SK> Howdy Leona,
->> With the recent cuts in school funding, principals have been looking
->> for more & more creative ways to increase attendance; the more
->> students who attend a school, the more money the school qualifies to
->> receive.
 SK> Ahh, true, true. Obviously doesn't apply at my school.
SK>> BTW, I notice that you wrote _UN_excused absences. Are these
SK>> parents not covering up for their children and saying they were
SK>> "sick" or something? We have a fair number of parents who do
SK>> that at our school.
Some are.  And those are the ones who will probably end up in Sheriff
Joe's tent city for 30 days.
 SK> Geez. No wonder their kids have the problems that they do. If the parent
 SK> can't even be bothered to notify the school...
Some are not even checking to see if report cards are sent home or if
the kid makes it to school.
 SK> Is there a time limit (within so many days of the absence or something?)
The office will accept notes a long time after.  In fact, it is a
homebase teacher's responsibility to hound the kid to get notes.
 SK> Can a parent send in a note _after_ it has been called "unexcused" and
 SK> have it reversed to "excused"? Some parents do this at our school. I'm
Yes, but I don't know how impressed the court will be.  Once they get a
letter, it has moved out of the school's bailiwick & into the city
prosecutor's.
 SK> not sure how wide a berth the attendance secretaries allow on this one.
 SK> I think one additional day, or something very short like that.
We wouldn't get many at that rate.
 SK> That's good to hear. They've talked about revamping attendance policies
 SK> at our school many times over the years, and they've even implemented
 SK> some "changes", but as a classroom teacher, I haven't noticed the
 SK> difference. In homeroom and my rememdial algebra classes that I was
 SK> teaching there was a fairly high degree of absenteeism. In the honors
 SK> classes, not too much. However, the few honors kids who were frequently
 SK> absent had great difficulties in the class and a strong attendance
 SK> policy might've helped them get back on track. But what can you do when
 SK> the parent is always writing notes saying the kid is sick? Not much, I
 SK> guess.
As I remember, it was a lot harder to get students & parents at private
school to take attendance seriously, which strikes me as odd, since one
would think they'd be there with bells on, paying for it & all.  We had
kids taken out for month long vacations or who didn't come back from
school holidays for days or weeks.  Of course, we still have some of
that going on in public school, but not as much & after all, there are
legal consequences to doing so too often.  Our private school parents
didn't even consider that someone would turn them in for truancy.
Leona Payne
... "What do you mean you `Killed him, cha-cha-cha'?" -- Lister
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