A friend of mine is angry about the fact that her child’s school told her that if she didn’t put the reason her child was absent on the note, her child would not be considered excused. She contends that it is none of the school’s business why her daughter stayed home and that a note from the parent should be enough to convince them she wasn’t just cutting class. She says it undermines her authority as a parent to have to justify keeping her child home from school. I know she only keeps her kid home for what would be considered a valid excuse, she just feel she shouldn’t have to justify it.
In CA, schools only get funding if the child is absent for a “valid reason” such as illness, funeral or if the absence is pre-approved and the child makes up the work. I always just “he’s not feeling well” when I call my son off school (we don’t send notes.) They never argue or press for further details, and they can mark him sick so they get funding. I don’t know if this is the same in NY where they are. A mutual friend, also in NY, pointed out that schools like to keep track of illness trends especially if they’re contagious.
So, in your humble opinion, does the school have a right to know the reason you kept your child home? How does wanting to know why undermine a parent’s authority? Is Ok, to say they aren’t feeling well, if they’re having a mental health day or if your vacation ran a day long, so the school still gets it’s funding?
Hell yes they have a right to know. As you mentioned, it is about funding and safety. There’s no law that says the parent has to tell the truth. But they have to tell the school something. “He didn’t feel like coming to school this morning” isn’t a valid excuse. “He tripped over the dog and broke his clavicle” is.
I’m in CA too. We used to go to a charter school that asked us to bring the kid in if at all possible - even sick - so they could be marked present and then go home “early”, instead of being marked absent. (We no longer go there).
I think making parents provide a reason is reasonable, for tracking/demographic/funding reasons. The school isn’t asking the parent to prove it, just to provide a category of absence. That’s ok by me.
I don’t see the problem with having to give a general reason. I said my daughter would be late yesterday because of a doctor appointment. If they’d demanded to know the reason for the appointment, that would be entirely different.
Put me in the group with your friend, OP. So long as a parent ( or legal guardian) makes the call or sends a note, then there is no reason for the school to need to know more. The child was not cutting, nor is the absence “unexcused”. That is absent without reason, not absent without a “good” reason.
I don’t think they should have such a right, assuming the absence is brief. There is the funding problem to deal with, and for longer absences a reasonable interest in the child’s welfare. But if I feel like taking my kid to the circus instead of going to school one day, it shouldn’t be any of their business.
Are there truancy laws where your friend lives? Then, yes they do have a right to know. It wasn’t that long ago that some parents thought education was a waste of time and so would opt to not send their kids to school when they wanted them to work at home on something else. How is the school supposed to know that your friend hasn’t rented her kid out to a sweat shop if they don’t ask.
I have no problem with a school asking a parent to explain why their kid didn’t show up for a tax payer funded service. Especially when the goal is to educate the children so that they can make something of themselves instead of trying to make it in the world as unskilled labor.
And… “undermine the parent’s authority” … OMG, I am so sick of hearing how the entire world is undermining someones rights… All they asked for was an explanation of the absence. IF they were NOT educating these kids and just throwing parties with tax payer money, then she’d be complaining about that as well.
If the kid misses too many school days in a state with truancy laws… then she’ll discover what ‘undermining authority’ is when she’s prosecuted for not sending her kid to school.
They do have a right to know for the reasons stated above. Our schools used to ask exactly what the kids’ symptoms were in the earlier grades and I can understand that too. If the kid has plague or something, it’s important to be able to give the community a heads up.
The school properly acts in loco parentis only during the hours that the actual parent cedes to their oversight. If the parent writes or calls in to excuse an absence, that seems like a pretty clear specification that those hours are not ceded.
I know of a woman who refused to make her kids go to school. If they didn’t want to go, she didn’t make them. The school system eventually got fed up with these excuses and contacted the children’s father, her ex-husband. He eventually got custody and now the kids go to school on a regular basis with no problem. So maybe it’s also to identify situations like this?
But that really has nothing to do with justifying, or not, each day of absence.
A kid who normally does attend school doesn’t have a “situation” to be identified if she is excused for unspecified family reasons for a day or two. And another kid who is chronically absent does have one, even if his parent has called in “something,” not necessarily true (as suggested above!), for every one of those days.
I once took my son out of school a day early for Thanksgiving break.
I told the little guy to just tell the teacher you were sick. Well, this was torcher to my then 8yo son. He couldn’t help it. He had to be a braggart to not only his friends but his teacher as well. (Who was quite fond of)
They sent home a note that day informing me he would not be excused for that day.
Oh well…
…and then what? He’s not excused, but you let him stay home anyway. What does the school do about it? Put it on your permenant record? His?
I don’t have kids, but it doesn’t sound like the school has a whole lot of leverage here – they’re presumably not going to send Child Services out for a single day of parental-desired absence.
I don’t think it matters much in elementary school, but unexcused absences at my son’s school (6th-12th, prep school style charter) result in no credit for any work or tests that day.
In our school district (Minneapolis), attending school is mandatory through the age of 18. Kids have to attend every day and on time unless they have a lawful reason. Those reasons are religious observances, family emergencies, or illness. The school has a right to ask for medical verification. If the child has more than 6 unexcused absences, the Hennepin County Attorney gets involved. If there are more than 9 unexcused absences, Child Protection steps in. If the child is under 12, it’s considered educational neglect and the parent may be charged with a gross misdemeanor. Sadly, despite all this, the graduation rate was only 73 percent in 2010.
When enrolling the child with the school, the parent undertakes to ensure the child attends during school hours - refusing to explain why their child is not attending as required puts the parent firmly in breach.
Like any contract, there will be different exceptions and tolerances. Currently my kid would receive a detention after returning from an unexplained absence, her previous school had different consequences.
Not for a single day, no. But in the state where I live (WV) school absenteeism has been such a huge problem they finally changed the laws about it a year or two ago. Enough unexcused absences in one year, and the parents wind up in court.
My take on this is, the school does have charge of a child for a large part of the week, and a huge amount of resources are expended to keep that child housed, fed, educated, etc. while he’s in school. (depending on the district, I think it’s anywhere from 4-10$k a year per child). That’s a lot of public money being spent, and parents who blow off sending their kid to school without a good reason are wasting it, and creating a drain on the system. I agree with the earlier poster who said a parent like that is undermining the school’s authority, not the other way around. They are undermining it because they are wasting the public resources expended for their child’s benefit.
Do schools regularly get funding for excused absences? I thought they got paid if the butt was in the seat, and not if not. But that would explain the distinction between excused and unexcused absences…
Oh, and no, I don’t think they have a “right” to know why the kid is absent, but I’m happy to feed them a pleasant lie if they insist they must check a checkbox.