Is this a normal absence policy?

[Trishy]

My nephew recently start kindergarten in public school. There was an orientation meeting at which SIL was told that if dn was absent and the absence was to be considered "legal" she would need a note from some sort of professional to excuse it. For illness the child is not to come to school for 24 hours following vomiting, fever or diarrhea but he must return with a doctor's note excusing the absence. I googled to find a copy of the policy and it is here:

http://www.schenectady.k12.ny.us/Pol...e%20Policy.htm

It seems that she mught have been misinformed and that she can call the principal to excuse a short illness. She was not confused when she told me that the parents were told that if the children have a cold or some other illness that they should be sent to school and then can come home later if they are sick enough. Yesterday SIL sent dn to school with a sore throat because she does not want to have to make a $20 copay to the doctor every time dn is sick. The absences count against his grades.

Does this seem like a normal absence policy to y'all? It seems ridiculous to me that a parent would need to get a note from some sort of professional to excuse every absence that their child has.

[kewb]

I don't know if it is normal or not. I do remember as a child that if you were out for more than a week due to illness the school requested a doctor's note. I also remember my parents pulling us out of school to go on vacation when they felt like it so there are probably ways around it-or my parents did not care.

So far with my children they have not been absent more then a day or two from illness and all I have done is called and said they were sick and would not be in.

[Itlbokay]

Our school district has a policy like this -

First 10 absences may be excused with note from parent/guardian.

After that EVERY absence must have a doctor's note.

If not, then after three unexcused absences a meeting with parents will be scheduled.

The words "truancy officer" and "court" are heavily thrown around in the section of the district policy that deals with absences.

It's the invasion of parent's rights called Compulsory Attendance Law.

[shelbean91]

I wouldn't pay a copay to have a dr tell me my kid has a virus. I won't send my kid to school sick or not feeling well. If more than a week, I understand a dr note, but a dr note for every single absense doesn't sound right to me- and I wouldn't do it.

[EFmom]

I live near (but not in) the district your dn is in. That is not even a common policy around here. In our district, you need to send in a note explaining your child's absense. You do not need a doctor's note. My dd has been out sick for more than a week at a time with strep, and she didn't need a doctor's note. People do generally send kids to school with colds, coughs, etc., but that is the parent's call, not the school's call.

I WOHM, and the worst possible scenario is having the school decide in the middle of the day that they want to send the kid home. It works much better for my job if I decide in the morning to keep the child home. So, I would ignore that particular bit of advice.

The district your dn is in is known in the area to be pretty dysfunctional.

[Momtwice]

If they are going to require that then they should pay the copays! That is ridiculous and I wonder if it's legal.

[HelloKitty]

That really annoys me and I wouldn't get a Dr's note either. The official school policy for my older boys does say something like they can't have more then 3 unexcused abscenses in a school year and they consider anything but illness or death in the family as "unexcused" which I also think is crap.

[Starr]

Not the policy here. You only need a Dr.'s note if the child needs to take medication during school, which the school will administrate, if the child has any limitations (phy ed), or if they are sick for more than a week.

[Eman'smom]

Schools are getting lots of pressure on attendance from NCLB.

[wednesday]

As well as the issues with NCLB, most schools' funding is based on attendance. For example say the school has 100 kids, but on any given day only about 95 kids are there--well then the school only gets money for 95 kids. So that makes schools want to be really tough about absences. I'll bet that if the child shows up and then is sent home, it is not counted as an absence.

[spero]

I live near that district, too - EFmom is correct, it is kind of a "tough" area/district, and I would bet that they have a high absence rate and maybe changed the policy to crack down on truancy or something.

Our school's policy is pretty liberal - you call in absences to an "attendance supervisor" (leave a message) and only have to send a doctor's note if an absence is more than 3 consecutive days.

When my kids were involved in a bad car accident last December, it was a week and a half before Christmas vacay. I called the attendance supervisor the day after the accident and just let her know that they might not be back until after the new year. (It's a small town, and everybody already knew what had happened.) I never produced a doctor's note, and the school never bothered me about it - they knew I had too much on my plate to deal with it (DH was critically injured and in a hospital an hour away). So they're pretty flexible.

I really think that attendance policiy depends on the school, its location, and their average attendance rate.

[UlrikeDG]

Attendance policies vary greatly from district to district, and even from school to school within the district. I was expelled my senior year of high school, because I had too many absences (I was in the top 3 percent of my class, taking AP classes, etc), and had to go through the appeals process to be allowed back in. At the time, we were allowed 6 absences for any reason, but the 7th absence got you expelled. All 7 of my absences were excused (I had strep throat then mono), but that didn't matter. At the time, our school was the only one in the district using that policy. It went district-wide the next year, but has been replaced since then.

The public school my friend's DD attended in Germany required a doctor's note saying that the ill child was now well enough to return to school, but not one to excuse the absence.

[~member~]

Originally Posted by HelloKitty

That really annoys me and I wouldn't get a Dr's note either. The official school policy for my older boys does say something like they can't have more then 3 unexcused abscenses in a school year and they consider anything but illness or death in the family as "unexcused" which I also think is crap.

Yeah. When I had my baby at the hospital, more than an hour away, I had my dd with me. I had a c-sec, so there was no way I was going to be able to drive her back home and get her to school. She missed 5 days. I was charged with education neglect under the No Child Left Behind act.
Thankfully, my case was dismissed by the judge after months of SW's, Guardian Ad Lidems, Lawyers, Court dates, etc. :
I had to miss tons of labs and ended up having to drop one whole semester of college.

[nikirj]

MITB, I never cease to be amazed at what idiots you have to deal with all the time!

I have never been threatened that way (not the way MITB is talking about, not even what the OP says).

Late in the pregnancy of my third, my daughter got a looong cold and I wanted her better quickly. I kept her out for nearly 2 full weeks. Just called her in every day, no problems at all.

I don't remember seeing anything at all about there being any limits on how often I can keep my kids out of school at this (new) school. They have the number to call for absences (dedicated line) listed prominently in the new-student-info packet. I'm assuming that is where they would have put any threats if they cared to include them.

OK, so...long post short...NO it is not a normal absence policy. It is your standard control-freak absence policy. I would be worrying about OTHER ways this school may be playing the me-bigger-than-you game.

[Missy]

First, the policy is way over the top. Secondly, most funding is based on total enrollment by a certain day. There is no way to calculate funding that fluctuates with daily enrollment, no way to deduct funds based on daily absences. In Virginia, figures are submitted by the end of September and state funding is distributed accordingly. Personally, if I had been faced with such a policy while my daughter was still in public school, I would have challenged it to the highest level possible. But then, I had a hard time with attendance policies anyway. I had a hard time with the tardy policy. I didn't rush my daughter out of bed and shove a pop tart in her hand on the way out the door. She always bathed in the morning because it helped to wake her up and I always cooked a large breakfast and we seldom rushed because I didn't want her starting her day stressed...and we were very frequently slightly tardy. And her teacher didn't really care, but the office staff got quite nasty.

[TigerTail]

my last straw was when the district decided an educational trip to epcot, rather than a week standing in line and filling out worksheets, was 'unexcused'. i see the need for public education in theory, but i just can't get over that 'making a deal with the devil' aspect.

parents really need to get involved (not in the sense of 'listen to the bureaucrats, do what they say, oversee 3 hours of homework a day' that *they* usually mean, but in the proactive 'take back your parental rights' sense.) 'nclb' is, imho. is one of bush's single most destructive legacies.

susan

[~member~]

Originally Posted by suseyblue

'nclb' is, imho. is one of bush's single most destructive legacies.

:

I totally understand about the need to combat illiteracy in this country, but the nclb is not the way to go, IMO.

[kama'aina mama]

Wow... they are trying to be very heavy handed. I notice a couple of things though... the laws they cite apply to children ages 6-16. Probably not most kindergarteners.
Also

Medical excuses
Medically licensed professional or staff. Two days of absence for personal illness will be deemed legal upon contact between parent and principal.

So you only need a doctors note if the child misses more than two days... which I think is kind of standard.

[LindaCl]

How dumb is this?@

Running the doctor every time your child is too sick for school? Hello????? Is there a quicker way to throw away a ton of time and money than to send every school aged child to the doctor every time he or she has a fever or sick stomach? The doctor's job is to help sick people, not "screen" for excused school absences. The "rest in bed, drink plenty of fluids" advice works just fine without first having to haul the poor child out of bed, into the car, to sit in the emergency room and infect everyone there while waiting to be seen by the doctor.

Those school teachers are no more qualified to determine when a child needs to be home in bed than a parent. I've heard some dumb things, but this takes the cake. So the child is supposed to be sent to school first...seems like a pretty good way to help make sure *every* child in the class catches it and has to stay home sick too.

Yes, my hunch would be that there's one reason schools would put this plan in place, and that's because they think it will raise revenue somehow. Putting sick kids through this for the money.......? Nice.

In my state, the schools receive money based on "average daily attendance", and boy was IT a big deal. My childrens schools had paid staff that did nothing but track daily attendance. They'd call parents every morning (too urgent to wait for a note to be sent with the child some days later when he or she recovers)--why? Because every day, they'd register the attendance to some higher level staff Attendance Counter at the district level. (Excused absences here are counted as attendance.) If your SIL's school is so desperate to get a "daily" attendance/excused absence count, they might try hiring staff to make phone calls. I thought at the time that it was a complete waste of precious education money myself, but it has to be a heck of a lot less wasteful in the long run than sending all the children off to these unnecessary doctor visits.

Linda

[flyingspaghettimama]

I've lived near this school district as well - which I don't recall as being filled with wealthy parents who had no problem shuttling off to the doctor each time. That is really sad, if they enforce it as such - to put this burden on top of parents who already probably don't have a lot of money kicking around. Doctors don't even want to see children with common colds.

However, there ARE doctors in the area who use email services - that might be one way to get around it? Email for a note?