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School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

nytimes.com

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Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#181

Post by vidanay »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #164
williamcotton wrote: post #87

Earlier 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.

Because those breaks don't line up with things like the solar eclipse. Because those breaks don't line up with other cousins' breaks. Because those breaks don't line up with great-grandma's 95th birthday, and she lives a full day's journey away. Because those breaks don't line up with your work schedule, or your partner's work schedule. Because my child is excelling academically, and I absolutely don't think that she…

Hammer, meet nail.

As my child's parent, it is my duty to be aware of their educational performance, needs, and shortcomings. Based on all that info, I have no problem deciding to take them out of school for two days to go trout fishing with grandpa, or to view the eclipse with grandma.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#182

Post by kube-system »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #164
williamcotton wrote: post #87

Earlier 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.

Because those breaks don't line up with things like the solar eclipse. Because those breaks don't line up with other cousins' breaks. Because those breaks don't line up with great-grandma's 95th birthday, and she lives a full day's journey away. Because those breaks don't line up with your work schedule, or your partner's work schedule. Because my child is excelling academically, and I absolutely don't think that she…

All of those situations existed in decades past. Why do parents think that school doesn't provide as much value as they used to?

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#183

Post by aaomidi »

kube-system wrote: post #175
aaomidi wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh hey I was chronically absent under this definition. I am glad my parents allowed me to be, because school was really, really damaging to my mental health when I ended up needing to be chronically absent.

Hope you got the help you needed -- but to my point, it doesn't sound like you simply had a cold?

Nope. Not a cold, although that was the excuse :).

And yeah, I simply just needed to be away from school. I guess I’m more so making a point that during the pandemic there was also probably a ton of students who realized they can learn without school, and it might even be better for them.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#184

Post by darby_eight »

donor20 wrote: post #176
bryanlarsen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite what you've heard, they don't really talk about those things in public school either.

They absolutely do at least in CA starting in kindergarten

Discussion of gender seems to be pretty in-line with kindergarten education from what I remember 20 years ago. Hell, we even "voted" in the 1996 presidential election (I voted for the most attractive person, Bill Clinton).

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#185

Post by andy99 »

williamcotton wrote: post #87
candiddevmike wrote: post #44

Earlier 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.

Why would you prioritize making your kids sit in school over taking them and doing something fun like a vacation, given the option?

My first thought reading the headline was that more people are realizing the irrelevance of school and work, and prioritizing other things.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#186

Post by verisimi »

jawns wrote: post #18

Is it possible that expectations around attendance have never been reasonable or even safe? In an ideal world, people shouldn't go to work or school when they are sick. Not only does it slow their recovery, but in the case of communicable diseases, it spreads the illness. Yet a lot of schools have released post-pandemic guidance about how students should still come to school with minor illnesses. And most workplaces…

> Is it possible that expectations around attendance have never been reasonable or even safe?

When I read this, I thought you were making a more general point, rather than about missing school on account of sickness.

To the general point, I think schooling is entirely unreasonable, and a terrible way to bring up humans. Though, I obviously think it is valuable to learn to read and write, know maths and certain tools to get by in life.

But the rest of it is terrible - institutionalising children, filling children up with government ideas as if no other interpretations are available, the insistence of deference to authority, leaving no space for individuality, the application of some sort of 'people metric' where you are a problem if you don't want to sit for hours or find the propaganda dull. And this is to say nothing of the impossible expectations teachers have on them, which make the lessons even more depersonalising and uninspiring. In the face of this, we will see perpetual ai teachers and the lifetime monitoring as a good thing.

No wonder there are so many lost people - people who have been brought up by loveless institutions can't even conceive of what they have not experienced - the materialistic collectivised mindset seems 'normal', rather than being seen as an ultra-radicalised ideology itself.

Most people have completely lost sight of what it means to bring up children. It's simply not about farming out the job to institutional structures.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#187

Post by whiterknight »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #166
fullshark wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ping pong tables and free food worked pretty well for a while, but the true motivator there was the illusory value of startup equity lottery tickets it appears.

> the illusory value of startup equity lottery tickets it appears Kind of like the lottery, you cannot win if you do not play. I could have a job with a paycheck, or I could have a job with a paycheck and a lottery ticket.

There are other kinds of investments that are less risky than isos.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#189

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #39
Aachen wrote: post #17

> Everywhere * in the USA

Is school in the US optional? Over here (the Netherlands) school is mandatory for anyone under 18. Skipping school without a valid reason (e.g. illness) comes with a €100/day fine.

There are truancy laws, but they're state/local (so there's no unified US standard), may also interact with the local school district's policy on absences, and there's often little enforcement effort. Parents may also "home school" which usually comes with significantly less overall scrutiny from the government, but the details of this also vary by jurisdiction.

(Yes, education policy in the US is an absolute mess.)

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#190

Post by sethammons »

mminer237 wrote: post #111

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.

The article points out the rise in truancy is similar across socioeconomic boundaries
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