<p>California public schools also receive less money when a student doesn’t show up. It can add up to a big deal in some situations.</p>
<p>We get the robocalls as well. I had to take some time straigthening things out with attendance when: 1) The coach was not taking attending very well (annoying) and 2) Son was not turning in a note for his missing time due to dental appointments (easier to correct.) </p>
<p>S is only a junior but I may need to be proactive, since he’s already talking about how boring things will be for the three weeks once the AP tests are done. Since he’s not a senior, he doesn’t have to concern himself over absences that might impact his ability to attend Disneyland Night, graduation, grad night and other senior activities.</p>
<p>I think in some ways he wishes he was a senior since he takes virtually all APs (except for his college level math class) so I’ll have to be watchful next year as well … although he’ll then be ip to his eyeballs with college apps for part of the year. Should he be so lucky as to get in his SCEA uber reach, it will be one long second half of senior year.</p>
<p>When you say “skip,” you mean without having mom call you in, right? Why didn’t you just tell her you needed a mental health day? Bottom line is, you lied to her.
also – You will be very tempted to skip in college – BIG MISTAKE.</p>
<p>hmmm. If my Ss were half an hour late, the school secretary was on the phone right away. Usually, it would be because I’d scheduled a trip to the doctor or dentist. Neither of my Ss skipped a single day of school after being admitted. S2 was admitted in mid-December. But iwth APs, finals and a 20-page paper all scheduled for the same month, he probably worked harder in the last semester of high school than in previous years.</p>
<p>our school kids fail for the year if they miss 14 classes w/o reason.</p>
<p>If my d did this, I would have my reservations about her going away to school when the temptation is even greater not to go.</p>
<p>We all know, really, deep down in our hearts, that the final weeks of senior year are virtually useless from an educational point of view. There’s a ton of drinking, drug use, twiddling of thumbs, movie watching, and educational time wasting. It’s all good for you.</p>
<p>But don’t lie to your mom. She might be more sympathetic, and even give you some good educational rationales, and run interference for you. (I know I would - and did.)</p>
<p>agree</p>
<p>In our house we call them mental health days.</p>
<p>This is really about two things, trust and maturity. </p>
<p>You’ve lied. If you’d been proud of what you were doing or if you had expected her to be happy with your actions, you would have told her ahead of time. You’ve given her a reason not to believe you. In three months you leave for college, you’ve just planted a seed in her head that says, “She’s not ready”.</p>
<p>The second issue is about commitment and maturity. There’s always going to be a reason to quit. As tough (boring) as it is, the right thing to do is gut it out and show you’re committed to finishing what you’ve started. It’s not fun, it’s not cool, but it shows that the effort and sacrifice your mom is putting in to get you to college is appreciated. Blowing off classes to electronically doodle in the library just sends the message that, “She’s not ready”.</p>
<p>Maybe you’ll get away with this skipping, maybe you won’t, but come September, mom’s not going to be there to pick up the mess you make; you’re job right now is to show her you are ready.</p>
<p>Good Luck.</p>
<p>I dont know what to do. The fewer days my D spends in class the better her grades are (except gym). She says she can pull assignments in off the school website and submit via email. I agreee these are valuable skills. She promises me will go class in college and doesnt lie to me.</p>
<p>Homeschool. [url=<a href=“http://www.skylarksings.com%5DSkylark”>http://www.skylarksings.com]Skylark</a> Sings ~ Welcome to Skylark Sings<a href=“that’s%20me”>/url</a></p>
<p>Mini, its a little late for that.</p>
<p>Better luck next time. ;)</p>
<p>Apologies in advance for not answering the OP’s question. I’m just sharing what our public high school’s practice is - </p>
<p>D’s school encourages attendance by allowing kids to exempt from one or more finals only if a) their grade is above a certain %, and b) they have no more than 4 unexcused absences. </p>
<p>This most definitely encourages attendance, but it also means that more often than not, kids who are sick do not stay home. Not a good practice during say, swine flu time. (Ooo, I should email the principal with that thought…)</p>
<p>I think it’s best to be honest, so I will tell you that in the grand scheme, skipping a couple of days will probably not wreck your life. On the other hand, it will hurt your mother and drive her nuts. So why do it?</p>
<p>Skipping may or may not get you into trouble with the school, but assuming you’ve got that part figured out, it’s still a legitimate issue between you and your mom. You may see it as harmless fun. But try to look at it from the parents’ point of view. One of the biggest things parents worry about before their kids go off to college is, “Is my child mature enough to handle this on her own?” Most of the time, the answer turns out to be yes; but not always. And even with mature, responsible, high-achieving kids, parents may worry. If you start skipping school in your senior year, that looks to a parent like a sign of irresponsibility, even immaturity—not following the rules, not following through on your obligations, not being self-disciplined, giving in to the temptation to slack off. Even if you continue to do well in school, it feels like a warning signal that this kid may not be ready to be responsible for herself once she’s away at college. If you skip school without your parents’ consent, there’s an added element of disobedience. If you skip school without even letting them know, there’s a further element of deception bordering on dishonesty, and your parent is going to ask, “What else is this kid concealing from me, now or in the past; and what else will be concealed in the future?” All at a time when you’re expecting your parents to plunk down tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for an education and a largely independent life away from the parents’ watchful eye, where you’ll be responsible for making your own educational decisions and managing your own life, really for the first time. That’s a lot of responsibility, and for the parents, letting go requires an awful lot of trust. So suddenly you’re acting in a way that produces less trust and less confidence in your ability to make mature and responsible judgments, just at the time that you’re asking for more trust, a tremendous amount of trust from your parents. Downright scary from the parents’ point of view. Maybe your mom is overreacting. But surely you can see why?</p>
<p>I think you are likely making excellent choices not to be around all the drinking, doping, and educational time-wasting that characterizes much of the last few weeks of senior year. National data indicate that almost 50% of 12th graders got wasted at least once in the past two weeks (and many spent their in-school time planning for it), and roughly 1 in 5 was drunk or high in school. I think you may have been acting very responsibly in avoiding all of that, and I hope you do so in college as well. If your college classes are as much a wasteland as end of senior year often is, I hope you’ll drop them as soon as you can and get into others, and take it up with the relevant dean. NOT putting up with such nonsense in college is the responsible thing to do. You don’t want to waste your parents’ hard-earned tuition money.</p>
<p>Where you were not responsible is in sharing your decision-making process with your mom. Of course, a little rebellion isn’t the most terrible thing in the world either, and by the end of the summer, you and your mom will probably hate each other, and she’ll be glad to be spending all that money just to get you out of the house.</p>
<p>Trust me: that too shall pass.</p>
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<p>This is EXACTLY what I would be thinking if I were OP’s parent. And coming on CC and trying to justify the wrong behavior isn’t helping, either. Apologize to your mother and go to class. See how much of her trust you can regain before you go off to college in the fall.</p>
<p>I don’t think she has to justify wrong behavior - I’m not at all convinced that the behavior was wrong. But she has to apologize profusely for lying. That’s the real issue.</p>
<p>Is there any way you can talk to her? My D2 is a junior. Has the SAT this weekend, AP/IB/Regents/ACT exams coming up as well as two internships and myriad ECs and time to spend with her grandmother who has cancer. She came to me last week and politely told me that she needed a day off to sleep and said that this Tuesday would best fit into her schedule. She hasn’t been out a day since before Christmas. I took her approach as mature and honest and I respect it. I would not appreciate lying under any circumstances and it would damage our relationship, but I do think that a person her age knows when she really does need a rest or a break.</p>
<p>@Hunt#9: LOL! Except mom could also be following a direct route: </p>
<p>“She’s skipping school. She’s probably out drinking. She probably has a drug problem.”</p>