I have had my chronically ill children miss up to 1/4 to 1/2 each year of school due to chronic illnesses and health condition over most of HS. I’m grateful I was never threatened with being jailed for their absences.
I was threatened with truancy officers when I was out of school for nearly a semester in 7th grade (complicated Pneumonia). I remember the shear terror I felt when I heard the voicemail from my school saying that they were going to send the officers to my house. I called my mom in tears. It’s been over 10 years now since that and I still vividly remember it.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the mom was jailed because of her child’s “truancy.” In my experience, there is very little logic or critical thinking applied to laws and school policies especially when it comes to low income/low performing schools. There are lots of places cracking down hard on truancy because funding is tied to how many butts are in seats on a given count day.
But he allegedly missed a whopping 18 days! Given that it’s already mid-April, that doesn’t sound to me like a terrible attendance record.
I do remember D getting a D or F in home ec because they wouldn’t let her make up a poor grade when she was home with the strep throat. We had called and asked her whether they wanted her to turn in the project even though she was sick or whether it could be turned in on Monday and go no response, so we waited until Monday. We are grateful that she was accepted at the private HS instead, which was somewhat more willing to work with us. Even at the private HS, we often had to meet with the administration about our kids’ chronic health issues and even with MD notes, they considered the kids’ absences UNEXCUSED. It was a pretty bleak time for all of us and we really dreaded meeting with the administration. The person we met with had never been sick a day in his life and really didn’t understand chronic illness, tho fortunately S’s counselor advocated for him (sadly D’s didn’t do as well at advocacy).
A lot of people are starting to question the whole idea of suspending kids that young. If you tank the kid has home issues that contribute to problems at school, how does making him stay home help? And for working parents, suspension is a challenge–all the more so for parents who don’t have paid leave, etc.
I do not trust any person to have the self control or judgement to know the “right amount” of physical punishment for a child… I also do not trust that any adult might not be getting a sick enjoyment out of it.
"was threatened with truancy officers when I was out of school for nearly a semester in 7th grade (complicated Pneumonia). I remember the shear terror I felt when I heard the voicemail from my school saying that they were going to send the officers to my house. "
Why wouldn’t your parents have already contacted the school, provided doctors’ notes, etc? Presumably they were arranging for homework to be sent or other arrangements made? That seems really strange that you’d be threatened for truancy like that.
I am shocked that anyone with enough education to be a teacher OR a school principal would think this would be appropriate. I can’t even imagine!
That being said, missing 18 days of school without an excuse in my state would be considered truant. It sounds like this child may have had an excuse, but that wasn’t clear. If a child misses too much school in my county, they will be required to attend a diversion meeting with family, school personnel, and a County truancy diversion worker. If that doesn’t solve the problem, they may be referred to Juvenile Court. They could have consequences ranging from school detention/in-school suspension/Saturday school to family counseling to court order for parent to attend school with the student. In a very severe case, there could be up to 90 days in jail and/or a fine, up to $1,000. My favorite consequence for high school students is that their driver’s license could be suspended or delayed until 18 years of age. That usually gets those high school kids back to class!
This reason along with the idea of not “rewarding” students who are serious violators of school policies with days off from school at home was why most “suspensions” in one Catholic school I attended were “in-school” during/after school hours where one had to complete school assignments and some punishment exercises like writing “I will not do ” hundreds or sometimes even thousands of times on paper or spare blackboard.
It’s very possible sometimes one division of a bureaucratic school administration doesn’t know what the other division knows/is doing.
Sometimes, it’s also possible one or more teachers/admins are willfully ignoring established written policies and procedures due to some animus against a particular student/groups of students.
For instance, one asshat of a HS teacher I had was widely known among students and teachers to have attempted to deny an older student with documented disabilities extra time on a test he was entitled to under established state/city education policies. He only complied when the city and state education administrations issued him a direct order to comply or face serious consequences for noncompliance.
The whole corporal punishment thing makes no sense to me, these days expert animal trainers absolutely refuse to use hitting to train an animal, so why should a kid be any different? If they are resulting to corporal punishment, it means instead of trying to teach the kid to respect the rules, they are basically beating into them the fear of pain for breaking rules. Among other things, I don’t understand it, because kids catch attitudes, and what are you telling them? That it is okay to use violence to correct a situation (the real irony is where they use corporal punishment because one kid hit another). It doesn’t surprise me that the use of corporal punishment tracks with where fundamentalist Christianity is a force, I would bet if asked the school officials would give you the whole “spare the rod and spoil the child” crap from the bible (which is bad on two counts, one that they have to resort to what people did 3000 years ago if in fact that is what it said, or 2)not understanding it means that kids need discipline and guidance, which anyone with half a brain should realize).
I am not saying the mom in this case was necessarily a geat parent (or a bad one), but resulting to corporal punishment in schools is just a license to sadism and allow teachers to ‘get revenge’, which doesn’t say a lot about the teachers, the administration or the parents in the district.
My impression from those who advocate corporal punishment is they feel adolescents/children can’t always be reasoned with and to do so will give them more “loopholes” to argue their way out of being held accountable so hitting them forestalls all that.
Not agreeing with it as it also illustrates laziness, entitlement to immediate unquestioning obedience, and an inclination towards a strong authoritarian mindset among those who make such arguments.
@Cobrat:
That, too, but that also is admitting that they can’t deal with a child, that they would lose a power struggle to the kid, and they are supposed to be trained professionals, to boot. I think that your last line is more like it, that paddling a kid gives a lot more ‘satisfactory’ results quicker, and it doesn’t take any thought to outthink the kid.
“Just a day in the life of another backward state.”
Bull. I can’t stand when posters criticize a whole state because of something one school did.
I do not agree with corporal punishment. When we lived in IL I was going to sign my youngest up to a Baptist school. But then they told me I had to sign an agreement that they could use corporal punishment so I said no thanks.
It is still out there and probably will be a long time in MANY different states.
None of the schools my kids attended (public and private) used corporal punishment but some of the teachers and students used some nasty psychological punishment.