Attendance

[DeDee76]

I am a high school teacher. Some of my students have missed the whole semester. Their absences have not been excused they just stopped coming to class. There are no consequences (community service, Saturday school, etc.) I guess there’s one major consequence, they fail my class.

 

[tctrojan]

Wow. I agree, that is a natural consequence. Are they missing the whole day, or just skipping your class?

 

[Summerwillcom]

That is the way it should be when the students never come. You are fortunate to be in a school that will not fight you on that!
I listened to one of the comedy ladies that do performance last night. She was telling why she quit teaching HS.
Being forced to change grades was 1 of her many reasons for throwing the towel in on teaching.

 

[Tiamat]

Attendance seems to be becoming a huge issue. I teach in a K-6 school in a good area, but we have several families whose children are attending less than 50% of the time. No medical issues, no other issues, just the kids say they "don't want to" an the parents cave. Day after day after day.

We have attendance laws, of course, but our Education Department is very unlikely to enforce them. Instead, the families are "wrapped in a blanket of support" (direct quote) which does nothing.

We need to enforce the attendance laws in the early years to set up good habits. School is not an optional extra in your life.

My daughter, now teaching, says she never realised going to school was a choice. For her and her brother it wasn't.

 

[Lottalove]

Our schoool went to a 4 day week hoping that it would improve the attendance of both teachers and students. The hope was that the teachers and parents would make appointments and such on Fridays.

For me personally, it backfired as many of my local health providers opted to be off work on Fridays to be with their children... And the providers I see in a nearby city only have certain appointments on Mondays and Wednesdays.

For the students, those prone to skip Mondays or Fridays, now skip Mondays and Thursdays instead...

I haven't heard any stats from admin but it looks to me as if attendance has been worse than ever.