Anonymous wrote:This topic comes up monthly in they forum

Is the message annoying, clumsily worded and poorly targeted? Yes.

Is MCPS going to change? No.

No it doesn’t. I’ve been in this forum regularly for five years and this is the first time I’ve seen it. I’m not saying it hasn’t come up before at all but definitely not regularly.

This topic comes up monthly in they forum

Is the message annoying, clumsily worded and poorly targeted? Yes.

Is MCPS going to change? No.

Anonymous wrote:I got this text yesterday, saying my kid missed 3 days of school this marking period, which wasn’t even accurate — he missed 5 consecutive days of school when he had the flu this marking period. They were excused — we provided a doctor’s note. MCPS apparently can’t even track attendance properly.

I think these texts should be about unexcused absences. But whatever — we are just going to ignore it. My kid is in school every day he is not sick. But I’m not going to make him go, and expose other kids to viruses, but because of condescending texts.

As has already been explained even large numbers of absences (excused or unexcused)have impact on learning success. No one is expecting you to send in a sick kid. In fact they hope you won’t . However, they still have to deal with the problem of Chronic absenteeism and any parent can say their kid was out sick. So short of requiring every student to get a doctor’s note everytime (which folks wouldn’t do and would also complain about) they have to start reaching out and ideally sooner than later. For some people like you this will be something you can easily ignore, for others it’s a necessary first step.

I got this text yesterday, saying my kid missed 3 days of school this marking period, which wasn’t even accurate — he missed 5 consecutive days of school when he had the flu this marking period. They were excused — we provided a doctor’s note. MCPS apparently can’t even track attendance properly.

I think these texts should be about unexcused absences. But whatever — we are just going to ignore it. My kid is in school every day he is not sick. But I’m not going to make him go, and expose other kids to viruses, but because of condescending texts.

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. Our second wave comes in 2+ hrs late and there is zero understanding or concern that their kids have just missed all of phonics and math. So when their kids are far below grade level in both subjects, it’s somehow our problem when the actual problem is that their parents don’t give a s$&t.

This! I have a student who comes to school at lunch time most days. He's missed almost every single day of math since the beginning of the year. His MAP scores are crap and somehow, I'm supposed to get him caught up. Make it make sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happens if a person is chronically absent with excused absences due to multiple periods of illness and still works hard and has straight As or the like? Does the school see this differently?
That is very different than someone with the same number of absences who is not doing the work or doing poorly in school.

Obviously they still get the calls and texts but is that all that happens?

Bump

Teacher here. Our second wave comes in 2+ hrs late and there is zero understanding or concern that their kids have just missed all of phonics and math. So when their kids are far below grade level in both subjects, it’s somehow our problem when the actual problem is that their parents don’t give a s$&t.

We (the school) cannot control the message being sent regardless if the absence is excused or not. Our poor attendance secretary gets reamed out daily from parents about these mass messages and she has zero control over them. The issue is that schools nationwide have a huge chronic absenteeism issue and nobody knows how to address it.
As a school, we want our students there when they're physically healthy. However, we cannot control the parents who are unable to get their kids to school for various reasons.

I'm an elementary administrator and our arrival feels like two different phases. We get one wave of kids who come in on time between 8:40 - 9:00am when our bell rings. Then we get anywhere from 20 - 40 kids who roll in between 9:01 - 10:30 every single day. I feel bad for the students because many of them were ready but stuck waiting for their parents to get their acts together.

The message was tone deaf and ineffective. But maybe that doesn’t matter to them. If the point was to establish a legal paper trail, then I guess the mission was accomplished. There was definitely a more tactful way to accomplish it, though.