The parents are the losers, not the kids...

I'm hearing a decent amount of unpleasant language geared towards the kids of these idiots.

Should we fail them? Unexcused absence?

How about none of the above. Let it go. Or if you aren't going to let it go, find a way to get these kids to learn just how dumb their parents are. Someone suggested that we give all the kids a link so that they can watch the speech if they miss school. Maybe the teachers can summarize the speech and give it out in paper form the next day.


These kids cannot be held responsible for the stupidity of their parents. If anything, we should be caring for these kids the most. I'm sure they already have shitty role models. Why do we want to mess them up even more?

to skip school because your parents are predjiduce..perhaps this will ensure the children stand up to their parents and go anway...I am sorry but racism does NOT deserve any special privileges and that is what your calling for no matter who it is. All that is doing is leaving the doors open for even more foolishness and if you believe that alone does not hurt these children than your not using common sense...


why should the public school system bow down to this idiots? Your using the children to excuse them..NO...does not fly with me..

And I'm sure the schools will excuse the absence as long as a parent calls in.

If you can call out because you are going on vacation, you can call out because of this.

On top of that, you aren't actually sorry. Even if this didn't count as an excused absence, we should excuse it anyway. You seem to be equating the actions of the parent with the kid. Which is stupid. If you want to hate someone, hate the parents. Don't fuck with the kid.

I'm not excusing the actions of the parents. I'm saying that it's extremely mean to take this out on the kids. And it is.

Attendance is part of AYP. It is rare that absences are excused any more.

And this would most definitely fall under excused. Generally speaking, as long as a parent calls in or comes to the office, the absence is excused.

Attendance wasn't part of AYP when you were in school. It is now.

And it was already implemented. We took measures to reduce truancy. But none of them restricted parentally excused absences.

Maybe your state looked at it earlier. But the feds just started last year. Parents cannot excuse absences. Actually they never could, since if you are absent, you are absent. So the concept of parental excuses is misleading. It should be labeled as parental reasons for absences rather than excuses.

And the only reason an absence is ever excused (meaning not counted as an absence) is when the kid is involved in an educational activity. We used to not count kids absent if they were participating in Take Your Child To Work Day. But we don't even excuse that any more.

My favorite excused absence story is a parent I had about 10 years ago. She asked the school to schedule and pay for a field trip for our class to go to the circus. The principal said no. So she called the supt. He said no. Then she said well she was going to take her kids to the circus and she wanted their absences excused. Again the principal said no, they will be counted as absent. So she called the supt again and he said no, if they are not in school because they are at the circus they are absent. So she called a reporter and claimed we were discriminating against her kids. The reporter called me for a statement. He wanted to do a story, not because we were discriminating but because this lady was "crazy". LOL I told the reporter he needed to talk to the principal. She refused to comment. He never did the story.

An excused absence doesn't mean that the absence doesn't exist. It means that you will not suffer any repercussions simply because you did not attend school. You will be given a chance to make up any work that you missed. But the absence will not alter your grade or get you in trouble with administration.

And, no, whatever new program that has been implemented (I would like a link to prove this) does not alter that status. My brother is a sophomore and just missed class last week because my moms car broke down. He's also going to be missing a couple days of class next month because of a family camping trip. And it will be excused just like it was excused last year.

You claim to have experience in this, yet you don't understand what an excused absence is. Weird.

I have taught school for 30 years. Don't lecture me on terminology.

It's entirely possible that your school uses different terminology. But as I tried to explain in my first post, since attendance is now part of AYP, kids are pressured more than they were before to come to school and not be absent. If you aren't there, the school's AYP is affected. Administrators are losing their jobs over this so it is indeed a big deal. It's in NCLB. Since you are so knowledgeable, I am sure you will have no trouble finding it. :)

Go down to a school tomorrow and request information on what an "excused absence" is.

Every time a report card came to my house, it would list excused and unexcused absences. And every time I missed school, for anything other than a school sanctioned activity, it would count as either an excused or unexcused absence.

I went through 12+ years of schooling in multiple school districts in two states. All of the schools had the same system of excused and unexcused absences.

Don't you have some desperate co-workers looking to you to be her savior or some other unbelievable shit to peddle? Because this just isn't going to fly.

Yes, I will tell someone that they are wrong when they are wrong. I don't care what their profession is. In fact, it makes it that much more ridiculous that the poster has no clue what an excused absence is since he or she is a fucking teacher.

I never claimed to be the smartest "thing" on earth. I simply claimed that the other poster is wrong.

However for the most part I think you're right. I last attending school in 2003, dropped out in the 10th grade actually because I was behind in credits because they didn't transfer ANY credits from my high school in Flagstaff to Mesa, AZ. Don't worry I got my GED 2 months later.

Anyways my younger brother was in school until 2008 and remember a couple years ago he faked a lot of notes with my mom's signature to gain excused absences.

Anyways I won't bring up a high school because you can actually drop out so I will post my Junior's high policy(Which btw turned into a police state in 2002)

Absences - Excuses




If a student is absent from school for a vaild excused reason, a parent/guardian must contact the attendance clerk to excuse the absence. Absences are considered valid and excused for the following reasons only:




*


illness

death in the immediate family

court appearance


medical, dental, or counseling appointment

Absences caused by missing the bus, sleeping in, babysitting, accompanying other people to appointments, etc. will not be excused. Absences can be excused by phone contact, or by bringing in a signed note. Upon returning to school, students are given 48 hours to excuse all unverified absences. It is vital that all absences be verified. Excessive or unexcused absences lead to disciplinary and/or legal action.
http://www2.mpsaz.org/carson/parents/attendance/

Notice the note part. Policy really hasn't changed much since I attended. I really don't think parents can call in and say "I don't want my kids to see Obama." but they could "say my kids are sick." If this is pretty much practiced nationwide.

He not only missed school last year because of a family camping trip, he will be missing school again this year for the same thing. And he just missed school last week because my moms car broke down.

And, yes, his absences were excused.

For missing school? The parent calls in, all is okay, no truant officer is contacted, and all that.

Or do you mean excused as in it does not count toward your total allowed absences for the course? Such as when you are off on a school-related event?

When I would attend school related activities, the days I missed weren't even counted as absences at all.

I think other people are confusing 'excused' with absences that don't count at all.

Test scores and now attendance. I think it has to be 95% this year.

Which limits you on the amount of classes you can miss. Generally speaking, 8 excused absences trigger a probationary period. 10 or more and you risk serious administrative intervention.

I missed 23 days my Junior year because I had meningitis. The school can allow for more absences as long as there is a valid reason to do so.

I was in school a while ago, but I think we got 10 days.

And, generally speaking, they would have to take saturday school.


I think you may be confusing unexcused with excused absences.

Excused due to educational activity or illness.

Semi-excused when a parent called to say their child wouldn't be in (but it wasn't because they were sick). You could take your kid to work, a museum, St. Johns Island, etc.

And then there was unexcused truancy where the child was a no show and the parents didn't condone it.

it is not my aim...the only blame here is the parents. when you understand that you will understand how we need to deal with this bullshit..

All you give a damn about is making sure someone pays. If you thought otherwise, you wouldn't be suggesting that we punish the fucking kids. That's just cruel.

Punish the child to the third or fourth generation for the sins of the father?

Who'd a thunk it would be so popular on this board?


http://bible.cc/exodus/20-5.htm

and in this instance the bible has NOTHING to do with the law of this land...my god people...where has common sense and critical thinking gone to?

That's what has happened to common sense and critical thinking.

Simply because you disagree on policy.

How very classy. Keep up the good work.

the kids are pawns, and all they're learning from this - most of them, I'll wager, haven't the slightest idea of the dynamics of what's going on here - is that their parents have an inordinate amount of power over what happens to them, that teachers and principals can be bullied into anything, that there is no reason for them to pay attention to anything the President has to say, that the President is a bad person, that they are in need of "protection" from that bad, bad President, and that might makes right.

They're learning, all right. They're learning that racism and bigotry are acceptable and normal and how they should think.

I trust the parents are very proud of themselves for this. I'm still staggered that anything like this is even happening. Like those idiot teabaggers who bleat, without knowing what the hell they're saying, I, too, want my country back.

I want it back from the haters and the ignoramuses and the bigots and the uninformed and the narrow-minded and the white people who make me ashamed of my race.

This is surely not the America I once thought I knew..................................

They're losing out on the opportunity to learn critical listening skills.

If their parents actually wanted them to learn how to handle perceived "indoctrination", the better way would be to teach them how to listen, analyze, and make their own determination of the validity of information presented to them.

Not to mention losing out on all of the other things they might learn in school that day. And losing out on hearing a good message - to take your education seriously.

Yes, they're losing out on a lot.

And it should count in whatever way it would normally count for an absence with no proof of illness.