Venting about school's attendance policy

[crazymomof4]

I have never had a school year so riddled with illness!!!!!
My 11 yo DS had what I feel was mono in Feb. He missed 5 days of school but it was a good 6 weeks before he felt even close to normal again. This has left his immune system weak and he has caught several infections since then. The absences for the mono were excused bc. I had him to the Dr. and got a note. The short infections he's had since resulted in 2-3 day absences and I did not take him to the Dr. for these. To date he has missed about 15 un-excused days. He has been on the Honor Roll all year and his teachers praise his swift and thorough return of all make-up work. Still, the school is breathing down my neck and threatening to have him repeat the year.
I don't understand the whole "Doctor's note" thing. Is this a result of mothers lying about why their kids are staying home? I am an RN so I am a pretty good judge of when my kid is sick enough to see the Dr. and when he just needs to stay at home, rest, gargle w/ salt water, take Tylenol, drink lots of fluids, etc. First of all, it is a waste of my time and the doctor's if there is nothing he can do or prescribe for my son that I am not already doing. (No wonder we often have to wait an hour to see the Dr. if people are forced to get appointments just to appease the school!) Secondly, I do not want to take a kid to the pediatrician's office and sit in the waiting room for an hour exposing myself, my sick kid and my other kids w/ me to all of the other (possibly more serious) germs. I feel like MY word that my kid is sick is not to be trusted. It seems that I am sometimes treated as if I were one of the students rather than a parent! One mom told me,"Just call your Dr.'s office. A lot of them will just fax an excuse note to the school even if you didn't see the Dr."
Now that seems pretty underhanded to me, but apparently some, otherwise honest, Moms are doing this so their child does not have to repeat a grade due to school "policy".
My mom says that in "the old days" there was a truant officer who would come to the home to check if the child was really ill. I would welcome this! It's much better than getting the pediatrician involved unecessarily. Heck, with all the $$$ the school puts into sending threatening letters home (certified)reminding the parents of the attendance policy, they could afford to hire a truant officer!
Has anyone else had this experience? What, if anything, did you say to the school to quiet them? Do they really make Honor Roll students repeat a school year?

 

[zurgswife]

Boy I'm glad my kids aren't in a traditional school system.....I'm the one that makes up the rules and my school says OK....

My DD has suffered from a serious illness this year...I pulled her out for 5 weeks prior to Christmas and have pulled her out again 3 weeks before the end of school...No DR notes...just my word that she is being treated....and she is moving on to next year without and questions...

 

[crazymomof4]

zurgswife~

Boy I'm glad my kids aren't in a traditional school system

I hear ya! I homeschool my oldest DS and while I have other responsiblities regarding his education, at least I'm spared the attendance pressure. He just makes up his missed days on a Saturday! I will be also be HS'ing the DS spoken of in my orig. post after next year.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Zurg...I like your countdown clock for HP

As far as schools and attendance policy, well yes, our school has a policy in place as well.
I would definitely try and get a note from the Doc. I would say it is not underhanded but a CYA maneuver.
Some folks do lie and this is how they catch them.

 

[jfulcer]

You have to realize that the school has to deal with hundreds of students and trying to keep tract of excused vs non excused, etc must be a hassle.

Look at it from the office's standpoint. Most likely when your son has been out sick for those 2-3 days, the teacher has just let it fly. To the teacher it's ok, to the front office it's unexcused absences. If the front office would ask the teacher the teacher would explain them. But that communication doesn't seem to be happening.

They also may have trouble with truants that don't tell their parents they are skipping. The certified letter is their way to make sure the parents know.

How do you beat the system? Well, really you just have to work with it. If I were you, I would send a note to the office after any and all absences to explain the problem. I wouldn't think they would expect a doctors note on EVERY occasion, esp with you being a nurse, but an explanation could excuse those absences and solve your problem. A little communication goes a long way.

Good luck!

 

[disykat]

The whole Drs. note thing bothers me too. After my child misses a few days of school I feel obligated to take him to the Dr. only to have the Dr. act like I was foolish to bring him in. GRRR!

However, the flip side is when parents don't make much effort to send their kids to school. When I taught I used to get excuses like "we had to do laundry". Because of that I can understand the need to evaluate absences.

If you have a district nurse, hopefully she/he can step in for you. It seems like this might be a logical contact/support for kids who miss a lot of school due to illness. (my child missed three weeks for pneumonia this year)

Form letters can be very irritating - hopefully you can get it resolved soon.

 

[AspiringCindy]

Find out what the state policy is. I am not so sure the school can do a darn thing about the absences if he meets state requirements.

 

[addicted_to_WDW]

I understand the school's side of this.

I have a sister who is something of a scumbag. She is extremely lazy. Her son had to repeat kindergarten because she was too lazy to get up and send him off every day. He missed something like 80 days. He's now in 9th grade, and she recently spent a few days in jail because of his truancy. She doesn't care and doesn't make an effort to send him to school. He can use any excuse and she's ok with it.

Unfortunately, because of people like her, responsible people like us have to justify our decisions.

 

[nsyncraider17]

at my school, we just have to take in a note from a parent, not a note from a doctor, to get an absence excused. I don't really know how effective this is, because I'm sure some people just forge notes from their parents, but oh well. we also have a "12/24" rule -- students can miss a maximum of 12 days from a semester class and 24 days from a year long class. If you miss more days, you fail no matter what your grades are. I've always thought this was unfair, because if someone gets straight A's in a class but happens to get mono or something and miss a lot of school, it seems wrong to fail them.

 

[Colleen A.]

Although I understand the lousy school policy rules, our district implimented the "miss 15 days in a semester, repeat the grade" rule last year, I haven't needed to worry. Knock on wood, my kids have always been pretty healthy. I CAN relate to the mono part though. My my oldest DD was 4 (the summer before she started school), she got very sick. At first the doctor said "viral infection", but she just kept getting worse. A week later, I demanded more testing. Turns out she had mono! It really knocked her on her tush! 3 weeks into the mono, she caught chicken pox! FYI, whenever she gets run down, she will STILL show all the signs of mono!! The doctor told me that she will always test positive for it and will still be pron to the effects (without being contagious!) til she is much older.

 

[Doctor P]

Your son has now missed approximately 20% of the school days this semester--I don't think that it is unreasonable for the school to either require that he go to summer school, take special tests to show competence, or repeat the grade. Turning in all the back homework doesn't cut it in my book--there is a socialization and in class aspect to education, also. I am terribly sorry that he has been so sick, but a doctor's excuse is certainly not unreasonable to ask for.

 

[Disney Ella]

It makes no sense to hold back a child who is doing well based on the number of days he was sick. That's what happens when school develop these blanket policies. Certainly someone at the school has some insight as to which students might not really be sick, are not doing well, and just don't have parental involvement, and which are doing well and just had the bad luck to get sick. I think it is a shame you have to be stressed out over this.

There have been threads complaining about parents who send sick children to school. Well, with these kinds of policies, I'm sure a lot of kids are being sent to school sick at your DS's school.

 

[momof2OH]

My DD has missed almost 50 days of school this year due to several surgeries. Thankfully they are all excused, but our school also has a policy in place for missing so many days. They won't automaticly fail a child, but they send the "threatening" type letters about absences and possible court action.

 

[Megan's Mom]

In our system a child has 6 parent notes then the rest have to be doctor notes. the problem is the people that abuse the system. On the seventh absences that doesn't have a doctor note they go to court and then have a probation officer. All work that they miss on an unexcused absence is a 0 and can't be made up now doctor notes it can. So in our system if you miss that many days you shouldn't be passing. Schools get paid by the state based on the daily average attendance so it is important that students be in school as much as possible. In our area the parents have found the doctors that will give them the notes whether they were in the office or not. Hope this helps to explain the school's side of the issue.

 

[Princess_Aurora]

I don't think it would be unreasonable to call up your dr when your kid gets sick and ask for an excuse for school. It saves you time and it will certainly save the dr time. I call the ped. every time my kids get sick anyway just to explain the symptoms and see what they recomend.

In my school system, if we missed more than ten days (I think it was ten) then we had to go to saturday school. Two saturday schools excused one absense. I think all schools should have something like this in place for the kids that tend to get sick more often than others. It's not fair to the student if the student is doing all the work and making all the right grades and still has to repeat the year.

 

[deirdrefitch]

Approx 6 yrs ago, my son had mono. The pediatrician wrote a note to the school ref what mono is, problems that could arise, and that there would be times he would feel too tired and weak to attend school. I personally went in and talked to his teacher, and to the principal. They were very understanding of the situation. The principal even called one morning, and told me that in his opinion my son needed to come home because he had become lethargic. He too caught several other illnesses as a result of lowered immune system. I did take him in, even though there were times that I too knew the Dr could not do anything for him. I knew the Dr note was needed for my son's protection, as well as the school's. I would call and talk to your son's Dr, and see if he/she would be comfortable with writing an excuse. If your child's grades are up to par, which any amount of six week or daily testing should prove, then there should be no problem with promoting your child to the next grade. Life is not written in stone, and sometimes a little bending is needed.

 

[jamsmom]

I know a student who had mono her junior year, a surgery, and a gradmother's funeral/ She was an A/B student and had made up ALL her work. She still had to go to Saturday school to make up her time. I asked what she did since she had already turned in all her work. They played tic-tac-toe. hang-man, basketball indoors....ect. What good did that do her?

 

[damo]

I would think that as long as he has done the material and can move onto next year's work without any major problems, then there shouldn't be an issue. Are they saying that they think he will have difficulties next year or just that he hasn't "done the time"?

 

[tigercat]

Boy your school system would really encourage me to homeschool my children. Do you ever feel like Big Brother is looking in on you? I don't understand, your school gets money for the children that are in the school on that day and if a child is sick and doesn't show up then the school gets docked a day's "pay"? If that is the case then of course the school is going to be vicious in their pursuit of children who are sick or are not at school. But as was said then that means sick children are going to be at school. Here if I took my kid everytime they were sick I wouldn't be able to get in. As well, if I needed a note for the school each time then it would cost me $$$$. I know that when my youngest got pnemonia and had to be out for a while, the school was informed that he was in the hospital what he had and that I would get him there as soon as the Dr. said okay. I kept in touch with the school so they knew what was going on.
tigercat

 

[Megan's Mom]

Maybe I didn't explain the Daily Average Attendance very well. School systems get their state allotment of money to hire teachers and other things like that based on their attendance the previous year. If you have an average of 500 students then they get x amount of money for the coming school year budgeted for hiring or even losing teachers if attendance is down. They have changed it a little it use to be based on the first 40 days of school. now they do some kind of average. But when parents have to go to court it ends up costing them money. Last year one judge even sent a mother to school with her child for two weeks. Good idea bad results. Big distraction. My daughter is in a different system and she attends a special school and because of her condition we have a note in her file from the doctor that states that due to her condtion there may be days that she should not attend school but wouldn't require a doctor's visit and that it is up to the parents to decide when. We havn't abused that but it is nice to have. Husband travels a lot (another thread) and sometimes she needs to stay with grandparents while he is gone. We havn't had any problems with that note.