Reply to Absenteeism-reduction measures at Dranesville ES feel like misplaced student pressure

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My neighbor at a Title 1 school said their ES is also pushing kids to attend school more also. They were told it is a factor in boosting their school score.

We do know many families who take their ES kids out on vacations in excess of 10 days per year, outside of Spring break as its more convenient for them and apparently, they are the type of families the effort is being aimed at, not the sick kids.

[b]There is a culture of "its ok to take take kids out on family vacations at any time," and they are focusing in on this issue.[/b]  [/quote]

Are you saying that the kids who go on vacation for a week are harmed? Is there data to back up a week in the Bahamas hurting a kid academically? I know there are studies showing that FARMS and ELL kids missing school perform poorly academically, but do those studies show the same thing for UMC kids with highly educated parents taking vacation? [/quote]

It’s not the UMC families that are missing all the days at school.[/quote]

I know UMC and MC families who have received letters for high absenteeism because they pulled their kids for vacations due to cost, one of the kids was a 9th grader. They took 2 different cruises after breaks because it was less expensive and less crowded. There are plenty of MC and UMC families taking month long international trips to visit family. The excuse for taking all of January is because the temperatures are better then in the summer when it is too hot to do anything during the trip. I know plenty of families who make their way back to various Asian countries for Lunar New Year and stay for an extended trip because it is expensive to fly and it take so long to get there.

The difference is that most of the parents doing this are in a place to support their kids with school work and try and find ways to complete school work during the trip. You see people posting on this site asking for VPN info to access schoology on a pretty regular basis. Some will ask parents for class work, which causes the Teacher extra work if they agree to get things together for the family. So the kids might be completing work while they are out but there will be work that has to be made up when they come home.

The poor families with high absentee rates tend to have kids missing school because there isn't a parent available to get the child up and out to school, school isn't a priority, the child is needed to work, the child is needed to watch siblings, or the parents are not home to realize that the child is choosing to not go to school. The parents are normally not in a place to help the child with school work and the child falls farther and farther behind in school.

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