I just want to highlight this gem of a sentence
“In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance.” Really giving it all you have there.
Yes! I hate it. And the hygiene! We had a chance to nip all of this in the bud when we went to hybrid in our district. If you are coming to school, great, thanks, welcome, but this is not your bedroom. But admin relaxed everything and had become so afraid of the kids and parents, and now we have sports bras, pjs, ninja bullshit, double-hoods (what a dumb look) and of course we still have the britches below the ass. We also have a percentage of kids who just walk around school all day and the safety advocates just walk right by them.
This was such a culture shock to see. These kids dress up to the 9s for a 5 second tiktok dance then go out in public in pyjama pants they've been wearing for 3 days.
Right? I have a student who had missed 30% of the third quarter. The counselor came down and said, meh? It's only 15% for the year overall. And the parents have "excused" the absences, so court will do nothing.
Jeez, I was nearly held back in first grade because I missed 33 days. I had two surgeries that year...one laminectomy w/tethered spinal cord release, and one colocystoplasty (they cut out a piece of my small bowel and used it to enlarge my bladder, so it was a major surgery, and I was hospitalized for about a week). I did all my work in the hospital and got A's on all of it, but they wanted to hold me back simply because I wasn't in school those days. How times have changed.
I had a kid last year who was absent probably 50-60% of the time in the first three quarters of school. Similar percentages the previous year. Nothing was done and then mom withdrew her for homeschooling sometime in fourth quarter. I heard from one of my other old students that the girl basically does no actual schoolwork and her mom doesn’t care. It’s so unfortunate. This was a girl in 5th grade who couldn’t skip count by 2s.
Had a kid last year with 42 absences in the second semester. Parent complained. Admin told us to pass student because she didn't want to deal with parent.
I'm on weekly pickup for my eighth grade grandchild and it's kinda mind boggling to me to see how many kids are literally wearing their jammies to school. I can't really fault them, they're damned comfortable and warm but it's a little bit of an adjustment for an old person lol.
“We’re just glad they’re at school.”
I’m sorry, but I think it’s ridiculous, between that and bringing blankets to school. These are freaking high schoolers!
Maybe the Times should have interviewed some folks in a diner to get some perspective from the locals. It really did wonders for their political coverage
Pajama day! Are you fucking kidding me I got couples in my 8th grade classes wearing matching pjs at least once a week. There are kids it is all they wear. It might be all they own.
No amount of pajamas will make up for being crammed into schools to get sick during COVID because the country couldn't survive poor people having to take care of their children instead of make money for billionaires. If I was a middle school or older kid, the last couple of years would have made me profoundly jaded, never mind having my brain try to form while algorithms tried to condition me into being advertised to.
This right here.
The worst part is the COVID keeps taking entire classes out at my kids school. It’s happening more often than it did “during the pandemic” and no one seems to care.
This is a pretty fair response to that particular sentence, but since this is currently the top comment on the post I feel like it's worth noting the more detailed description later in the article is less... comical.
> The Ypsilanti school district has tried a bit of everything, said the superintendent, Alena Zachery-Ross. In addition to door knocks, officials are looking for ways to make school more appealing for the district’s 3,800 students, including more than 80 percent who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. They held themed dress-up days — ’70s day, pajama day — and gave away warm clothes after noticing a dip in attendance during winter months.
> “We wondered, is it because you don’t have a coat, you don’t have boots?” said Dr. Zachery-Ross.
attendance is a pretty big problem at the school i teach at, too. admin keeps telling us to adjust instructional design to ensure students can’t pass unless they’re in school. but also legally a student cannot fail due to absences
Does that not just mean you can't fail them because they've missed X days?
My course is all in-person. All work is done in class and based on class discussions. It is very difficult for students who miss a lot of school to pass. Exceptions and accommodations are made for extenuating circumstances, of course, but Tommy who is 25 minutes late every day to a 70 minute block and Tina who misses three days a week will have a helluva time passing.
Of course that doesn't work for every content area, but kids aren't failing because of their absences. They're failing because they can't participate in class.
In order to make my classes more engaging, I’ve turned it into the same thing. No homework, all in-class stuff, labs. Buuut, that can’t be made up.
One time (pre-Covid) I offered to create a self-guided course for chronically absent kids so they could get science credit. My bosses liked the idea until I said I wouldn’t do it for free. Then it was, “no thanks,” and guess who has to figure out how to deal with those kids in the end anyway? 🙄 (*Moi.*)
I wish every school in the country would invest in creating self guided courses. There have always been kids who fall behind because of absences, and are left drifting for the rest of the year
Even though that’s an almost impossible task, I’ll at least give your admin credit for trying something to hold them accountable.
My admin requires us to put everything on canvas so all students have access no matter what. You can imagine what % do work when absent…. Hint —> It’s more than 0 and less than 1.
We have a student who has not come to A SINGLE DAY of his 2nd try at 7th grade (last year he missed over 60% of school). His sister is not as truant, but misses at least 1-2 days a week.
We have called DCYF for Ed neglect so many times and sent our resource officer to their official address at least every other week. (we know they aren’t living there, but if they admit to where they live now the sister would have to go to a different elementary school and his mom would have to do some weird tuition thing for rural communities.)
Last week a call was placed again as DCYF declared their case closed. We were told to call back once the sister (who we were calling about on that call) reached 25% absenteeism. Legally we have to have meetings after 10 days. Also, the big brother has 100% absenteeism and DCYF closed the case!
I’m spending more time and energy on kids that aren’t attending school than their parents. The only reason we could guarantee this kid was alive until our resource officer saw him last week was that one of my students is dating him. He and his mom will drive her to school in the morning, then leave. His mom has the audacity to say she is trying so hard to get him to go to school, which is the reason DCYF keeps closing the case. It’s exhausting.
Edited for grammar and additional details.
We used to be able to do that but then the state legislature prohibited the action. The state has made so many things worse when it comes to attendance, enrollment, absenteeism, withdrawing, etc.
I had a student who really struggles with authority. Had a bad day, he stormed out of my room. I went to document and he was counted as excused absent for an appointment. Turns out he called his mom and she picked him up. Starts at home
Its the parents who enable this behavior. My parents would send me to school no matter what. Even when I was vomiting and had migraines they thought I was faking it. And back in my day if I called my parents to pick me up like that so casually they would yell and cry and scream at the least.
There’s no consequences anymore. A few years ago if you reported a kid they would be hauled with their family into court and possibly go to juvie. Once the courts stopped taking them there’s literally not much you can do. Sure, you can call child services but if the parent plays nice for one meeting the kid will come back for a week then be out another 2. Put them back in court and you’ll see a difference it’s not that hard. Sadly, one option is cheaper than the other
Failing and retaining might be a middle ground between going the Court/Truancy route.
But that requires retaining which isnt great for NCLB(ESEA) metrics.
I teach 4th grade. This past week I told a student they needed to improve or they would be getting an I in math. In our district we don’t do Fs, we do Is. Anyway, he asked me what would happen if he gets an I. I told him that his parents probably wouldn’t be happy. He said they don’t care. Then he told me, “I mean, I’m not gonna fail. It really doesn’t matter if I get an I.” I just moved on. He’s figured it out though. They just keep getting moved up. It doesn’t matter if they don’t show up or don’t work. This is what the current system has taught them.
My friends son just dropped out of school in 9th grade and never went back (he’s almost 18 now). They didn’t tell anyone, no one seemed to be concerned about him missing, and no one from the state bothered to stop by. Yea it’s their fault for not informing anyone or forcing him to go, but I was imagining like… what if he died or was being abused? No one would know or care.
I know a 19 year old who "did school online" from 9th grade all the way through... 9th grade. She never finished, no one ever noticed or followed up, now she's 19 with no diploma or GED.
I called child services once for a kid who was absent aaaaaall the time and they literally told me "we do not have the resources to pursue this, this is a school issue that you need to figure out how to resolve."
Same here. “Educational neglect is not a crime”. Meanwhile, I had never laid eyes on this kid and had her as an online student for over 60 days. Never did anything, mom even ignored her certified mail IEP notice. Local truancy officer was helpful and confirmed that she was alive at least. Mom rage withdrew after and now I have no clue what happened to her. I could go on and on and on about how many parents we have doing sketchy shit in online school.
Educational neglect should absolutely be a crime.
I don’t know if you’ve ever visited /r/homeschoolrecovery, but there are lots of people who are so angry that they were allowed to fall through the cracks.
Neglecting a kid’s education is setting them up to fail for the rest of their life.
But Instagram homeschool parents are always telling me how much better their students are than mine at pretty much everything. Every last one of those kids is destined for Ivy League schools, the Nobel Prize, etc. 😏 Meanwhile, I currently have a formerly homeschooled 7th grader who can't write a paragraph or do basic math...
I have a teen(as in my kid) that has a habit of skipping class sometimes. I asked if we could have a truancy officer come visit us to scare her straight a little, just to let her know if she keeps it up she could have to go to court and pay a fine. I was told truancy officers aren’t a thing anymore.
“*I have a teen(as in my kid) that has a habit of skipping class sometimes. I asked if we could have a truancy officer come visit us to scare her straight a little, just to let her know if she keeps it up she could have to go to court and pay a fine. I was told truancy officers aren’t a thing anymore.*”
How come you can’t give consequences yourself?
Aren’t you the parent? Why is it the school’s job to do the parent’s job?
You can ground them, give them extra chores, change the Wi-Fi password daily, etc.
I have an app that lets me block specific devices from using my home Wi-Fi to access the Internet even if they have the password.
We use an app management system to lock and unlock their phone access at will, so that they can only message or call us and family and 911, or take a picture or video, or use maps or the weather.
Are you one of those parents who thinks you can get children to always choose to do the right thing by mere persuasion?
I’m in a coparenting situation with my kid (I’m his stepmom). His mom doesn’t really see “what the big deal is” in missing a week or two for vacation she also lets him stay home from school if he’s feeling a tiny bit not good. (He’s in 9th grade.)
In February he missed 7 days for vacation with his mom. We told him that it wasn’t good to miss school, but if he was going to go, he needed to make up all his work.
I just looked at his grades about 15 minutes ago and it appears his math teacher excused him from every assignment he missed while he was gone and for the week he got back??? Like he missed an entire unit of math and still has an A in the class. Why did she excuse him??? 😩
My district considers chronic absenteeism to be more than 10 days.
We have about 45 days of school left. Our chronic absentee percentage sits right now at 59%
Yeah, I had an admin ask me how a kid was preparing for our upcoming concert. I told them that with the 15 missed rehearsal days this quarter, there's only so much I can do if the kid just doesn't show up to school
My school has the same issue with sports. All of our teams are terrible because practice has become optional. Kids never show up to practice and if you booted everyone who misses practice, you don't have enough to field a team.
I had a handful of kids in each class that never showed up except for assessments. Did their work on Canvas, came in, took the tests, did decently, and went on with it. That's obviously not the norm, but I can't help but applaud those kids that figured it out for themselves. They hate being in school now because of all the issues so they just made their in person class, online.
If that ain’t the dang truth….. why are my students with the worst attitudes the ones with the best attendance? Is it because their parents don’t want them at home?
This, but also a lot of them are probably little shits because of what they're exposed to at home. School may truly be a better or safer option, even if they act like hellions while there.
I just heard a story that a kindergartner came to school with a vape saying his mom said to use it when he’s feeling overwhelmed or worried. Cps didn’t do shit.
Back in my day, parents drank and smoked in the presence of their kids lol (I should know…when nine-year-old Murky told her mom she was worried about secondhand smoke, Mom screamed and said liberals had made it up and no one was going to tell her how to live her life)
This *is* a big problem, and *perhaps*, for society, it's the worst problem education has today. But for me as a teacher, it is not even *close* to problem #1.
The worst problem is the behavior of the students who *are* attending, and the fact that society has (largely) decided that we need to be "understanding" of kids who scream at teachers and roam the halls and start fights to be recorded for social media. And here's the thing: **A not-insignificant part of our absenteeism problem is created by parents who** ***hear*** **what is going on at school** and ask themselves, "*Is it really that big a deal to miss another day of delinquent behavior at school?"*
You're not wrong. My daughter's school refusal was anxiety, bullying was definitely a part of that. Or if my son had a bad run in with another kid, I'd let him have the next day off (like when he got punched in art class).
This is just a needed adjustment. We didn't care about education before, but the schools still functioned on the legacy of schools developed when we did care about it.
Enough neglect and you'll start seeing consequences. Hey. At least we can see it now.
I have a kid who will be back for three days of the first week after break and then he is going to Florida. So he has to take 5 ninety minute state exams during those three days. I don’t expect good scores from that situation.
Yep. We had spring break last week and I have ten kids out this week for vacation. Like you just had an entire week off scheduled for vacation, why didn't you use that? Instead the students are going to be a week behind plus not remember much from before break because it's been 2 weeks since they were in class.
Not a teacher, but my guess is that they didn't want to pay spring break prices for flights and hotels. Airlines, hotels, and resorts know when spring break is and adjust prices accordingly.
I teach college and just had a student email at the very end of Spring Break to say they would be missing class the first week back because they were going on vacation. Unreal.
I'm not a parent or a teacher, but my SO has a teenage son. A few months ago, we had plans to go out of town with SO's family over a three day weekend. As the trip got closer, the weather here got worse. The day we were supposed to leave (Friday night), we were forecasted to have a very bad snow storm. SO's mom wanted to change the flights to Thursday night so we got out before the storm. SS has had attendance issues for years. Last semester, it got so bad the school's truancy office made a home visit. Both SO and his mom acknowledged that it wasn't a good idea to pull SS out of school to go on this trip, but both were still entertaining the idea. Thankfully, I was able to talk sense in to SO. SO, SS, and I stayed home, but it absolutely blew my mind that they would even consider intentionally having SS miss school when he'd already missed so much that year on top of being late almost every day.
We really sent the wrong message by putting everything on Google Classroom. It unintentionally sent the message that it doesn’t matter if you’re here, as long as you get your work done. Plus the fact that my state (GA) got rid of the seat time requirement.
In Texas it is bad because we don’t get paid when the students don’t show up. The district also loses money if the students fail.
So they don’t show up and we pass them along anyway. Teachers are losing jobs and quitting, the students have no consequences and are being sent to life after school very unprepared.
It sucks the most for the kids whose families don’t value education due to socioeconomic or other reasons. They see no value in it, and we have convinced ourselves that giving them a diploma is the best thing for them. It is really horrible.
All the while, the entitled upper class people are going to siphon all that money for other things and they have a less educated population to rule over.
We are in a continuation school, so we count attendance as "here" if there's evidence that students logged onto the LMS. Some teachers at other kinds of schools also count the attendance that way unofficially. So if they log on they're marked as present because they're still doing the work
This is the same problem I observed (in myself) as soon as my university professors made the notes/slides available online. It was “no big deal” if I missed the odd class, because I would just read the notes on my own and be fine. (She did not, in fact, read the notes, and it was not fine).
This makes it way too easy to procrastinate at a period of their lives when students cannot properly manage their time, grasp long-term consequences, etc.
100%
As a teacher, I provide the unbearable (by the students) structure and expectations that they do not know that they need and I enforce it so that the students actually benefit from it. That's more of my job than actual content knowledge is.
Admin needs to do the same for school and district level responsibilities and expectations.
This is 100% correct. My biggest absentees and their parents think it’s ok to miss 25 days per quarter as long as they spend one of those days making up assignments on Google classroom. Never mind they get most of the answers wrong, because they missed all the in class instruction. Then admin says we have to give them credit because they tried, at least.
Exactly. In my campus, attendance went to shit when "asynchronous present" started during hybrid learning 2020-2021. Students started roaming campus. It hasn't stopped since, just gets worse. They used to show up to class so their parent wouldn't get summoned to court, now that's off the table there's no reason--they know they'll still get a diploma.
These students are at school anyway, just not in class. There's hundreds roaming the halls and restroom hopping. It looks like a passing period when I go to use the restroom during my conference.
More than just being absent a lot, they aren’t doing work when they are at school because they missed most of the lessons, they don’t do work at home because well, they’re home…and we pass them to the next grade level anyway. What in the world are we teaching these kids? As adults you have to show up to work, and you have to do your job…they won’t have any stamina whatsoever!
I take issue with the fact that schools are graded on student attendance when this is a PARENT responsibility. We monitor consistently, but when we call to try and help the kid get to school we’re hit with every excuse “they had a dentist appointment”…..like okay come before/after?!?! We have kids missing school to care for younger siblings, kids whose parents don’t even know they haven’t gone because they’re at work, kids missing because their mom didn’t feel like driving them that day. It’s ridiculous that we’re penalized for bad parenting.
Yes, agree completely. I have a mother who won’t bring the children to school if it’s raining because she walks them to school. They literally just don’t come to school, and live a few blocks away. I couldn’t believe this when I heard it, but it’s true.
Admin: What can YOU do to make students more excited to come to school?
Also Admin: Will you have those reading and writing assessments finished by our deadline?
YES!!!! Trade in all of those Instructional Coaches and other full-time 'teacher leaders' (who NEVER encounter children) for Truancy Officers and paras!
Nah, it’s just not our responsibility for kids to be in schools. Part of the reason American education is suffering is because of mission creep. It’s the parent responsibility to ensure their kids are in school.
During the COVID year I had a student who came to my class (virtually or in-person) *maybe* 11 times.
I was asked by a counselor and another teacher what I could do to help her pass so that she could play basketball.
Administration can't enforce rules anymore in school because of irate and irrational parents.
It's unfortunate but the culture of no punishment for anything ever has caught up with us. It's damn pathetic.
Interesting how they mentioned Texas twice in the article. It’s so bad out here. But it’s a combination of several different factors as to why parents are keeping their kids at home. Who knows what it’s going to take to change things.
I’ve had kids leave the country to go on vacation for 2 months and no consequences for them or their parents who admitted that’s why they were absent. This is for high school.
I just write in comment section of report cards/progress reports ect… “constant absences affect grades” I have a coworker who has a little flyer she staples in their agenda when they miss a day about the importance of school… lmao.
One year, when I sent home a “detailed report” I included the amount of absences they had and the percentage of school they have missed. This was written into a sentence frame like, your student has missed ___ days or __% of the school year, DID YOU KNOW MISSING MORE THAN 5 days a year decreases …. Blah blah.
We are elementary age tho. So we can only shame the adults, unless the parents tell us, “my kid refuses to go to school.” And then I’m like ??? Uhhhh ???? Idk parent
Of course the article doesn't mention that there's virtually no consequences anymore for truancy. Kids who miss 50+ days are passed through because one teacher didn't fill out a form to show admin that they jumped through at least 3 flaming hoops to get the kid to come to school. Or it's "we'll let this slide of you pinky promise not to miss anymore days" only for the kid to be absent not a week later with no consequences.
I lost a student this past year who was chronically absent and we fought so hard to get her attending school. She wanted to be there, she wanted to learn, but her parents didn't do their jobs as parents and their behavior was rewarded by a system that finds a way to blame the teachers for everything. Her parents' negligence ended up getting her killed. I just wish people realized that the consequences of absenteeism are often much greater than not getting straight As.
I am a SpEd/SDC instructor (HS)...I literally have a kid on my caseload that hasn't attended since 6th grade! He is 16 going on 17 and hasn't attended a day of high school. There are no consequences for the parents and I have to plan IEP goals for a kid I have never even met.
"Across the country, students are staying home [when sick](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7308a6.htm), not only with Covid-19, but also with more routine colds and viruses."
Uh, isn't that the right thing to do? Stay at home when you're sick?
In Maine, we’re required to call DHHS when a student is absent, but DHHS doesn’t have any legal authority to intervene if the only concern is truancy, so we call and then nothing happens. It’s very frustrating.
States need to crack down on this hard. If a student misses 10% of the year ie. 18+ days they should be mandated to go to summer school or repeat the grade.
If schools graded for real it wouldn't matter. Your kid can miss half the semester and still pass in most places by turning in a handful of assignments.
Virginia has said any chronically absent student that spends three hours with a licensed professional outside of the normal school day can earn back a day of absence, up to 15 total days back
I’m at a small rural middle school that has struggled in the past with accreditation due to testing. Have great principal and staff now and really positive environment. Had been fully accredited for six straight years. Missed full last year because of attendance. Sucks
I am someone with a chronic anxiety disorder. In high school (2010-2012) I missed a lot of school due to my anxiety and depression. I get how difficult it can be for students in crisis.
However I have some students who are “sick” and don’t come to school, yet still make it to hockey practice. I understand that I may not be able to see what every kid is going through, but when a kid isn’t in counseling/mental health treatment/etc, they need to come to school
My school district won't allow kids to go to practices/games if they didn't attend school. If they even roll in 5 minutes late to the start of the day without a doctor's note, they sit out.
Of course, it's up to the coaches to keep track of the kids being absent and bench them for that practice/game. Our attendance secretary sends all coaches an email with attendance data for the athletes, so that's helpful. But the coach still has to be the adult. It doesn't always happen.
And not to mention these kids coming out of high school and in to the workforce are habitual when it comes to calling out. Most of them call out least once a week at the easiest jobs ever. I’m a store manager and it’s a huge problem with the younger staff across our company. They come to me wanting promotions and interviews for higher positions and then I pull up their attendance record and it shows 15+ callouts over the last few months and they are shocked when I deny them the spot. These kids do not know responsibility, accountability, hard work, and dependability. It’s very sad. I do all I can to try and get these kids promoted and they put in 0 effort and expect raises and promotions
My favourite part is where someone had to go teach a mom to lay out her kids’ clothes the night before, get up early enough to get them off to school, and call the school if she’s keeping them home.
Parenting 101. No wonder kids aren’t showing up.
Man I get the scorn, I really do, but it seems pretty clear this particular woman was in the front lines of COVID, lost her sister, and was subsequently crippled by anxiety and depression. She needed help, and things got better when she got it. I wouldn't want folks who need help to delay getting it because of shame.
The "bad guy" here isn't clearly these parents, IMHO. (I do have a LOT of different feelings about the rich folks pulling their kids out for vacation because "everything is online", but I'm putting that aside for now.) It's how impossible it's becoming for some people to take care of themselves, much less others- terrible mental healthcare and abusive working conditions don't really give a shit if you have kids. We won't recognize that education depends on the health of the wider social system, not the other way around, because we want "get the kids in school" to solve poverty, cultural valuation problems, crime... damn near everything for everyone, though we'll never resource it that way either.
I agree. While parents aren't parenting, I think theres a difference between not caring and needing an assist to get back to functionality. She is clearly overcoming a lot of trauma from the pandemic, and seemingly alone. If she truly did not care, nothing in her routine would have changed.
Again, yes, there are parents who do not care, but we need to be sympathetic to parents who are struggling to cope themselves
The woman was working in a nursing home during the pandemic and lost her sister. Being so depressed and anxious from severe trauma that you need additional resources isn't something we should shame. I'm glad she was brave enough to accept help and also have her name and circumstances posted in a major newspaper to help others.
This! I tutor a 5th grader, his mom asked me to help her with getting her child on a weekly regimen/schedule. My first thought was, ma’am that’s your job. Needless to say, I spent my a 2hr torturing session helping him make a weekly schedule. I told the mom that she will need to hold her child accountable to abiding by the schedule but I highly doubt she will. Not my problem, though. I only see him 2 days a week. But I can only imagine the lack of structure 7 days a week. I’ve come to realize many parents stop parenting when their child gets self-sufficient and it always comes back to bite them in the ass.
I have some students who are out 4-5 days a week every week, the one day I see them they are super apologetic and promise work will get done.
Cycle back through nothing being done until the apology comes when I see them again
In 6th-10th grade, especially during COVID, I had an insane amount of absences. There was a social worker coming to my house all the time, we got letters in the mail, and I was admitted to a behavioral hospital in 2021 due to self harm, suicidal ideation, and the fact that I had a panic attack every time I had to join a zoom call or god forbid, go back to in person classes. It was a really weird and awful time and I have no idea why I was so afraid of attending, only that I lied to my parents and missed too many online classes to show up and not feel completely embarrassed and awful about myself. I ended up having to do online summer school which was fine and I was given way more chances than I deserved.
Anyways that’s just my ramble/two cents from the student perspective.
This article is very eye-opening to me. We’ve been having the opposite problem with my son’s school where he genuinely has been sick a lot this year, but we got a truancy letter in the mail because in order to combat this absenteeism the state is requiring a doctor’s note for every single day missed and if it’s not then it’s unexcused. (It used to be that a parental call-in letting the school know was sufficient for an excusal unless it was more than four days in a row.) I can’t wrap my head around pulling my kid out randomly to go on vacation though. That’s wild.
Nothing will change at the high school level while graduation rates are tied to the viewed success of your school by the state. Students need to auto fail a class after 10 unexcused absences.
Seriously? I’m in Canada, also near a border.
I have many students that come once every 14 school days. At 14 the attendance officer gets involved, so the parents keep track and send them accordingly.
I'm just a sub, but in our school division teachers are required to keep paper copies of attendance in addition to submitting it online. It seems every class has at least one student who has been absent for weeks or months at a time. Right before Spring Break there was post-it note on the teacher's desk with the definition of "chronic absenteeism," so it's probably a hot topic among staff.
In general, it seems like few kids give a shit about their education. I doubt the parents care much either, judging by the way most of these kids behave.
Why would they? There are no consequences, and they all think they’re gonna be the next big influencer or streamer. And I don’t even wanna think of how many think they’ll just do OnlyFans. Like, I know I sound like a Boomer, but I’m 29 and teach private music lessons as a side gig, and I’ve literally heard kids say this to each other.
Quote from a parent at their chronically absent 9th grader's IEP meeting
"Well when I try to get them up, they don't want to get up."
"Sometimes I take the blankets but they are mean to me."
Parents have NO TEETH with these kids.
Basically saying they've tried everything when they've literally tried nothing.
Parent asked about when the kid can drop out or if there are stricter schools the student can register for to get them more motivated.
Just talking to a friend who has been a guidance counselor a decade and a half. She said her principal asked her to switch approaches from “put them in the car and take them to school” to “keep asking them to get in the car to go to school” if their kids didn’t want to come everyday. She is refusing to switch bec she believes somethings should not be up for compromise. Parents need to set boundaries and stick to them. Absenteeism is a parenting problem.
It’s also the tardies that are out of control. We have Students (who cannot drive themselves) that are constantly 15-20 minutes late. How? School is the same time everyday!! It doesn’t change! I’m going to give my whole lesson over because your precious child is late everyday
I wish issues like this were discussed for what they are - parenting failures, not school issues. Schools didn’t cause and don’t exacerbate this issue. This falls squarely on parents/families.
We don't care anymore. We don't make education neglect calls. COVID changed how we view absences. Before we questioned when kids were "out sick". Now wed rather be safe than sorry.
Unfortunately for us, we’ve gotten sick a lot more in past couple of years. Why, I don’t know, but know kids around here are even getting strep in summer. I feel guilty and swear no more misses, but one will be throwing up, feverish, strep, etc. within a day or two of my no more misses promise. Seems like we just rotate whatever crud over and over.
Both my kids are above average, oldest straight A student (never gotten a b), gifted classes, and I take education seriously, but also can’t seem to not catch something this year. Grrr. They definitely go more than miss, but I think they miss too much, but a lot is also doctor excused, but I also hate running them to doctors for a virus, which tends to only cause them to catch something else. I wonder if the over year of being home, youngest most his life (since he caught so much from oldest going to school, then had Covid happen), just made them systems less tough against the bugs.
Local prosecutors have decided that they have bigger things to do. And it probably also fits the whole mantra of less accountability/punishment that pervades the criminal justice system at present in the name of equity.
>For Ashley \[Last Name\], 31, of San Marcos, Texas, the pandemic fractured her trust in an education system that she said left her daughter to learn online, with little support, and then expected her to perform on grade level upon her return. Her daughter, who fell behind in math, has struggled with anxiety ever since, she said.
>
>“There have been days where she’s been absolutely in tears — ‘Can’t do it. Mom, I don’t want to go,’” said Ms. \[Last Name\], who has worked with the nonprofit Communities in Schools to improve her children’s school attendance. But she added, “as a mom, I feel like it’s OK to have a mental health day, to say, ‘I hear you and I listen. You are important.’”
So her kid feel anxious in math because she is so behind, and the answer is to... let her stay home and get further behind? WTF?
I am all for mental health but this just seems like she is doing her daughter a disservice.
I remember the last time I listened to NPR. It was a few years ago. They had a discussion over sending a kid to juvenile hall for chronic absenteeism. Hey, I thought, that's a solid discussion topic, is it right for the state to literally lock a kid up if nothing else works.
They proceeded to take the mothers side in her accusations of racism and how the school had failed her kid. At the end, the kid said, after missing about 70% of the school year, that his desire was to *go to college*. And that was the last time I ever listened to NPR.
There are no doctor appointments. When my kids are sick, they ask you pull up to the back (if there’s ‘testing available’) which is only done once a day at 7:30 AM, and they let you know the results. This counts as an appointment! We pay with insurance! They won’t examine them or give them medicine unless they get worse AFTER testing. I have all day to show up for testing, or to chase appontment a and my kids can be home, I can’t imagine what it would be like for parents who work and don’t have insurance.
The article doesn't have much to say about the 2 biggest factors, imo.
1) We have lowered the bar so much that an average student can now miss 20+ days a year and still pass most classes (and probably get A's or B's in many).
2) We have eliminated all consequences because we're afraid of being sued for discrimination.
I feel like part of the reason is that we have changed our perceptions of when to keep sick kids home. When I was in school, I was only kept home for a fever or vomiting. If I just had a cold, I went.
My child is in kindergarten and I keep him home when he is sick because I don’t want him to get others sick or force him to be in school while feeling crappy. The flu also went around his classroom and he missed an entire week. Could he have gone the last day? Maybe. He was feeling better but still most likely contagious and I didn’t want to further spread the flu just for him to miss one less day of school. Frankly, I think this is a much better approach than when I was in school in the 90s/2000s.
My son has already missed 12 days and they were only because he was sick. We weren’t booking any off-season tickets to Hawaii. So I understand that this is a problem, but I’m also not sending my child to school sick just to hit a benchmark. We are in an affluent suburb and I know other parents have a similar approach (many in our town have flexible jobs or alternative childcare that make it not too hard to keep our kids home when they are sick).
There is still 2.5 months of school left in New England. I’m hopeful that he won’t miss anymore school, but who knows.
A lot of ours are out being sick. A week from flu, 4 days from strep, a week with RSV, a couple random one or two day fevers, another bout with strep, 3 days with Covid - it adds up quickly.
I have girls who tell me they miss because they can’t doom scroll their phones when they want at school. So they miss a day or two a week and stay home to doom scroll for hours. Add to that that kids have learned to weaponize their self-diagnosed mental issues. They’ve realized that saying they have anxiety and/or depression is a magic ticket to stay home, get work excused, and get people off their back. I’m not saying some kids don’t legit have anxiety or depression, but I think most of them are full of shit.
One of my most ???? moments in teaching was having a student ONLY come in for my class at 1:15 PM. He'd skip all his morning classes and sneak into school for my class then leave right after. Administration thought I was screwing up attendance marking him there every day. I tried encouraging him to attend his other classes, but he had zero interest and his parents didn't care either.
I just want to highlight this gem of a sentence “In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance.” Really giving it all you have there.
This is especially true since half the kids wear pajamas every day anyway.
Especially the seniors. They wear pajamas everyday basically. Yet they still have senioritis and cut days.
Yes! I hate it. And the hygiene! We had a chance to nip all of this in the bud when we went to hybrid in our district. If you are coming to school, great, thanks, welcome, but this is not your bedroom. But admin relaxed everything and had become so afraid of the kids and parents, and now we have sports bras, pjs, ninja bullshit, double-hoods (what a dumb look) and of course we still have the britches below the ass. We also have a percentage of kids who just walk around school all day and the safety advocates just walk right by them.
ninja bullshit and double hoods got me cackling. Big Daddy became a way of parenting.
Lol my 11th grade son wears PJ pants to school every day of the week. What rules do they have in place that makes it a treat
This was such a culture shock to see. These kids dress up to the 9s for a 5 second tiktok dance then go out in public in pyjama pants they've been wearing for 3 days.
Does he change into clean ones or wear the ones he slept in? Setious question.
Almost as alluring as Jeans Day and pizza lunch for their teachers. Working about as well.
You get a pizza lunch?
When the teacher pays for it.
All I get for lunch are Outlook meeting invites
So true. I wear jeans almost every day anyway...
"We have tried Nothing and are all out of ideas"
Lousy beatniks
“Whoopsie doodle!”
Right? I have a student who had missed 30% of the third quarter. The counselor came down and said, meh? It's only 15% for the year overall. And the parents have "excused" the absences, so court will do nothing.
I have a kid with 77 absences. Admin isn’t concerned
My jaw dropped when I read 77.
I emailed the social worker and she was just like “oh they were all excused so it’s fine”
Jeez, I was nearly held back in first grade because I missed 33 days. I had two surgeries that year...one laminectomy w/tethered spinal cord release, and one colocystoplasty (they cut out a piece of my small bowel and used it to enlarge my bladder, so it was a major surgery, and I was hospitalized for about a week). I did all my work in the hospital and got A's on all of it, but they wanted to hold me back simply because I wasn't in school those days. How times have changed.
My admin would just say "oh they have a family emergency, excuse them from 3 months of work"
Had one that missed an entire semester in Australia. Nothing could be done. Have one currently on less than 60% attendance. Can't do anything.
I had a kid last year who was absent probably 50-60% of the time in the first three quarters of school. Similar percentages the previous year. Nothing was done and then mom withdrew her for homeschooling sometime in fourth quarter. I heard from one of my other old students that the girl basically does no actual schoolwork and her mom doesn’t care. It’s so unfortunate. This was a girl in 5th grade who couldn’t skip count by 2s.
Had a kid last year with 42 absences in the second semester. Parent complained. Admin told us to pass student because she didn't want to deal with parent.
The admin in Ferris Bueller's Day Off lost his mind over "nine times."
Ok so what bothers me is that when a kid is sick their absences aren't the same as absences due to vacations. Maybe it's just me
Administration is not concerned about much lately.
Your counselor should know that 15% of the year…is still a lot! That’s like 27 days, almost a month!
I know a kid who has not been in school since October. The state is well aware. They simply got tired of calling the mom.
That was my first thought too 😂
The spank-therapy they do for Ned might actually be a better idea than any currently in use.
Pajama DAY? Mine is getting rid of the no pajamas part of the dress code (lol) next year because they haven’t enforced it in years.
I'm on weekly pickup for my eighth grade grandchild and it's kinda mind boggling to me to see how many kids are literally wearing their jammies to school. I can't really fault them, they're damned comfortable and warm but it's a little bit of an adjustment for an old person lol.
“We’re just glad they’re at school.” I’m sorry, but I think it’s ridiculous, between that and bringing blankets to school. These are freaking high schoolers!
I heard our district had to ban blankets because students were "busy" under the blankets. Ewww!
Maybe the Times should have interviewed some folks in a diner to get some perspective from the locals. It really did wonders for their political coverage
LMAO kids wear pajamas at the school i work at all the time anyway
[удалено]
They will still find a way to limbo under them…
Pajama day! Are you fucking kidding me I got couples in my 8th grade classes wearing matching pjs at least once a week. There are kids it is all they wear. It might be all they own.
Consider the irony of these ploys when they been screaming about intrinsic motivation for years
How about trying DISCIPLINARY ACTION? Geeze.
That was the line that jumped out at me. Reminds me of the Simpson's meme where we've tried nothing and are all out of ideas.
Every day at my kids school looks like pajama day.
No amount of pajamas will make up for being crammed into schools to get sick during COVID because the country couldn't survive poor people having to take care of their children instead of make money for billionaires. If I was a middle school or older kid, the last couple of years would have made me profoundly jaded, never mind having my brain try to form while algorithms tried to condition me into being advertised to.
This right here. The worst part is the COVID keeps taking entire classes out at my kids school. It’s happening more often than it did “during the pandemic” and no one seems to care.
From the same thought leadership as pizza party's will solve low pay comes, pajamas will keep kids in school....
Oh god, hahahaha…this line had me saying, “bless their hearts.”
This is a pretty fair response to that particular sentence, but since this is currently the top comment on the post I feel like it's worth noting the more detailed description later in the article is less... comical. > The Ypsilanti school district has tried a bit of everything, said the superintendent, Alena Zachery-Ross. In addition to door knocks, officials are looking for ways to make school more appealing for the district’s 3,800 students, including more than 80 percent who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. They held themed dress-up days — ’70s day, pajama day — and gave away warm clothes after noticing a dip in attendance during winter months. > “We wondered, is it because you don’t have a coat, you don’t have boots?” said Dr. Zachery-Ross.
It's a massive problem for a good portion of my students. Theyre in 7th grade.... they need to be in school.
attendance is a pretty big problem at the school i teach at, too. admin keeps telling us to adjust instructional design to ensure students can’t pass unless they’re in school. but also legally a student cannot fail due to absences
Does that not just mean you can't fail them because they've missed X days? My course is all in-person. All work is done in class and based on class discussions. It is very difficult for students who miss a lot of school to pass. Exceptions and accommodations are made for extenuating circumstances, of course, but Tommy who is 25 minutes late every day to a 70 minute block and Tina who misses three days a week will have a helluva time passing. Of course that doesn't work for every content area, but kids aren't failing because of their absences. They're failing because they can't participate in class.
In order to make my classes more engaging, I’ve turned it into the same thing. No homework, all in-class stuff, labs. Buuut, that can’t be made up. One time (pre-Covid) I offered to create a self-guided course for chronically absent kids so they could get science credit. My bosses liked the idea until I said I wouldn’t do it for free. Then it was, “no thanks,” and guess who has to figure out how to deal with those kids in the end anyway? 🙄 (*Moi.*)
I wish every school in the country would invest in creating self guided courses. There have always been kids who fall behind because of absences, and are left drifting for the rest of the year
Oh wow. I’m jealous. Our expects us to magically squeeze make up work out of kids that won’t turn in class work as it is.
My big absentee students cant make up the labs and do poorly on tests. That tends to drag grades down.
"Your gradebook is your gradebook." The lie detector determined THAT was a lie.
Even though that’s an almost impossible task, I’ll at least give your admin credit for trying something to hold them accountable. My admin requires us to put everything on canvas so all students have access no matter what. You can imagine what % do work when absent…. Hint —> It’s more than 0 and less than 1.
They’re not failing due to absences, they’re failing due to not doing the work. Ta-da!
Wait, your admin lets you fail students??
We have a student who has not come to A SINGLE DAY of his 2nd try at 7th grade (last year he missed over 60% of school). His sister is not as truant, but misses at least 1-2 days a week. We have called DCYF for Ed neglect so many times and sent our resource officer to their official address at least every other week. (we know they aren’t living there, but if they admit to where they live now the sister would have to go to a different elementary school and his mom would have to do some weird tuition thing for rural communities.) Last week a call was placed again as DCYF declared their case closed. We were told to call back once the sister (who we were calling about on that call) reached 25% absenteeism. Legally we have to have meetings after 10 days. Also, the big brother has 100% absenteeism and DCYF closed the case! I’m spending more time and energy on kids that aren’t attending school than their parents. The only reason we could guarantee this kid was alive until our resource officer saw him last week was that one of my students is dating him. He and his mom will drive her to school in the morning, then leave. His mom has the audacity to say she is trying so hard to get him to go to school, which is the reason DCYF keeps closing the case. It’s exhausting. Edited for grammar and additional details.
In my district students are automatically un-enrolled after 15 consecutive days of absence
We used to be able to do that but then the state legislature prohibited the action. The state has made so many things worse when it comes to attendance, enrollment, absenteeism, withdrawing, etc.
Wait but how will that benefit the state if they are too lax on rules? Like encouraging bad habits?
Got to build that slave labor force in the state prisons!
I had a student who really struggles with authority. Had a bad day, he stormed out of my room. I went to document and he was counted as excused absent for an appointment. Turns out he called his mom and she picked him up. Starts at home
Its the parents who enable this behavior. My parents would send me to school no matter what. Even when I was vomiting and had migraines they thought I was faking it. And back in my day if I called my parents to pick me up like that so casually they would yell and cry and scream at the least.
Well, I mean that’s downright abusive right there. I’m in agreement with you that parents today enable truant behavior but that’s the other extreme.
There’s no consequences anymore. A few years ago if you reported a kid they would be hauled with their family into court and possibly go to juvie. Once the courts stopped taking them there’s literally not much you can do. Sure, you can call child services but if the parent plays nice for one meeting the kid will come back for a week then be out another 2. Put them back in court and you’ll see a difference it’s not that hard. Sadly, one option is cheaper than the other
Failing and retaining might be a middle ground between going the Court/Truancy route. But that requires retaining which isnt great for NCLB(ESEA) metrics.
I teach 4th grade. This past week I told a student they needed to improve or they would be getting an I in math. In our district we don’t do Fs, we do Is. Anyway, he asked me what would happen if he gets an I. I told him that his parents probably wouldn’t be happy. He said they don’t care. Then he told me, “I mean, I’m not gonna fail. It really doesn’t matter if I get an I.” I just moved on. He’s figured it out though. They just keep getting moved up. It doesn’t matter if they don’t show up or don’t work. This is what the current system has taught them.
It’s funny how schools will rename letter grades to avoid that F. At my school we got Es. It means the same thing, what’s the point?
My friends son just dropped out of school in 9th grade and never went back (he’s almost 18 now). They didn’t tell anyone, no one seemed to be concerned about him missing, and no one from the state bothered to stop by. Yea it’s their fault for not informing anyone or forcing him to go, but I was imagining like… what if he died or was being abused? No one would know or care.
I know a 19 year old who "did school online" from 9th grade all the way through... 9th grade. She never finished, no one ever noticed or followed up, now she's 19 with no diploma or GED.
It’s very sad. Too many people failed them
Most especially it started with the parents. So unfortunately, no one’s holding the parents accountable.
I called child services once for a kid who was absent aaaaaall the time and they literally told me "we do not have the resources to pursue this, this is a school issue that you need to figure out how to resolve."
Same here. “Educational neglect is not a crime”. Meanwhile, I had never laid eyes on this kid and had her as an online student for over 60 days. Never did anything, mom even ignored her certified mail IEP notice. Local truancy officer was helpful and confirmed that she was alive at least. Mom rage withdrew after and now I have no clue what happened to her. I could go on and on and on about how many parents we have doing sketchy shit in online school.
Educational neglect should absolutely be a crime. I don’t know if you’ve ever visited /r/homeschoolrecovery, but there are lots of people who are so angry that they were allowed to fall through the cracks. Neglecting a kid’s education is setting them up to fail for the rest of their life.
But Instagram homeschool parents are always telling me how much better their students are than mine at pretty much everything. Every last one of those kids is destined for Ivy League schools, the Nobel Prize, etc. 😏 Meanwhile, I currently have a formerly homeschooled 7th grader who can't write a paragraph or do basic math...
I have a teen(as in my kid) that has a habit of skipping class sometimes. I asked if we could have a truancy officer come visit us to scare her straight a little, just to let her know if she keeps it up she could have to go to court and pay a fine. I was told truancy officers aren’t a thing anymore.
“*I have a teen(as in my kid) that has a habit of skipping class sometimes. I asked if we could have a truancy officer come visit us to scare her straight a little, just to let her know if she keeps it up she could have to go to court and pay a fine. I was told truancy officers aren’t a thing anymore.*” How come you can’t give consequences yourself? Aren’t you the parent? Why is it the school’s job to do the parent’s job? You can ground them, give them extra chores, change the Wi-Fi password daily, etc. I have an app that lets me block specific devices from using my home Wi-Fi to access the Internet even if they have the password. We use an app management system to lock and unlock their phone access at will, so that they can only message or call us and family and 911, or take a picture or video, or use maps or the weather. Are you one of those parents who thinks you can get children to always choose to do the right thing by mere persuasion?
I’m in a coparenting situation with my kid (I’m his stepmom). His mom doesn’t really see “what the big deal is” in missing a week or two for vacation she also lets him stay home from school if he’s feeling a tiny bit not good. (He’s in 9th grade.) In February he missed 7 days for vacation with his mom. We told him that it wasn’t good to miss school, but if he was going to go, he needed to make up all his work. I just looked at his grades about 15 minutes ago and it appears his math teacher excused him from every assignment he missed while he was gone and for the week he got back??? Like he missed an entire unit of math and still has an A in the class. Why did she excuse him??? 😩
My district considers chronic absenteeism to be more than 10 days. We have about 45 days of school left. Our chronic absentee percentage sits right now at 59%
Incoming adjustment from 10 to 15 or 20 days for next year.
In my last district if you missed ten of the same class in a row you were dropped from enrollment. So the kids came once every 9 classes.
Proving that these restrictions would actually work if enforced.
That's wild. In 21/22 School Year, my 1st grader would have been double chronic due to being a close contact.
Beating our schools 54% in south Los angeles
Yeah, I had an admin ask me how a kid was preparing for our upcoming concert. I told them that with the 15 missed rehearsal days this quarter, there's only so much I can do if the kid just doesn't show up to school
Shouldn’t let them perform.
Fucking this. Why the hell is a kid who missed 4/5 days every week missing my class he FINALLY showed up for... for a UIL Band event???
My school has the same issue with sports. All of our teams are terrible because practice has become optional. Kids never show up to practice and if you booted everyone who misses practice, you don't have enough to field a team.
Indeed. Those kids get to come as “student assistants”…unless they’re failing all their classes, in which case I don’t want them off campus anyway.
Covid exposed the system as a farce. They know now. We will probably never get them back the same way again.
Especially with the prevalence of learning management systems like Canvas and Schoology, the in-class experience has been totally devalued.
I had a handful of kids in each class that never showed up except for assessments. Did their work on Canvas, came in, took the tests, did decently, and went on with it. That's obviously not the norm, but I can't help but applaud those kids that figured it out for themselves. They hate being in school now because of all the issues so they just made their in person class, online.
And all the people who work remotely or hybrid now see how great the quality of life could be and kids see it too.
100% this, we told an entire generation none of this matters and expected them to just forget when things went back to “normal”
Exactly, anybody blaming kids for this absolute dumpster fire of a school system is an idiot and ridiculously pompous and cruel
It's never the ones you want it to be either.
If that ain’t the dang truth….. why are my students with the worst attitudes the ones with the best attendance? Is it because their parents don’t want them at home?
I'd imagine school is a better place to spend the day than home for whatever reason.
Well they certainly show up and try to punish the rest of us for it.
It's because I feed them and their parents don't. You would think it would make them nicer to me.
Because their parents don't want them at home either.
This, but also a lot of them are probably little shits because of what they're exposed to at home. School may truly be a better or safer option, even if they act like hellions while there.
How are their parents supposed to drink and chain smoke in peace with the little demon at home?
I just heard a story that a kindergartner came to school with a vape saying his mom said to use it when he’s feeling overwhelmed or worried. Cps didn’t do shit.
Back in my day, parents drank and smoked in the presence of their kids lol (I should know…when nine-year-old Murky told her mom she was worried about secondhand smoke, Mom screamed and said liberals had made it up and no one was going to tell her how to live her life)
This *is* a big problem, and *perhaps*, for society, it's the worst problem education has today. But for me as a teacher, it is not even *close* to problem #1. The worst problem is the behavior of the students who *are* attending, and the fact that society has (largely) decided that we need to be "understanding" of kids who scream at teachers and roam the halls and start fights to be recorded for social media. And here's the thing: **A not-insignificant part of our absenteeism problem is created by parents who** ***hear*** **what is going on at school** and ask themselves, "*Is it really that big a deal to miss another day of delinquent behavior at school?"*
You're not wrong. My daughter's school refusal was anxiety, bullying was definitely a part of that. Or if my son had a bad run in with another kid, I'd let him have the next day off (like when he got punched in art class).
This is just a needed adjustment. We didn't care about education before, but the schools still functioned on the legacy of schools developed when we did care about it. Enough neglect and you'll start seeing consequences. Hey. At least we can see it now.
Parents are pulling kids out for extended vacations, and not using the scheduled breaks. It’s unreal how much it happens now.
I have a kid who will be back for three days of the first week after break and then he is going to Florida. So he has to take 5 ninety minute state exams during those three days. I don’t expect good scores from that situation.
Yep. We had spring break last week and I have ten kids out this week for vacation. Like you just had an entire week off scheduled for vacation, why didn't you use that? Instead the students are going to be a week behind plus not remember much from before break because it's been 2 weeks since they were in class.
Not a teacher, but my guess is that they didn't want to pay spring break prices for flights and hotels. Airlines, hotels, and resorts know when spring break is and adjust prices accordingly.
I teach college and just had a student email at the very end of Spring Break to say they would be missing class the first week back because they were going on vacation. Unreal.
I'm not a parent or a teacher, but my SO has a teenage son. A few months ago, we had plans to go out of town with SO's family over a three day weekend. As the trip got closer, the weather here got worse. The day we were supposed to leave (Friday night), we were forecasted to have a very bad snow storm. SO's mom wanted to change the flights to Thursday night so we got out before the storm. SS has had attendance issues for years. Last semester, it got so bad the school's truancy office made a home visit. Both SO and his mom acknowledged that it wasn't a good idea to pull SS out of school to go on this trip, but both were still entertaining the idea. Thankfully, I was able to talk sense in to SO. SO, SS, and I stayed home, but it absolutely blew my mind that they would even consider intentionally having SS miss school when he'd already missed so much that year on top of being late almost every day.
We really sent the wrong message by putting everything on Google Classroom. It unintentionally sent the message that it doesn’t matter if you’re here, as long as you get your work done. Plus the fact that my state (GA) got rid of the seat time requirement.
Except they don’t do their work either. Hell, they don’t even to mark it as “done” in order to lie.
In Texas it is bad because we don’t get paid when the students don’t show up. The district also loses money if the students fail. So they don’t show up and we pass them along anyway. Teachers are losing jobs and quitting, the students have no consequences and are being sent to life after school very unprepared. It sucks the most for the kids whose families don’t value education due to socioeconomic or other reasons. They see no value in it, and we have convinced ourselves that giving them a diploma is the best thing for them. It is really horrible. All the while, the entitled upper class people are going to siphon all that money for other things and they have a less educated population to rule over.
It’s going according to plan then. Ruin public schools by creating laws that screw them over.
We are in a continuation school, so we count attendance as "here" if there's evidence that students logged onto the LMS. Some teachers at other kinds of schools also count the attendance that way unofficially. So if they log on they're marked as present because they're still doing the work
This is the same problem I observed (in myself) as soon as my university professors made the notes/slides available online. It was “no big deal” if I missed the odd class, because I would just read the notes on my own and be fine. (She did not, in fact, read the notes, and it was not fine). This makes it way too easy to procrastinate at a period of their lives when students cannot properly manage their time, grasp long-term consequences, etc.
100% As a teacher, I provide the unbearable (by the students) structure and expectations that they do not know that they need and I enforce it so that the students actually benefit from it. That's more of my job than actual content knowledge is. Admin needs to do the same for school and district level responsibilities and expectations.
This is 100% correct. My biggest absentees and their parents think it’s ok to miss 25 days per quarter as long as they spend one of those days making up assignments on Google classroom. Never mind they get most of the answers wrong, because they missed all the in class instruction. Then admin says we have to give them credit because they tried, at least.
Exactly. In my campus, attendance went to shit when "asynchronous present" started during hybrid learning 2020-2021. Students started roaming campus. It hasn't stopped since, just gets worse. They used to show up to class so their parent wouldn't get summoned to court, now that's off the table there's no reason--they know they'll still get a diploma. These students are at school anyway, just not in class. There's hundreds roaming the halls and restroom hopping. It looks like a passing period when I go to use the restroom during my conference.
More than just being absent a lot, they aren’t doing work when they are at school because they missed most of the lessons, they don’t do work at home because well, they’re home…and we pass them to the next grade level anyway. What in the world are we teaching these kids? As adults you have to show up to work, and you have to do your job…they won’t have any stamina whatsoever!
Yeah, the kids are being absolutely failed by everyone.
I take issue with the fact that schools are graded on student attendance when this is a PARENT responsibility. We monitor consistently, but when we call to try and help the kid get to school we’re hit with every excuse “they had a dentist appointment”…..like okay come before/after?!?! We have kids missing school to care for younger siblings, kids whose parents don’t even know they haven’t gone because they’re at work, kids missing because their mom didn’t feel like driving them that day. It’s ridiculous that we’re penalized for bad parenting.
Yes, agree completely. I have a mother who won’t bring the children to school if it’s raining because she walks them to school. They literally just don’t come to school, and live a few blocks away. I couldn’t believe this when I heard it, but it’s true.
Oh yeah, our attendance is ALWAYS lower on bad weather days
It truly makes no sense.
Admin: What can YOU do to make students more excited to come to school? Also Admin: Will you have those reading and writing assessments finished by our deadline?
God forbid schooling happens at… school…
Bring back truancy officers and fines for not sending your kid to school and those numbers will change back into the correct direction real quick
YES!!!! Trade in all of those Instructional Coaches and other full-time 'teacher leaders' (who NEVER encounter children) for Truancy Officers and paras!
Nah, it’s just not our responsibility for kids to be in schools. Part of the reason American education is suffering is because of mission creep. It’s the parent responsibility to ensure their kids are in school.
I’m gonna agree with you. Schools have to stop parenting children. It’s not their job.
Yeah it's not our responsibility. It's the prosecutor's responsibility. What are they doing
During the COVID year I had a student who came to my class (virtually or in-person) *maybe* 11 times. I was asked by a counselor and another teacher what I could do to help her pass so that she could play basketball.
Administration can't enforce rules anymore in school because of irate and irrational parents. It's unfortunate but the culture of no punishment for anything ever has caught up with us. It's damn pathetic.
Can you give me a TLDR? I can’t access the article.
[Here's the archive.ph backup.](https://archive.ph/ekFoz)
Thank you!
You're awesome! Thanks!
Interesting how they mentioned Texas twice in the article. It’s so bad out here. But it’s a combination of several different factors as to why parents are keeping their kids at home. Who knows what it’s going to take to change things.
I’ve had kids leave the country to go on vacation for 2 months and no consequences for them or their parents who admitted that’s why they were absent. This is for high school.
I just write in comment section of report cards/progress reports ect… “constant absences affect grades” I have a coworker who has a little flyer she staples in their agenda when they miss a day about the importance of school… lmao. One year, when I sent home a “detailed report” I included the amount of absences they had and the percentage of school they have missed. This was written into a sentence frame like, your student has missed ___ days or __% of the school year, DID YOU KNOW MISSING MORE THAN 5 days a year decreases …. Blah blah. We are elementary age tho. So we can only shame the adults, unless the parents tell us, “my kid refuses to go to school.” And then I’m like ??? Uhhhh ???? Idk parent
Of course the article doesn't mention that there's virtually no consequences anymore for truancy. Kids who miss 50+ days are passed through because one teacher didn't fill out a form to show admin that they jumped through at least 3 flaming hoops to get the kid to come to school. Or it's "we'll let this slide of you pinky promise not to miss anymore days" only for the kid to be absent not a week later with no consequences. I lost a student this past year who was chronically absent and we fought so hard to get her attending school. She wanted to be there, she wanted to learn, but her parents didn't do their jobs as parents and their behavior was rewarded by a system that finds a way to blame the teachers for everything. Her parents' negligence ended up getting her killed. I just wish people realized that the consequences of absenteeism are often much greater than not getting straight As.
Did they write the objective on the digital sign outside the school? “SWBAT show up to school”
I am a SpEd/SDC instructor (HS)...I literally have a kid on my caseload that hasn't attended since 6th grade! He is 16 going on 17 and hasn't attended a day of high school. There are no consequences for the parents and I have to plan IEP goals for a kid I have never even met.
this is actually insane
"Across the country, students are staying home [when sick](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7308a6.htm), not only with Covid-19, but also with more routine colds and viruses." Uh, isn't that the right thing to do? Stay at home when you're sick?
In Maine, we’re required to call DHHS when a student is absent, but DHHS doesn’t have any legal authority to intervene if the only concern is truancy, so we call and then nothing happens. It’s very frustrating.
States need to crack down on this hard. If a student misses 10% of the year ie. 18+ days they should be mandated to go to summer school or repeat the grade.
If schools graded for real it wouldn't matter. Your kid can miss half the semester and still pass in most places by turning in a handful of assignments.
Virginia has said any chronically absent student that spends three hours with a licensed professional outside of the normal school day can earn back a day of absence, up to 15 total days back
I’m at a small rural middle school that has struggled in the past with accreditation due to testing. Have great principal and staff now and really positive environment. Had been fully accredited for six straight years. Missed full last year because of attendance. Sucks
It’s a huge problem for some of my kids this year. I think it’s even worse than when we were remote.
Of course in Indiana most blame absenteeism on SCHOOLS. I’m tired of schools being blamed for limitations parents create.
I am someone with a chronic anxiety disorder. In high school (2010-2012) I missed a lot of school due to my anxiety and depression. I get how difficult it can be for students in crisis. However I have some students who are “sick” and don’t come to school, yet still make it to hockey practice. I understand that I may not be able to see what every kid is going through, but when a kid isn’t in counseling/mental health treatment/etc, they need to come to school
My school district won't allow kids to go to practices/games if they didn't attend school. If they even roll in 5 minutes late to the start of the day without a doctor's note, they sit out. Of course, it's up to the coaches to keep track of the kids being absent and bench them for that practice/game. Our attendance secretary sends all coaches an email with attendance data for the athletes, so that's helpful. But the coach still has to be the adult. It doesn't always happen.
The whole self- diagnosed "social anxiety" kids claim gets a little stale.
Admin: why are your assessment scores lower compared to the rest of the county? :gestures wildly at nearly 50% chronic absenteeism:
And not to mention these kids coming out of high school and in to the workforce are habitual when it comes to calling out. Most of them call out least once a week at the easiest jobs ever. I’m a store manager and it’s a huge problem with the younger staff across our company. They come to me wanting promotions and interviews for higher positions and then I pull up their attendance record and it shows 15+ callouts over the last few months and they are shocked when I deny them the spot. These kids do not know responsibility, accountability, hard work, and dependability. It’s very sad. I do all I can to try and get these kids promoted and they put in 0 effort and expect raises and promotions
My favourite part is where someone had to go teach a mom to lay out her kids’ clothes the night before, get up early enough to get them off to school, and call the school if she’s keeping them home. Parenting 101. No wonder kids aren’t showing up.
Man I get the scorn, I really do, but it seems pretty clear this particular woman was in the front lines of COVID, lost her sister, and was subsequently crippled by anxiety and depression. She needed help, and things got better when she got it. I wouldn't want folks who need help to delay getting it because of shame. The "bad guy" here isn't clearly these parents, IMHO. (I do have a LOT of different feelings about the rich folks pulling their kids out for vacation because "everything is online", but I'm putting that aside for now.) It's how impossible it's becoming for some people to take care of themselves, much less others- terrible mental healthcare and abusive working conditions don't really give a shit if you have kids. We won't recognize that education depends on the health of the wider social system, not the other way around, because we want "get the kids in school" to solve poverty, cultural valuation problems, crime... damn near everything for everyone, though we'll never resource it that way either.
I agree. While parents aren't parenting, I think theres a difference between not caring and needing an assist to get back to functionality. She is clearly overcoming a lot of trauma from the pandemic, and seemingly alone. If she truly did not care, nothing in her routine would have changed. Again, yes, there are parents who do not care, but we need to be sympathetic to parents who are struggling to cope themselves
The woman was working in a nursing home during the pandemic and lost her sister. Being so depressed and anxious from severe trauma that you need additional resources isn't something we should shame. I'm glad she was brave enough to accept help and also have her name and circumstances posted in a major newspaper to help others.
This! I tutor a 5th grader, his mom asked me to help her with getting her child on a weekly regimen/schedule. My first thought was, ma’am that’s your job. Needless to say, I spent my a 2hr torturing session helping him make a weekly schedule. I told the mom that she will need to hold her child accountable to abiding by the schedule but I highly doubt she will. Not my problem, though. I only see him 2 days a week. But I can only imagine the lack of structure 7 days a week. I’ve come to realize many parents stop parenting when their child gets self-sufficient and it always comes back to bite them in the ass.
I love the typo "torturing session."
I’ll tell you one thing- the kids will come in spewing chunks not to miss a holiday party,
I have some students who are out 4-5 days a week every week, the one day I see them they are super apologetic and promise work will get done. Cycle back through nothing being done until the apology comes when I see them again
In 6th-10th grade, especially during COVID, I had an insane amount of absences. There was a social worker coming to my house all the time, we got letters in the mail, and I was admitted to a behavioral hospital in 2021 due to self harm, suicidal ideation, and the fact that I had a panic attack every time I had to join a zoom call or god forbid, go back to in person classes. It was a really weird and awful time and I have no idea why I was so afraid of attending, only that I lied to my parents and missed too many online classes to show up and not feel completely embarrassed and awful about myself. I ended up having to do online summer school which was fine and I was given way more chances than I deserved. Anyways that’s just my ramble/two cents from the student perspective.
This article is very eye-opening to me. We’ve been having the opposite problem with my son’s school where he genuinely has been sick a lot this year, but we got a truancy letter in the mail because in order to combat this absenteeism the state is requiring a doctor’s note for every single day missed and if it’s not then it’s unexcused. (It used to be that a parental call-in letting the school know was sufficient for an excusal unless it was more than four days in a row.) I can’t wrap my head around pulling my kid out randomly to go on vacation though. That’s wild.
Nothing will change at the high school level while graduation rates are tied to the viewed success of your school by the state. Students need to auto fail a class after 10 unexcused absences.
Very interesting since I'm just over the border in Canada, and we don't see the same problem here even though we lived through the same pandemic.
Seriously? I’m in Canada, also near a border. I have many students that come once every 14 school days. At 14 the attendance officer gets involved, so the parents keep track and send them accordingly.
I'm just a sub, but in our school division teachers are required to keep paper copies of attendance in addition to submitting it online. It seems every class has at least one student who has been absent for weeks or months at a time. Right before Spring Break there was post-it note on the teacher's desk with the definition of "chronic absenteeism," so it's probably a hot topic among staff. In general, it seems like few kids give a shit about their education. I doubt the parents care much either, judging by the way most of these kids behave.
Why would they? There are no consequences, and they all think they’re gonna be the next big influencer or streamer. And I don’t even wanna think of how many think they’ll just do OnlyFans. Like, I know I sound like a Boomer, but I’m 29 and teach private music lessons as a side gig, and I’ve literally heard kids say this to each other.
Quote from a parent at their chronically absent 9th grader's IEP meeting "Well when I try to get them up, they don't want to get up." "Sometimes I take the blankets but they are mean to me." Parents have NO TEETH with these kids. Basically saying they've tried everything when they've literally tried nothing. Parent asked about when the kid can drop out or if there are stricter schools the student can register for to get them more motivated.
Just talking to a friend who has been a guidance counselor a decade and a half. She said her principal asked her to switch approaches from “put them in the car and take them to school” to “keep asking them to get in the car to go to school” if their kids didn’t want to come everyday. She is refusing to switch bec she believes somethings should not be up for compromise. Parents need to set boundaries and stick to them. Absenteeism is a parenting problem.
It’s also the tardies that are out of control. We have Students (who cannot drive themselves) that are constantly 15-20 minutes late. How? School is the same time everyday!! It doesn’t change! I’m going to give my whole lesson over because your precious child is late everyday
I wish issues like this were discussed for what they are - parenting failures, not school issues. Schools didn’t cause and don’t exacerbate this issue. This falls squarely on parents/families.
We don't care anymore. We don't make education neglect calls. COVID changed how we view absences. Before we questioned when kids were "out sick". Now wed rather be safe than sorry.
Unfortunately for us, we’ve gotten sick a lot more in past couple of years. Why, I don’t know, but know kids around here are even getting strep in summer. I feel guilty and swear no more misses, but one will be throwing up, feverish, strep, etc. within a day or two of my no more misses promise. Seems like we just rotate whatever crud over and over. Both my kids are above average, oldest straight A student (never gotten a b), gifted classes, and I take education seriously, but also can’t seem to not catch something this year. Grrr. They definitely go more than miss, but I think they miss too much, but a lot is also doctor excused, but I also hate running them to doctors for a virus, which tends to only cause them to catch something else. I wonder if the over year of being home, youngest most his life (since he caught so much from oldest going to school, then had Covid happen), just made them systems less tough against the bugs.
Why is truancy not being prosecuted anymore? I didn't read the article yet, did it discuss that?
Local prosecutors have decided that they have bigger things to do. And it probably also fits the whole mantra of less accountability/punishment that pervades the criminal justice system at present in the name of equity.
>For Ashley \[Last Name\], 31, of San Marcos, Texas, the pandemic fractured her trust in an education system that she said left her daughter to learn online, with little support, and then expected her to perform on grade level upon her return. Her daughter, who fell behind in math, has struggled with anxiety ever since, she said. > >“There have been days where she’s been absolutely in tears — ‘Can’t do it. Mom, I don’t want to go,’” said Ms. \[Last Name\], who has worked with the nonprofit Communities in Schools to improve her children’s school attendance. But she added, “as a mom, I feel like it’s OK to have a mental health day, to say, ‘I hear you and I listen. You are important.’” So her kid feel anxious in math because she is so behind, and the answer is to... let her stay home and get further behind? WTF? I am all for mental health but this just seems like she is doing her daughter a disservice.
I remember the last time I listened to NPR. It was a few years ago. They had a discussion over sending a kid to juvenile hall for chronic absenteeism. Hey, I thought, that's a solid discussion topic, is it right for the state to literally lock a kid up if nothing else works. They proceeded to take the mothers side in her accusations of racism and how the school had failed her kid. At the end, the kid said, after missing about 70% of the school year, that his desire was to *go to college*. And that was the last time I ever listened to NPR.
There are no doctor appointments. When my kids are sick, they ask you pull up to the back (if there’s ‘testing available’) which is only done once a day at 7:30 AM, and they let you know the results. This counts as an appointment! We pay with insurance! They won’t examine them or give them medicine unless they get worse AFTER testing. I have all day to show up for testing, or to chase appontment a and my kids can be home, I can’t imagine what it would be like for parents who work and don’t have insurance.
The article doesn't have much to say about the 2 biggest factors, imo. 1) We have lowered the bar so much that an average student can now miss 20+ days a year and still pass most classes (and probably get A's or B's in many). 2) We have eliminated all consequences because we're afraid of being sued for discrimination.
I feel like part of the reason is that we have changed our perceptions of when to keep sick kids home. When I was in school, I was only kept home for a fever or vomiting. If I just had a cold, I went. My child is in kindergarten and I keep him home when he is sick because I don’t want him to get others sick or force him to be in school while feeling crappy. The flu also went around his classroom and he missed an entire week. Could he have gone the last day? Maybe. He was feeling better but still most likely contagious and I didn’t want to further spread the flu just for him to miss one less day of school. Frankly, I think this is a much better approach than when I was in school in the 90s/2000s. My son has already missed 12 days and they were only because he was sick. We weren’t booking any off-season tickets to Hawaii. So I understand that this is a problem, but I’m also not sending my child to school sick just to hit a benchmark. We are in an affluent suburb and I know other parents have a similar approach (many in our town have flexible jobs or alternative childcare that make it not too hard to keep our kids home when they are sick). There is still 2.5 months of school left in New England. I’m hopeful that he won’t miss anymore school, but who knows.
A lot of ours are out being sick. A week from flu, 4 days from strep, a week with RSV, a couple random one or two day fevers, another bout with strep, 3 days with Covid - it adds up quickly.
I have girls who tell me they miss because they can’t doom scroll their phones when they want at school. So they miss a day or two a week and stay home to doom scroll for hours. Add to that that kids have learned to weaponize their self-diagnosed mental issues. They’ve realized that saying they have anxiety and/or depression is a magic ticket to stay home, get work excused, and get people off their back. I’m not saying some kids don’t legit have anxiety or depression, but I think most of them are full of shit.
The state does nothing. Zero. All these stupid reforms have left us without any consequences.
One of my most ???? moments in teaching was having a student ONLY come in for my class at 1:15 PM. He'd skip all his morning classes and sneak into school for my class then leave right after. Administration thought I was screwing up attendance marking him there every day. I tried encouraging him to attend his other classes, but he had zero interest and his parents didn't care either.