These emails and texts are guilting parents to send sick kids to school. I sent my son in one day when I shouldn’t have (plus he wanted to go to take a test) and he ended up puking in the bathroom after lunch. So more germs spreading to friends and classmates.

Anonymous wrote:I love the part of the text that says to contact the school if there’s something getting in thr way of attendance. Germs. Germs are what’s getting in the way of attendance.

Can people really not see beyond their own lives to realize lots of other kids are missing a lot of school not due to germs? If the effort and intent behind all this doesn't really apply to you, then must move on.

Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally illness this year are the worse I’ve seen in a decade. I’ve had multiple students hospitalized for things like flu and norovirus and there were a few weeks where many classes had 5-10 kids out sicks. (I teach all levels of elementary school)

Yep, we tried mightily to keep our middle school kid in class but he ended up missing 7 whole days with a few early outs over March/April bc of a flu turned walking pneumonia with a sprinkle of new to him seasonal allergies. That combined with a 48 hour GI bug in December is gonna put us on the naughty list soon enough and we'll just need to ignore it. But he's never been sick like this for so long. And yes he's seen the doctor. Some days he could get himself to school so he wouldn't miss first period math but by noon was too sick. Or he'd be good for 2 days and then sick 2 more. So frustrating.

I love the part of the text that says to contact the school if there’s something getting in thr way of attendance. Germs. Germs are what’s getting in the way of attendance.

Anecdotally illness this year are the worse I’ve seen in a decade. I’ve had multiple students hospitalized for things like flu and norovirus and there were a few weeks where many classes had 5-10 kids out sicks. (I teach all levels of elementary school)

Anonymous wrote:This is kind of like those awful perfect attendance awards that shame kids who have legit health issues and reward the parents who dose their sick kids and send them into school. Weird priorities, wish they'd work more on keeping kids healthy insteading of shaming them for getting sick.

That have started giving our perfect attendance awards again at one of my kid’s schools.
There’s a nationwide push to increase attendance after the big attendance drop post-Covid, but failing to distinguish between types of absences is so dumb. Plus, at the elementary level, the child rarely has control over his/her attendance, regardless of the reason for the absence. It isn’t like 3rd graders are just cutting class.

My son (APS middle school) missed a lot of school this winter (on the 15 absence naughty list) due to several bouts of strep and stomach flu. He claims to not have missed much because class assignments are often done in iPads so he was able to easily catch up in most cases. But he learned that some teachers don’t post in class assignments to Canvas and they are not all forthcoming about what was missed in class even when he asked them. For several classes, he discovered zero grades at end of quarter for unsubmitted classwork.

And He did miss some class lectures which hurt his grade in math and Spanish for that quarter.

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t we learn from the Covid pandemic that it’s okay to miss school (or work) because you’re sick? It seems ridiculous the system is not distinguishing between someone who stayed home for having the flu and someone who missed school to go skiing.

Unfortunately there is a certain group of parents who learned the opposite.

Didn’t we learn from the Covid pandemic that it’s okay to miss school (or work) because you’re sick? It seems ridiculous the system is not distinguishing between someone who stayed home for having the flu and someone who missed school to go skiing.

This is kind of like those awful perfect attendance awards that shame kids who have legit health issues and reward the parents who dose their sick kids and send them into school. Weird priorities, wish they'd work more on keeping kids healthy insteading of shaming them for getting sick.

Amen to all of the above! Another thing these don’t seem to reflect is how late someone is. A tardy when you get your kid in the school door two minutes after the bell rings is very different from a kid showing up two hours late without a good reason.

-APS teacher

I find it condescending and annoying to be lectured on attendance when my kid is legit out SICK and the schools don't care to do anything to keep illness from spreading or stop parents from sending sick kids to school.

Instead of lecturing us on school attendance, how about messaging on keeping kids home when sick so other kids don't get it too.

Well I find it ridiculous that my kids teacher took a week long trip to Dubai all while the school is sending me annoying texts about my kid missing 10 days of school because he had the flu and a stomach bug.

I don’t know but I find the texts really annoying. I have a kid in elementary school who was out for a week with the flu, and that made us hit 10 days for the year, all excused, all due to illness.

I find it ridiculous that this system does not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences.

Has anyone been able to find this on Parentvue? It was supposed to be available on the 28th, but I haven't been able to find it. It's supposed to show how many days your child has been absent compared to grade level, which sounds like it may lead to unintended consequences. Are they having technical difficulties, did they rethink if this is a good idea? I just want to know what's going on.

https://www.apsva.us/attendance/