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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The whole "I have nothing going on in classes" is a complete lie. I don't know why parents accept this. The fact that they don't have a quiz or test means they are learning something new. I would much rather my student miss a testing day compared to a learning day[/quote]

This skips over a hard truth - some kids learn faster and better than others. The 2nd day of a concept in math might be new to some kids and agonizingly boring to others. You can be mad that the kids who pick things up quicker skip school but the pattern continues. People at work get their stuff done and then surf the internet or walk around chatting (or do other things if working from home). That's just how life works.

There are things FCPS could do to address this but it would mean greater differentiation and accepting that not everyone should be able to take honors classes. They won't do that so things will keep going the way they are.[/quote]

Yes. This is what it's like for my kids.  We are a high SES family in a low SES high school.  Both kids skip a TON of school.  I gave up caring a few years ago. Kid #1 graduated 1st in his class and is currently at a T20 and barely went to school.  His common experience was that he would show up on test day or a day when a project was due and half the class would not have their projects done so the teacher would give the entire class period so that those kids could finish, or postpone the test to another day and let the kids use the entire class period to study.  Meanwhile, my kid is sitting with his thumb up his ass bored to death.  Half the kids in his AP classes didn't belong there.  And because FCPS does block scheduling, every wasted period is 90 agonizing minutes.

Not every kid who skips school is bound to fail.  Some are ready for a higher level of challenge that is not readily available in every FCPS school.  I support my kids to know how much school they need to go to in order to get the results they want from their education.  So far, FCPS hasn't cared how much school they attend.  Neither of my kids has ever been flagged by the school or any individual teacher for absenteeism.
[/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