Talking with our local school administrators, this does seem to be the biggest challenge they're facing. From their point of view, it's just caused by (typically poorer) parents who don't care about their kids' education and saw how it seemed to be optional during COVID and so just don't make their kids go if they don't feel like it. It's really sad, and it sounds incredibly hard for anyone else to do anything about.
School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
111–120 of 401 posts
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back when I was in school about a decade ago, kids came to school sick as dogs as taking time off for being sick was seen as malingering. A friend at another school knew a guy who came to school with a stomach bug and puked several times throughout the day as they had a perfect attendance incentive worth grades, so to ensure he got his grades, he walked around puking for the day. I spent plenty of classes hacking and…
Minor sniffles and sneezes should not result in anyone staying home. The pandemic has clearly altered this mentality but it doesn’t seem like a good trajectory. A little cold is barely an inconvenience.
No. Keep your kids home if they are sick. An screw every parent who thinks this way. My family got sick 6 times in the last 12 weeks because of this nonsense. If your kid is sick it's your fault if other kids catch what they have.
I dont care if it's "just the sniffles" It causes so much inconveniece for my family.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you take your kids on a vacation during school? There are plenty of breaks during the year including all of summer.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Education is important, missing a week can set a student back by a long way. Holidays are fun and if you have the resources they are certainly worth doing, but not at the cost of keeping up with a child's education. If you can't afford the holiday at the prices when schools are off, maybe you can't afford the holiday! There are plenty of affordable holidays always available and ki…
I know why I am being downvoted: I am questioning the entitlements of the average tech worker.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#114"because teachers must slow down and adjust their approach to keep everyone on track." Do this and then you'll have your top performers start being absent as well -- out of boredom. I'd suggest sending kids that are lagging behind, and those that have high absentee rates, into remedial classes. Education should get kids excited about learning. From my experience, nothing gets kids more excited than the feeling that t…
If your top performers only perform to order then they really are not top performers at all.
Maybe we should call them potential top performers. We are talking about children after all.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#115"because teachers must slow down and adjust their approach to keep everyone on track." Do this and then you'll have your top performers start being absent as well -- out of boredom. I'd suggest sending kids that are lagging behind, and those that have high absentee rates, into remedial classes. Education should get kids excited about learning. From my experience, nothing gets kids more excited than the feeling that t…
Those ahead don't need additional benefit. We should be working to bring the left half of the distribution into the fold. If a student is so great that they're skipping out of boredom then there's little that a public institution should do to help them. They can go out with a head start and go get em.
>Those ahead don't need additional benefit.
Perhaps, but they also shouldn't be artificially held back. Life doesn't have a speed limit.
>If a student is so great that they're skipping out of boredom then there's little that a public institution should do to help them.
This doesn't follow at all. Why wouldn't you want to invest in the people with the most potential?
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article highlights that many parents whose children are absent are treating the posted assignments/homework as the primary teaching tool, so cutting that back hurts absent kids (I also understand that homework’s has been massively scaled back already in most places). Shorter days unfortunately interferes with school’s role as state-provided daycare for working parents. Later days is a solid idea, and I believe re…
My mom's a teacher in a decent school district in California, and later school times didn't have a significant effect on post-pandemic absences in her experiences (for the students who did come in, it did have a positive effect on their performance though). The brutal truth is a subset of parents just don't care too much about education. It doesn't matter if it's an affluent or a working class district - there will a…
Did schools really start later post-pandemic? Your entire first paragraph confuses me because I'm not aware of any shift in school start times.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#117Perhaps it's because most schooling seems irrelevant to many of the students? I went to very good schools and actually enjoyed quite a lot of my schooldays but even while I was there I could see that a lot of it was a complete and utter waste of everyone's time. I spent six years attending French classes and three of Latin. I can't read, write, speak, or understand either one. I moved to Norway fifteen years later an…
It's not the methods. If you and all the rest of your class would have been motivated the methods would have worked fine.
People didn't invent the saying "when the student is ready, the teacher appears" for nothing.
But following that it's a fair point that how we do things is not optimal. E.g. pushing kids into classes based on their age and than having everyone for the most part do the same things. People/kids are just different, different interests, different levels. Maybe it was a necessity once, but maybe we can do things differently now.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mom's a teacher in a decent school district in California, and later school times didn't have a significant effect on post-pandemic absences in her experiences (for the students who did come in, it did have a positive effect on their performance though). The brutal truth is a subset of parents just don't care too much about education. It doesn't matter if it's an affluent or a working class district - there will a…
Did schools really start later post-pandemic? Your entire first paragraph confuses me because I'm not aware of any shift in school start times.
I'm speaking only about California and specifically, the school district my mom works for.
As of 2022, Middle schools can start at 8am at the earliest, and number of school districts transitioned to a 8.30-9am start time. Some affluent school districts already did this transition in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
The US has roughy 13k school districts. Each one has it's own different sets of rules, regulations, and local political culture, and aside from limited State and Federal DoE regulation, implement their policies based on local political constraints due to the School Board and PTA.
Some School Boards and PTAs are apolitical in nature. Others are hyper-political and used as a stepping stone to enter local and state level politics (eg. Mayor, City Council, State Assembly, Congress) as donors won't donate without a proven electoral track record. Most younger (< 60yrs) Congressmembers started their political careers this way.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my area, you get 10 days of unexcused absence per year before parents and kids start receiving fines and possibly a referral to CPS. That number is way too small IMO, and it forces folks to go to the doctor constantly for getting small illnesses excused (school policies are 24 hours without a fever, but they don't take temperatures, it's honor based...), since you want to keep those 10 days for an actual vacation.
Why would you take your kids on a vacation during school? There are plenty of breaks during the year including all of summer.
My gut agrees with you, but then we'll be keeping our young kids out of preschool to go see the eclipse. So much for principles lol.
Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere
#120In Israel a lot of the schools start with 20 minutes of body movement (at least near me). The kids become active. It’s not as big a deal if they are a little late. And my daughter (but not my son) hates missing it.
I wonder if there has been any studies done showing correlation between walking/biking to school and school success. Walking a mile takes about 20 minutes and personally I find that walking to work sets me up for success way better than driving does.