Your city says it’s safe to go back to school, they have conditions in place but your kid refuses to go because he’s scared he’ll die.
And what if mom and dad say you’re going back anyway.
Some kid is going to make a big deal at school and do anything to not go in the building.
What happens?
In my state, the kid will likely be told to stop creating a disturbance on school property. Failing that, he’ll likely be arrested and taken off to Juvy to await a hearing in Youth Court. If he doesn’t disturb school activities, just doesn’t attend, eventually the overworked attendance officer will file a truancy action against him and his parents, which could lead to fines and incarceration.
That’ll be quite the shit show.
In my jurisdiction the family could notify the school system that they were choosing to home school their child. They could use either a virtual home schooling or a remote paper based curriculum. The bar is very low for the family demonstrating that what they have chosen is adequate. The child could go years essentially doing very little learning, with no consequences. Then the child takes a GED and is done.
Many families do home schooling for many earnest, defensible reasons, religious, cultural, philosophical and do it well, with the child flourishing and society faring well in the future. They aren’t who I’m referencing. I support their choice whole heartily.
Where I live a few very, very disordered adolescents end up in juvenile facilities for truancy and then because of behaviors dangerous to themselves or others. I am unaware of parents facing fines, much less jail. They may be leaned on or pressured but then they just make themselves unlocatable by authorities. The child’s future is ruined and society will pay a high price for decades.
All of this said, I wouldn’t send my child back to a physical school in this pandemic. My children are all in their 30’s but if they were school age they would be sitting at the dining room table working every weekday at a very carefully curated virtual curriculum while an adult was available to them and overseeing the process.
If I was a teacher or staff and required to teach face to face I would organize and strike. I would be not only protecting kids from getting sick but also my colleagues and every person those kids were going to leave school and potentially infect with a virus that can kill as well as overwhelm healthcare systems, killing even more.
School is a very serious issue right now. I haven’t got a case set for trial at the moment, but I have heard rumblings of parents willing to go to court over this issue…on both sides. I expect I’ll have to deal with it as GAL sooner rather than later.
I’m guessing most school will make it easy for parents to home school for a while.
With kindergarten and preschool students the kind of scene you describe wasn’t a daily occurrence at the school where I work, but it wasn’t uncommon. If we’re back in person in the fall, I’ll probably be able to give you an answer sometime during the first week of school.
I really hope that schools will be able to keep children safe, even if it means staying closed.
But my guess is that, to avoid any reduction in funding the schools will be technically “open” but will encourage parents to keep students home for any health reason.
I read that 25% of all teachers are At Risk… in their 60s, or have compromised systems. What do we do if THEY don’t go back?
And Teachers’ Unions are crazy powerful… this’ll be an interesting fall.
Where I live (Chicago), the schools are planning to open, but nobody is required to send their kids to in-person schooling. If the family doesn’t feel it is safe, they are free to stick with online schooling. But with real-time classes and mandatory attendance.
But that doesn’t really address the OP. If the parents want the kid to go back, but the kid doesn’t want to go, I have no idea, except to say that that really isn’t the city or the state’s problem. That’s a family issue. Hell, when I was a kid, I didn’t want to clean my room, but my parents insisted that I do. It wasn’t the school district’s problem.
There are monetary fines, for truancy in the school district I pay taxes to fund. Parents are mandated to see the child gets to school.
I imagine any kid who was that afraid a parent could get his pediatrician to sign off on him. Excusing him from class.
Saying all that, if the school can open in some way, they will.
It’s a strange new world, now.
This school year may only serve to bring inequality issues to even sharper focus. I live in a rural state. High speed internet simply isn’t available in some parts of the state. The county neighboring my home county is so rural that if you want internet there and can’t afford pricey satellite service, your only option is to drive into “town” such as it is and hope to get a spot in the McDonald’s parking lot so you can use their wifi. “Online classes” are not possible under those conditions.
Yeah, the OP is a little weird in that it seems more like a parental issue than a school issue. The parents want the kid to go to school. The school wants the kid to go to school. The kid is disobeying. I have to assume that dynamic plays out all the time in the world even without the pandemic. Kids typically don’t get to make those choices so it’d be up to the parents to enforce their rules (or the school if the kid was disruptive or unsafe about it on school property).
So I’d say whatever happens outside of a pandemic for a kid that refuses to go to school despite their parents’ and their school’s wishes is likely the analogous model. I’d probably add the caveat that this is less like a kid just being a punk and more like a kid being frightened more than their parents/school deem reasonable. Again, that seems like something that exists as things parents and schools deal with outside of pandemics.
If we’re talking about a school reopening completely and the parents not wanting to send their kids I guess that’s a little different. I’m not sure how that’d play out right now. It seems politically implausible to drag kids kicking and screaming into school against their parent’s wishes and fears?. But who knows?
My school district is floating two plans, a part time staggered in person schedule versus a full time in person schedule. But in both cases they’re very clear that they will accommodate parent’s who are uncomfortable with coming in at all and will facilitate permanent remote learning.
Not all teachers are union. My ex has been told she shows up or she’s fired.
Wow, that’s harsh.
But, she’s an adult. She can weigh the risk and decide what’s in her best interest.
When I was a kid I would’ve loved this. We were always hoping something would happen and school would be closed.
Kids don’t get to choose. Their parents and the school board makes these decisions.
I would be keeping my child at home. But, I didn’t work outside the home.
My Daughter and DIL are keeping their kids home and home schooling. They’ve been working from home at their jobs for several years. So it’s gonna be easy to adjust. I hope.
But, back to the OP. There are always kids who go berserk about school and having to go. Schools and parents have dealt with this kinda thing for years.
Not always. Years ago I had an employee whose son decided he’d had enough school when he turned 15, so he stopped going. She wasn’t the greatest mom, and her husband was on the kid’s side, believing his son was mature enough to get a job.
She complained each time the school called her and she really complained when the school threatened legal action. She tried taking him to school, but he’d just leave once she was gone. After about a year he was placed into an alternative school. A man would pick him up and take him to the school, which was locked down.
So, the kid woke up early and left the house before the school cop showed up. There was more talk of legal action, and mom was really pissed off that she was being punished for her kid’s behavior. Eventually things dragged on long enough that the kid turned 18 and that was it.
The kid has been in and out of jail since then over a variety of charges. Assault, possession with intent to sell, possession of a firearm, drunk and disorderly, underage drinking, supplying alcohol to minors. He is 22 years old.
Yeah, @kayaker, I know of kids like that.
It’s always sad when these kids fall through the cracks no matter how hard the Parents and the School try to keep them on the straight and narrow.
I teach, and the last I heard, we are going to be doing what it sounds like your district is doing, an option of being in person, or being 100% virtual. Our principal has made it clear that the kids choosing a virtual option need to be logged in when attendance is taken. If not, that’s a late. It doesn’t matter how they are “attending,” if they are going to be late or if they’re absent parents need to contact the office. After so many unexcused lates or absences they would be truant.
One other thought, my daughter, did cyber school before any of this happened. Her school worked on a points system where so many points had to be turned in per week, and something needed to be handed in for every subject. If this wasn’t done, they would consider her truant, I remember when she was a freshman, she also had to be logged in at a certain time each day, I’m not sure if they still do that.
This family sounds like they have much deeper issues.
So she has to show up just like the rest of the essential workers. Except for the 3 week layoff due to sales, I haven’t been allowed to miss a day of work without burning vacation. That includes working my weekends as scheduled. I have no sympathy for people hiding from the world and then demanding others hide along with them.