

Treat all families with the respect you want given yours.[/quote]

I guess I just don’t see what you see. I don’t see teachers preaching, teachers martyring themselves, etc. I just see some teachers asking for basic respect and understanding.

I also don’t see hypocrisy. Teachers are working professionals and they have limited days of personal leave, just like other professionals. They are entitled to those days. Just because they work with students, they shouldn’t expect to be treated like students.

Students don’t have personal leave, and that’s not a decision teachers made. The districts and states make these policies. So where is the hypocrisy? I suppose if you find the system hypocritical, you can campaign to take personal leave away from teachers so it’s all equal in your eyes… [/quote]

Again, do you think teachers who went to Disney last year (three on this thread, so probably fairly widespread) went without their children?

Probably not. So their children can come out of school to take a vacation at the time it is cheapest but [b]other[/b] children should be in school?

That’s the hypocrisy.

I think a teacher taking their kids on vacation is fine. But I also think me taking my kid on vacation is fine. Someone who thinks teachers deserve a few days off with their kids in the off season but thinks the children of all other parents should sit in class no matter what is a hypocrite.

And the principal who knows darn well that teachers are taking their kids out is the biggest hypocrite of all to think he can bully parents.[/quote]

Teacher here. I posted earlier in the thread. No teacher is getting upset over kids taking a day or two to extend a weekend or already shortened week. We are not talking about missing Thursday/Friday before Winter Break. Teachers are concerned when kids take off 1 or more weeks attached to an already long break and are being asked to provide work.

Winter Break is two weeks. We have [b]some kids who miss 1 or even 2 extra weeks [/b]to travel internationally. We have even had kids get disenrolled because the kids miss 15 days or more. It then becomes a problem when they come back and have missed an extensive amount of school. [/quote]

Teachers kid spends a week in Disney World in February= good.

Regular kid spends a week in Madrid in December= bad.

Make it make sense?
[/quote]

Kids spending three weeks in Madrid = bad. The kid missing a week of school after 2 weeks of break is problematic. [/quote]

Why is a week before (or after) break worse than a random week in February? Its a week off.[/quote]

Missing a week in Feb is also not good. Look you can complain all you want about this calendar, but there are plenty of long weekends where extending a trip a few days is not a big deal. Missing 5 or more days does become problematic on how much is missed. Again, do what you need to do for your family. But understand your kid may be behind.

I don’t understand why the parents arguing are not understanding that. If you choose for your kid to miss school, it isn’t like things are pausing when your kid is not there. All we are saying is it is up to you to make sure they are on top of what they missed.

I could care less if you take your kid out!! But, they will be behind. [/quote]

But the kids of teachers...don’t get behind when they miss school? Again, where’s the policy that says teachers can’t take family vacations in the school year if this is such an obviously problematic activity?

[/quote]

I don’t know many teachers taking a full week off to travel unless they have to. Sub plans for a week are a hassle. Most of my teacher friends usually extend a long weekend/teacher workdays. So I would say the teachers traveling for a full week and pulling kids are the minority. Just like the majority of kids in FCPS will be in school next week.[/quote]

Shouldn’t teacher friends be…working? On teacher workdays? Aren’t those vital etc?

The policy of “a teacher can take four days at Disney but five days with your grandparents in Europe is irresponsible” is just hypocritical. The principal knows that. The parents know that.

So until teachers are not allowed to take family vacations (which I think is a foolish idea) in the school year, schools can keep quiet about the vacation decisions if other parents.[/quote]

I am PP here. Principals are getting pressure from the state because attendance is tied to accreditation now. His email may be tone-deaf but know he is getting pressure to bring his/her attendance numbers up. You can disagree with how he/she is trying to do it, but know it is coming from a higher place.

I already work beyond my contract hours and often the teacher workdays are full of useless meetings. I also don’t need to do sub plans and secure a sub.

As I said earlier, the MAJORITY of teachers are not taking a full week off to go to Disney. It happens, but not on a large scale.

Again, take your trip with your kid and have fun. Life is too short. [/quote]

It happens regularly enough and at large enough scale that parents are aware of the phenomenon when they get the principals email.

The “pressure” he is getting is going to get worse, if I received this email and didn’t have plans to travel, I’d make some. He should be sending an apology.[/quote]

It happens very rarely, is posted about by an annoyed parent on Nextdoor or twitter or the neighborhood facebook page and now that rare event is every teacher takes days off to go to Disney. Now, every parent that wants to take a cruise in the middle of the school year, because it is cheaper and family memories and all that, go “But teachers go to Disney in the middle of the school y ear because it is cheaper.” And “If that teacher who went to Disney, I can go on this cruise, and I’ll have my pediatrician write a note so my kids teacher, who didn’t go to Disney, has to do extra work.”

FCPS calendar is awful, they should drop the federal holidays or the cultural holidays and get back to something with regular 5 day weeks. Or use the federal holidays as teacher workdays and drop the workdays. But adding work to a teachers life so you can go to Europe for an extra week of skiing, or to visit the family in Asia or South America because the school board screwed up the calendar is bogus. Most of the reasons that people give for not carrying about attendance are caused by the school board, not the Teachers you are annoying, and the one or two teachers who use their personal vacation days to go to Disney.

And then you act like the teacher is unprofessional because they don’t have the time to do extra packets for your kid on top of the extra hours htey are already working that they are not paid for in classrooms where a large enough percentage don’t think school is important and their behavior is crap. Some because their parents don’t prioritize school and the kids are rarely there. Which leads to more paperwork acounting for the 1,000 methods you used to get the kid to pass the class that were ignored.[/quote]

It clearly isn’t rare. I don’t use either of the sites you mentioned, and still know of these trips.

If your teachers are at Disney, you have no business telling parents that can’t be on a cruise. If teachers are bothered by the extra work caused by parents rejecting the double standard, they should talk to their colleagues and leadership about the consequences of their conduct.[/quote]

Teacher here. I’m not telling my coworkers to avoid taking leave. That’s ridiculous.

I’m also not telling YOU to avoid taking vacations. You do you. I’ll make the work packets for your kids and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that your kids actually do them. (History suggests they won’t. They’ll come after the vacation asking for multiple personal study sessions after school. And I’ll do that for your kids, too… paying for aftercare for my own kids so I can independently tutor yours.)

Stop making this into a thing. There’s no  double standard here. I get that you want there to be so you have a reason to rage against teachers, but it simply isn’t true. Teachers will continue to sacrifice their time for you and your vacation, so no need to go on the attack now.

[/quote]

You…maybe need to calm down and read more slowly. No one is “raging against teachers”, they’re objecting to a principal scolding parents for taking family vacations while teachers do the same thing.

I support teachers taking vacations. If *teachers* are bothered by providing makeup work they can talk to their colleagues about the impact their family vacations have on the expectations of the parent body. [/quote]

+1 the other thing you can do is explain to parents you will have the makeup work for them when they return but can’t necessarily have it all up front. Many are fine with that as there isn’t much time to work on vacation anyway. Just knowing the teacher will support my child upon return is good enough. [/quote]

There’s clearly a disconnect here, which is why you have frustrated parents and frustrated teachers on this thread.

I suspect many of us who are teachers have been burned by families before. We’ve put time into requested work just to have it ignored. We’ve given our own time, both before and after these vacations, to work with individual students. None of this is something we have to do, especially for an unexcused absence. We do it because we care about our students’ progress.

So when we are met with entitlement, especially since we are acting out of support and service, we tend to feel a bit bitter. What you call “support upon return” I call “put aside my overflowing pile of endless responsibilities to further support a family’s vacation.[b]” I’ll do it, of course, and I’ll do it without telling you how your trip became my burden[/b]. A “thank you” is appropriate and appreciated. Honestly? I get maybe one “thank you” every 20 times I do this. More often I get told that the requested work didn’t get done, or that I need to stay after even more to catch a kid up. Therefore, frustration. [/quote]

Yes? Is this something you think is extraordinary?

Parents probably don’t tell you that your absences increased their burdens either, but I’m sure they do. This just isn’t usually how people behave…[/quote]

Well, I doubt my usual 2-3 absences a year influence you much at all. I have never in 25 years taken a vacation during the school year.

And I recommend you do some simple math. You aren’t the only family asking me to give up my time. I have almost 150 students. If just 5 families are asking for extra support (after school tutoring, individualized units for travel), it adds up to a substantial amount of extra work. What if 10 families ask?

So yes, it is extraordinary (defined as unusual or remarkable).

And notice: you couldn’t bother to just be kind. You had to take a dig. That’s what many people do when they ask teachers to give up their time: it’s seen as no big deal and a “thank you” clearly isn’t warranted when we go above and beyond for you. [/quote]

In all seriousness you seem to be struggling to understand that these threads aren’t about you. If you support families, great, you’re not the people we’re talking about.

If you don’t take family vacations in the school year, groovy, this isn’t about you.

My vacation doesn’t impact you. I’m not asking you for anything.

Your two/three days off don't impact me. The week and a half my kids teacher took to go to South America did— but it would literally never occur to a normal adult to enumerate to another the ways in which they “increased my burden”. The fact that you think you deserve credit for not doing so is outside the normal.

The youth call what you’re doing main character syndrome. [/quote]
Your kid had a teacher who went to South America for a week and a half. So that means nobody should ever dare to suggest that parents keep their kids in school? Talk about main character. [/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