View Single Post
  #73  
Old October 27th 03, 03:07 PM
Ericka Kammerer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Bright 2nd grader & school truancy / part-time home-school?

Jenrose wrote:


My daughter's school doesn't even blink if a kid misses a day for something
the parent thinks is important. If kids need to leave early for a music
lesson, they bend over backward to make it easy. They're being taught to
balance priorities in their lives, and it just so happens that for most of
the kids, they love school and school is a high priority and they don't want
to miss it for anything. Some kids miss occasionally for the start of an SCA
event, for example, or a major family trip, or whatnot. But you know, in
real life, people GET to make special plans to rearrange their lives around
the occasional special event or opportunity.



I don't think it's so much the occasional special event
that's a problem. Our school will also work with families in
those situations, as will most of the teachers. But there's a
world of difference between the occasional opportunity and
a child who, for one reason or another, is barely in the
classroom enough to establish a routine. In the OP's case,
we're talking about a child who has missed several days due
to illness, who has and will miss more for assorted special
and family events, and whom the OP wants to take out even
MORE frequently (up to a day a week) for enrichment activities!
In that scenario, the child is missing more than 20 percent
of school! At that point, I think you've presented a very
difficult position for the teacher and the administration.
If the education isn't adequate, by all means find a way to
get the child the education she needs, but I just don't see
how the proposed scenario is going to work well for *anyone*.
If flexibility is the name of the game, then full time
homeschooling really seems to be the best option, and then
one figures out a way to achieve the social goals along
with it. If that's not acceptable and the child needs to
stay in the public school system, then I think it's important
to do that in a way that shows some respect to the teacher
and classmates as well as providing the appropriate
enrichment activities.


Funny thing... I found a job myself where the day they hired me they said,
"We know you're a parent and we want you to know that your family comes
first."

I can miss a day "just because" and not lose my job--they know I'll meet my
deadlines and they know that flexibility is one of the reasons I stay there.
I can show up late or leave early. I insisted on finding a job where my
family COULD come first.



But you have a job where the nature of the job makes
that possible. I have one of those too, and it's a really
nice way to go. But there *are* jobs where that isn't
possible. The way most classrooms are organized, the job
of learning/teaching isn't one that can be done in a situation
where the child is missing 20+ percent of school. Is the
teacher *really* supposed to sit down each week and plan
*everything* to accommodate the fact that a particular child
is going to regularly miss a day that week? The teacher
must not schedule anything that would affect her grades that
day? And, of course, it would be a shame to schedule anything
particularly interesting or special that day, since this is
a child who most needs those sorts of enriching activities.
And what about group work? Will this child be excused from
all group work so that her group won't be at a disadvantage
by her absence? Or will all group work have to be scheduled
around her schedule? And what about specials (music, PE, art,
computer, etc.)? If the day she's skipping has one or more
of those, then she's missing *all* of that activity, so what
should happen with those grades? Should she be given a way
to make those up?
Now, one could argue that classes should be designed
differently so that they had the flexibility to deal with
this sort of thing. However, that would pretty much mean
that they'd have to go to a sef-paced, self-directed sort
of class. This would be a huge change, would probably
require a significantly lower teacher:student ratio, and
would wreak havoc with all the "accountability" testing
and whatnot that has been implemented by our elected
officials over the last several years.


My daughter's school succeeded in making going to school "the reward"... so
that they don't HAVE to punish people outrageously for missing. Most people
just don't want to miss!



I think most schools can be accommodating to some
degree. Even if it's that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to spend two weeks on safari, they'll usually work to
concoct some sort of project the child can do resulting
from the trip itself, and that plus a little makeup work
will eliminate the problem. But handling a situation
where the child is regularly missing as much school as
the OP proposed is a really different situation, in my
opinion at least.

Best wishes,
Ericka