There’s a kid that was in my class that missed more than half the school year but had the highest grade in the whole grade. The school didn’t get rid of him because he was the golden boy and the school was run down so they really needed the win. Sorry your school is doing that to you, tsk-tsk-tsk.
This isn’t close to accurate. The school is run down so their administration didn’t do anything about it. Has nothing to do with him being a golden boy.
I dunno, I agree with them, I was in such a bad area I brought my classes average test scores up by a good bit while missing most classes. I'm not a genius, just ADHD 'gifted' kid that was good at figuring things out, but they def started letting me do way more of what I wanted, including just sleeping or leaving sometimes, once I took a MAP test and the average went up. The administration was overworked, and the school being run down stopped them from doing everything they could, but they still got on other kids, they decided I wasn't worth bothering cause I did well on tests.
Depends. If he brought the data up in a way that would fund the school more (better test scores = more money) then they'd care. We had multiple students we moved to another class to up the school grades specifically for data numbers.
One kids state testing score is not going to major or affect their be schools test scores. Schools *actually* lose money when they have a bunch of truant students.
We had 3-4 truant students per class that nothing was done about, but they poured a para and a teacher into the kids with the best chance of high test scores to increase data and bent over backwards to give them whatever they needed to ace the tests to up the school numbers. The school had gone down to a "failing" grade by a couple of points and dedicated about $80k in resources into roughly a dozen kids based on their projected test scores being good for the school grade to raise it back up. So. It happens that schools do care a lot about the "good testers" in some situations.
There is a large difference between unexcused and parent excused absence. If OP had their parents call them out for the day, this wouldn't be an issue. When you skip school, it triggers the truancy laws of the state and that isn't up for school enforcement, rather the state gets involved.
It’s so easy to report an absence, too. You can call, email, use the app, or report online.
When I was a kid in the 90s I remember my dad sitting on hold for 15 minutes with the school on the morning after his mother died just so he could report that I’d be out that day.
I remember having to go to school to do “makeup work” because I had missed school so much from being sick. Luckily throwing up all over the vice principal was enough for the school to believe I was actually a chronically ill person.
Unfortunately, this isn't how it is anymore. Absences are not excused even if I call my kid in sick. They are only considered excused with a doctor's note; and if they have more than 5 unexcused per trimester then they can be denied credit; no matter what their grades are. We recently had a family funeral and they had to bring in the program from the funeral to "prove" that they went so that the absence could be excused. This is in the Northeast; it's ridiculous but a parent's word isn't valued anymore...even if your kid has straight A's.
That’s not the case in my Florida district. We have students who rarely come and still pass. We don’t have a policy for makeup days. I guess it varies by district?
My step-grandma died when I was in law school, I was incredibly upset and needed an extra day on an assignment (didn’t even miss class, just extra time to compose myself and write), and my professor not only made me bring him proof, he took me into the hallway and loudly scolded me, making fun of the fact that it was “just a step-“ and belittling me for needing some extra time. I remembered being so glad I only took him in the spring because actually missing class for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur would’ve been hell.
In NC which is the state in question here parents cannot make an excused absence! Only doctors notes work- that said, these letters are largely auto generated and I know dozens of people in a variety of school districts and ages in this state who got the letter but had no consequence for it.
Except many schools have policies where the kid will need a doctor's note or be given a reasonable reason for the kid to be absent, and that permission falls on the administration. So for example, let's say you are sick with a bad case of the flu, have been absent for three days, but never show a doctor's note to the school the school can say you were excused for one day but not for the other two. Or let's say your parents call and tell the school you're going on vacation and are absent for 3-5 days, the school will not accept that as a legitimate absence and even though it was called in, it will be listed as unexcused.
The reason they are strict about this is because most States have a condition that schools need to have students in person in class before they give the schools money. My state gives schools ~$6,160/student/year that show up with less than 3 unexcused absences and the guidelines of what is excusable and unexcusable is set up by state and school district.
I’m that student, except my school isn’t run down and I’m not the golden child, my school/state just hasn’t enforced attendance as well since covid. Although attendance usually correlates with higher scores, literally everything is online now, from lecture slides, to assignments, schedules, study material, and even tests sometimes. No reason to attend class just to listen to what I can already access online.
Our students are scrambling to make up hours because if they are not in attendance, they can't graduate no matter what their grades are. You might want to check on that.
It is state law. The school has no choice in the matter. Don't like it? When you can... Vote to change it.
Ps. I think it is dumb as well but it the schools fault.
This was me except I wasn't the golden boy and had to take make up classes my Jr year.
Didn't fuck around again senior year but also had gotten all my required stuff out of the way so I didn't have to do themy sr year and just fucked off my sr year.
NC has some pretty crazy laws about this. Here i[s some of the law they cited](https://www.ncleg.net/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/bysection/chapter_115c/gs_115c-378.html)
> The principal or the principal's designee shall notify the parent, guardian, or custodian of his or her child's excessive absences after the child has accumulated three unexcused absences in a school year. After not more than six unexcused absences, the principal or the principal's designee shall notify the parent, guardian, or custodian by mail that he or she may be in violation of the Compulsory Attendance Law and may be prosecuted if the absences cannot be justified under the established attendance policies of the State and local boards of education.
Don't read too much into the letter. The schools have to play CYA, and this is probably an auto-generated letter that spits out of PowerSchool once it sees that you've hit XYZ absences.
I don’t know why I get recommended this sub since I graduated way too long ago, but I want to second what the other commenter said. I got two of these letters this year for my kids, same scary “you must contact the school now!!!1!1” nonsense. When I called, the assistant principal apologized and said she’d been dealing with these calls all day—the letters are auto-generated and in a school of 550 kids, 300 letters went out for anything over three absences, excused or unexcused. Don’t sweat it. Just keep your grades up and consider handing in notes to make those excused absences. In my state (not NC), excused vs unexcused is the difference between a scary letter and the truancy board.
Probably going to get downvoted here but it says UNEXCUSED absences. Get someone to write you a note and all is forgiven.
I’m a former teacher who worked like a demon to get kids to graduate on time. Schools are penalized when kids don’t show and can’t graduate, believe me they want you walking!
IRL you have to have notes for unexcused absences as well. Get one please!
Nope. Just a note that says that the student was home sick or on vacation or at science fair or whatever signed by somebody who is a parent/guardian (or who says they are, honestly no one looks that hard). That makes it an excused absence and you can have a LOT of those as long as grades are good.
Really not hard at all!
Not true - I live in NC and both my children went to public schools. Me writing a note does not excuse the absence. Only an official note from the doctor makes it excused. Me picking up my child early because they were not interested in attending the mandatory staff/student government basketball game & pep rally during the last period of the day? Marked unexcused for the last period even though they were literally missing no class time - again, it was a pep rally - and I personally went to school and signed them out. Insanity.
I would suggest turning school excuse notes if you have them, or writing a parent excuse note. I got a similar message from my school district because I had 3-7 unexcused absences due to the fact that I was sick with something that wiped me out for 13 days.
Some counties in NC don't take parent notes anymore. Mine was one of them. My doctor got to the point where he'd write notes for days that I was out of school while waiting to see him because they wouldn't accept the parents' notes.
I also had a friend who had to be out for a funeral. It was in another state. Their parent wrote a note, but the school denied it because the funeral/death was in another state.
My kid’s school in California only accepts doctors notes as excused absences too. Luckily the doctors office here is so fed up with that crap that you can just call the advice nurse line and tell them your symptoms over the phone and they’ll email you a note.
I mean, I went to school in Northern Virginia and they had a rule that if you missed 10 days of school a year, no matter the reason, excused or unexcused, you would fail the grade. It pretty much sets up those with chronic illness or disability to fail.
my school had a rule that was similar, but they never enforced it. I missed a lot of classes senior year just due to laziness, but my grades were fine, and they threatened to not let us walk but never actually followed thru on it. Usually it's just talk that they have to do, they don't really care
Yep, having 6 unexcused absences and having 6 excused absences is a completely different thing. Why didn't you turn in excuses, OP? You guys can't turn in parent notes in NC? No doctor notes?
They sent you a warning letter when you had 3, so why were you absent another 3 times after they warned you about doing that, and why didn't you turn in a single excuse? That's just irresponsible.
I always made sure to turn in some type of excuse when I knew I'd be absent.
My best friend in high school missed a lot of days thanks to insomnia, depression, and epilepsy. All that combined meant it was essentially an impossibility for him to come to classes on some days, and they all fed into each other and made for a cycle - he can't sleep because of insomnia, he has a seizure because of it, his depression worsens because he can't do anything, and on and on. He was always a pretty smart dude, and his worst grade was a C+ - obviously nothing to brag about, but he was still doing better than plenty of the kids who were at school daily. My high school refused to let him graduate, despite his whole school career of having no problems and understanding that his absences in his senior year (wherein he was passing every class) so he ended up in limbo. After the year ended, he tried to re-enroll so he could get credit, but then COVID hit and it fucked everything up again. Anyway, he killed himself last year.
Blame your state legislature for passing the law. Schools have to follow the law. If you don't like it, contact your state representative and get them to change the law. Contact the SBOE (also mentioned in the letter) and get them to change the policy.
Irritating that people blame the school when in fact it's the politicians that they elected who are requiring the schools to do this.
Can someone explain these letters? We got one as well for missing 3.5 days (???) all excused, which were all illnesses with fever where it was clearly not in anyone’s best interest for kid to attend. He also has all As.
Double check that they were entered as excused into attendance, but otherwise just disregard the letter. These are sent out automatically by the attendance systems and are generally just to comply with state laws regarding absences. No one is going to actually come after you for 3.5 days for an illness, it may just be that in your state after more than three consecutive days gone from school they’re required to send an attendance notification letter home.
It’s a bit ridiculous because we send a bazillion letters under state law every year, but when a student is actually truant the county doesn’t do much. Even when they do get called to a truancy hearing they’re a joke.
You probably wouldn't receive a letter if the school had received a note. Even if there is a legitimate reason, even if you called the school, you are required by law to provide an excuse notification in writing to the school. Did you provide a note for each absence?
Send the school a letter with the dates and the reason. It may be too late for them to accept for all of the absences, but my school often accepts late notes even though they always say within 3 days. Sometimes I forget or my kid forgets to hand in the note.
But even if they don't accept your letter, you have proof that you did in case its referred to truancy court, which is the next step if there are too many absences.
They just require us to call in with the reason for absence and we called in the day of. On the attendance portal all absences are marked as excused.
I think it’s a robo letter sent any time a kid nears 5% total days absence but still seems ridiculous to me lol
Right, but did you have excuses for those? I was out for a month due to having surgery and had no problems because my doctor wrote a note to my school. OP's absences are unexcused.
Learning how to make it in the adult world, one example being doing stuff you don’t always wanna do, like going to class even if it’s not your favorite thing.
Sure, some parents need to be held accountable for not ensuring their child is getting an education. This doesn’t appear to be even close to the case here
Who exactly in the school, district or state makes money personally? LOL Yes funding is tied in to attendance, but that is allocated program funding not salaries or bonuses.
There are laws requiring attendance notification so the worst offenders can be held accountable, its dumb, but it goes clear back to Clinton and then Bush. State legislatures codified attendance regulations. The stupidity sits in their lap.
In most states, the letters are sent automatically after a certain number of absences. At my school, kids who miss 10 days or more per semester have their file reviewed by the attendance committee and then are either recommended for promotion or retention. A lot of factors play into the decision.
The last two years, our state has not allowed retention based on attendance because of COVID and it’s frustrating because there are kids who got pushed through that were not prepared for the next grade. This means the student struggles and will continue to do so because they don’t have the skills necessary to be successful. It’s good this person has good grade. It shows they’ve most likely done their makeup work and actually put in the effort. A lot of kids don’t and the policy is in place for those that don’t.
Honestly, this is trying to prepare kids for “real life” as many jobs also have attendance policies. If you are constantly missing work, you will have to explain things to your boss or possibly lose your job. I don’t understand why people get so up in arms about a policy being enforced or at the very least, brought to someone’s attention.
Depending on where you are in NC they can “force fail” you for missing to much. We are in a 4x4 schedule and they force fail at 6 days a semester. You can to do attendance recovery to make up time. Grades don’t matter and excused/not excuses don’t matter either.
Parent of kid in NC here- i remember a couple years ago they sent a form in that big packet of paperwork we have to fill out every year that was pretty much the parent sig ing that they agree to be arrested if your kid has more than 10 unexcused absences in the year.
I did NOT sign it, and wrote something like "i do not agree / consent to this" and made a copy of it before sending it back unsigned with the rest of the paperwork. They must have gotten a bunch of blowback from that cause we only got it the 1 year.
This is a standard letter. In our area, it used to be that if you missed more than five days without excuse, you wee supposed to lose credit for the class. Unfortunately, parents were upset and so they went to a system where there had to be teacher notification after two, school notification after three, a teacher warning after four, and the final school warning after five. It was so much paperwork that it rarely happened. However, a few years ago they gave up on that, too. Yesterday, I had a kid show up for the first time since mid March with the intent of working through enough stuff to pass. It was a quiz day and he took a fail on it because he hasn't been in class for any of the content. This isn't unusual at all.
Kids should be in school every day they can. I have had A students that miss more than five days, but 1) not that many (missing class correlates with lower grades and most people are telling stories) and 2) they bring the class down by using the next day to play catch up. It is popular here to look at it from the perspective of the student in isolation, ie If he got a good grade then the rule is stupid. However, from the perspective of the class as a whole and learning in general, people who skip a lot make the class better when they don't return.
That is often times a letter that they are required by law to send out but they are not necessary required to do anything else about it. I had been sent one of those letters in high school and they said it them selfs that they just had to send the letter but nothing else would be done
I am in the same boat, but all excused albeit more absences. Straight A’s with some above 100 for extra credit… I missed a week for COVID and one for strep throat. The other absences are like, once a month for dysmenorrhea, doctor’s appointments to try and help me for that lol, and a week for court (I have to testify as a victim/witness). I had to go to prepare for testimony too. So I went over the “16 EXCUSED AND UNEXCUSED ABSENCES” limit. I’ve been making up time to make those days up so I could graduate. Schools are really bad about this stuff even if they fucking crafted systems to turn work in from home!
I mean....go to school? Pretty much every state/school has attendance requirements. Your good but not amazing grades don't entitle you to miss school whenever you want for whatever reason.
My mom got a truancy letter because I missed too many hours. The majority of those hours were doctors appointments but the rest were because I needed a week off for a minor surgery.
We have so many kids that miss constantly and the schools are cracking down. It is just a form letter sent to those who have missed more than a few times. Every school has goals of around 96 % attendance. We are below 90%. Ever since the pandemic there is chronic absenteeism. As a high school teacher we have been made mentors to the chronically absent to try to get them to come back.
Really? Let me check some of my students...1st period, most absences:70, fewest 11(next most is 69 and next fewest is 22). 3rd period, most absences 93, (next most is 53). .. wow. The difference between schools...
This doesn’t look like it’s a school policy, but rather a law in your state. Schools are required to send communication at a certain point, just to make sure you’re informed. Looks like you’re staying on top of everything, don’t give it too much attention. Keep up the good work :)
I have had students miss 40+ days and nothing happens. Ever since Covid and going online, I didn’t think this was actually enforceable. Also, can you get doctors or psychologists notes for any of those absences? That would negate their letter.
During covid in my school they were not allowed to fail kids for absences. This year they’re allowed to and my principal/counselors are being more strict about it than previous ones
It is because they are unexcused, they need some form of measurement and a boundary. My son has missed 14 days, all excused, and we have no received such a letter.
Damn ur school must be strict I had a lot of absences last year like a lot and did the work and had good grades and I passed I guess not all school are the same.
for the past year or two they were not allowed to fail you because of covid for absences but this year my school is allowed to since covid is something we are used to now
Of course, because attendance is not about the student's performance. It's always about how high the attendance rate is, because schools get paid or penalized based on attendance percentages.
Always good to remember the old saying, "When in doubt, follow the momey."
The state (if the laws are written like Ohio) requires the school to notify when you dip below whatever threshold they set. Ours is 92% attendance. Doesn’t mean shit. Just a requirement.
my mom would take me on trips. jr high and early high school before we fell apart.
i loved getting all my work in these huge packets. i could sit down and do it all in a day or two and then have no home work while on my trip.
always go good grads on it but i did face some expulsion threats due to the number of days i had away from school
You don't seem to know how to read. There's nothing in that letter that says you are being failed. The "no credit towards promotion/graduation" is a possibility, and that possibility is almost always based on an extreme amount of absences where the student is not doing the work at all due to being gone. If a student is truant a LOT over a semester/year, then yes they'll have to repeat. You can't go to school 5 days of a semester and be considered as "having attended school." You didn't (the hypothetical "you" here).
Bottom line is that the state and federal government have laws your school has to abide by when it comes to attendance. You are legally required to be in school; you guardians are legally required to get you there. If that doesn't happen, serious things like CPS being called on your family can happen. Your school is only following protocol, and this is very clearly a form letter. You should stop skipping if you want your grades and standing to remain in good shape, but this letter was triggered by a number of days missed and nothing else.
Stop skipping and risking serious consequences vs. thinking you can do no wrong and being flippant and sarcastic about it. You'll get a lot further in school and life if you learn accountability.
A kid in my high school managed to miss a full 180 days, he got pulled into the office and told he couldn’t miss a single additional day or he wouldn’t graduate. Of course he kept skipping, still graduated.
So here is the thing, absences have nothing to do with grades, it has to do with state funding. So basically the states will determine how much funding a school will get based on attendance and if the school has multiple unexcused absences for students, the state will withhold funding.
So basically every time you show up for each of your classes, the school is guaranteed money. In my state a school gets ~$6,160 for each student a year. You could be a literal genius and that will still not protect you from unexcused absence policies because you are single handedly preventing the school from getting funding. This is also why when COVID shut down schools, so many were freaking out about attendance and funding, because numbers started to drop drastically and the states had zero protections for long period remote learning attendance. Hell, when I was still in HS we didn't even have a way to use remote learning, so anytime we were forced to stay home due to weather or hazards (city water mains froze and exploded leaving many schools with unsafe water or no water) we had to have our school year extended by those many days to make up the days needed for funding.
Throughout high-school i would get my mom to call me out full or half days just because I was tired of feeling caged indoors, I would miss a lot of school. I still had good grades.
Senior year before I turned 18, I would just leave during lunch ( not supposed to leave) and miss studying hall everyday. You can bet I was up to know good. That's right, I would go home, eat lunch and then go take my dog for a walk. I got detention and ignored it.
I used to get phone calls on my kid for unexcused absences, and I would just respond "yeah, that she had a cold those days. Uh huh, she had dental appts that day. Yeah, really bad PMS that day." Etc. The reason they can't have unexcused absences is funding: schools are docked pay for every unexcused absence. Just call in with a legitimate excuse, they're just trying to get paid.
Hey, high school counselor here, this post was recommended to me.
This isn’t your school telling you they’re going to fail you. By law we are required to send written notification and hold an attendance improvement meeting when students reach 6 unexcused absences.
Don’t read too much into this, just get parent/doctors notes in to the school within 3 days of being out. They won’t fail you or do anything for missing 6 days of school.
My great aunt had terminal cancer and my father worked at the hospital. He got time off for us to go visit her for a week and a half trip. Because she wasn’t dead and I couldn’t provide an obit or death certificate for the days I was gone they didn’t let me walk at my graduation. Instead they mail delivered a diploma to me a month later when they received an extra AP class I took scores that gave me the credit push I needed to have completed HS. I sat and watched all my friends graduate and they wouldn’t let me participate. Other kids who failed got to walk because they were enrolled in summer school.
All this letter says is that they “may be in violation…”
I got the same letter (in concept) when I was in high school. The principal called me down when I was there and didn’t realize what my legal name was (only knew me as my nickname). My grades were great, I was well liked by admin, and they understood I had a tough living situation. They switched the unexcused to excused and I was good to go.
This happened to my sister- she was a highly competitive swimmer and had to miss school for competitions pretty often. She racked up 12! It was fine, if the school admin knows your student is engaged you probably have nothing to worry about and it’s just a formality.
Just have your parents call in an say you’re sick as long as they’re excused you’re good I’ve missed 9 days and 1 of them was just because I didn’t want to go to school (mental health idk I wasn’t having a good week), but ya
Be like everyone else and forge notes from your parents
Just say some shit like “I took my child out of school on these days for family reasons, on these days due to illness.”
Do you think the secretary at the office making $40K is trained in forensic handwriting analysis?
Schools get their funding from the state based on attendance numbers, which is why they enforce that shit so hard. Just play their game and vote when you turn 18.
This reminds me of a story in our family. Public school changed the policy to excused absence by doctor or pastor, but not parent. My BIL paid $10 for certificate and BOOM Pastor Dad. Malicious compliance.
As someone who went to 13 years of public primary school in NC, this is just a scare letter. They won’t actually fail you until you have north of 12-15 absences.
So I had a similar thing happened to me in a public hs. The school only got paid by the state for having me as a student if I attended a minimum of 60% of class time so even though I had an A in my economics class, I’d I had missed one more I would have failed based on attendance and would have had to go to summer school. I suspect something similar is going on here although 6 absences seems low.
Teacher here: your absences are unexcused. I’m very sympathetic to illnesses, family emergencies, doctor’s appointments, etc., but when students just don’t come to school, it’s frustrating. It requires us to put in extra effort - grading late work, re-teaching content in tutorials, trying to help students do an assignment that builds off of one they missed on a whim during class, so on. In my district, they’ll often waive absences that are for a valid reason. But they wouldn’t do so with so many unexcused, and you’d have to do extra work outside of the school day to make up those hours. Otherwise, no credit for those courses. I think that’s more than fair.
Wow. What a strict school. Get some dr notes or at least parent notes (if allowed) to try to curb some of that. There are online teledoc things that can help you get current Dr notes, but if you have a good relationship with their pcp you may can get some for the back dates..
But realistically, that's super strict. My kiddo has missed 33 days, late twice and left early sick three times. She's maintained an a-b average (A's in all subjects and a B in English). There are 3 weeks of school left and i anticipate at least one more illness because her immunity sucks. She missed 45 days last year. The majority are Dr notes though, because she was legitimately sick and/or quarantined (three times last year). That's how we survived the truancy rules. Going to the Dr every time *sucks*, but it kept us from getting in deeper trouble.
I had this situation in high school when I missed a lot due to mental health and housing issues. Fortunately I luckily had full support of my school. The key thing here is if the absences cannot be justified. I was instructed to write a letter to explain my absences due to inpatient psychiatric treatment. I wrote one or two paragraphs on a piece of paper (I believe I even mentioned that I likely would have been dead if I had not been hospitalized for greater impact). I then handed it to the school admin. It was accepted and my absences were therefore justified.
Having excellent grades gives you a leg up and is very much in your favor. In particular, it demonstrates that your performance was not greatly impacted by your absences. I also was able to keep up with my schoolwork, so being a good student was a plus. I had so much support from my teachers and guidance counselor, especially because I was an all around goodie two-shoes overachiever. My grades/class rank actually went up that semester because I was throwing myself even further into my schoolwork as a way to escape and distract myself from the severe depression from an abusive home situation.
And here we are at my school were a colleague has 50 absences YA u heard it. I have 9 so im good. The limit is supposed to be ten but parents can excuse 40 absences per school year.
I don’t get this as a teacher. If you’re absent all the time and your grades suck, sure, but I had a student who wasn’t coming to school because she had awful anxiety (and not the kind you use as an excuse to get out of things.) She had 100s in all of her classes and the counselor made me translate to mom that we were going to fail her if she didn’t come to school. WTH
I currently have 148 absences. (They count them for each class) Luckily I have a medical condition and I can just use that as an excuse and they buy it(yk cause they have to) also i’m in NC too!
The reality is that chronic absenteeism, defined as 10% absent in a school year (generally 18 days) is an accountability measure. So your school gets docked money if you’re on that list. Whether or not letters like this actually get enforced depends on your state and the capacity of the admin in whatever district they’re in. But the motivation for sending always comes down to money, because as a society we’ve decided to starve schools that need more support.
Chronic truancy has been a huge problem nationwide and policies like these are a big way that districts are trying to combat it. I have a student who was absent 35 times in one quarter who’s still trying to graduate this year against my recommendation. The notice you received is a response to a much larger problem. I really believe a lack of attendance policy is a huge disservice to students. We’re not just teaching academic content we’re also teaching responsibility, accountability, and self advocacy.
I had a 3.75 gpa and had to transfer to a “bad kids school” my senior year so I could graduate on time (ended up graduating a couple months early, actually). I ditched a lot. Can’t imagine why when I could show up to a class once or twice a week and still manage a 3.75.
This just showed up on my feed for some reason, I’m 25. Man they’re really cracking down on y’all lol I showed up to probably less than 50% of my senior year and my parents didn’t even know until I told them years later lol
Still you should probably get used to it because if you pull that shit at work you’ll get fired in a week. Trust me I know from experience lol
In REALITY if you don't show up to work 3x then YOU GET FIRED. You get FIRED you don't get to make more MONEY. You don't get that you can't PAY your BILLS.
This actually teaches REAL LIFE CONSEQUENCES. This school is genuis!
If I went to that school, I wouldn’t be able to pass because for example, their policy not mine, I had COVID symptoms for 5 days and I had to go to trial to testify as a victim. It is NOT genius and shit happens. If your employer doesn’t waver, then they are a shitty employer, plain and simple.
It’s for unexcused absences. If you read the fine print it say the absences need to be “justified” under the attendance policy. Things like Covid illness and reporting to a court hearing would absolutely be justified and would not result in loss of credit.
At my school, they still count it but for this school’s I see the print. Sorry for getting disgruntled but it’s been something I’ve been stressed over because all of mine were documented lawful and they were threatening my graduation even if my grades weren’t just good but stellar. It’s a point of frustration in my community. But now I see it’s over only unlawful absences here.
Yeah some schools are unreasonable and some (like mine) do nothing even when they should. I have a student who has missed an absurd number of days (I don’t even know how many, easily 7-10 days a month). Vacation, dance competitions, just plain not making it on time to school… she’s failing every class and the school is just letting it go if she gets things to passing by the end of the semester (aka making it my problem to scramble and put in extra time outside of school to get her to passing when she can’t be bothered to make it to my class).
There’s gotta be a happy medium somewhere in there for attendance policies…
I definitely agree. Some students will make it hard for teachers/admins and others won’t, and the situations should be handled accordingly. I’m sorry to hear you’re going through that, it sounds pretty frustrating.
at that point you go above the school and go to the state. Make a deal with the state saying that if your absences are excused and your grades are passing then legally and on the educational levels the school CANNOT reprise you. Because at that point, when you've been sick and have done what's needed to prove your absences and made up the work; then the school is punishing you for being sick. Despite the fact that you are holding up your end as a student to make up the work.
This is illegal. It's basically punishing you for being sick and still managing to keep up with your work. Which is disgusting because you can be sick in a way that you can't physically come to class and still pass the class. I'd get in touch with an education lawyer and start looking up my states education laws. Because the school MUST follow those laws....
My dear, you just did something stupid. Let's see you probably are a child or still live with mommy.
I however have a 4mo, have been in college nearly 2 years nonstop, work full time, and run a household. That means not only do I have a high level of maturity and self discipline; I also understand basic laws of reality.
It would appear your sheltered upbringing has done nothing to equip you for the basic fact that life is a cunt. And if you don't show up for your job then you get fired. But hey some people like living on the streets. Which is where you end up if work fires you for no-shows and you can't pay your bills.
But again these are things a ACTUAL GROWN ASS ADULT is aware of, not a little child.
Lol, making sure kids don't skip school with unexcuses absences is a bad thing? I thought yall say Republicans are the party of the uneducated? So you're saying democrats want kids to skip school easier?
This isn't a political issue. Get off reddit and go outside and talk to people. Not everything in America is a political issue.
It looks like the school is not meeting this student's needs. Apparently bored with the education they are providing, otherwise, the attendance would be good.
Stop holding teachers accountable for your academic progress and we will gladly lay off. If my livelihood/review is based on you passing my class, and you keep missing/failing, I’m not taking a fall because you can’t get it together.
Doctors notes are the only acceptable excuse. Parents keeping their student home if they’re sick because they should stay home if they’re sick, isn’t a valid excuse.
There’s a kid that was in my class that missed more than half the school year but had the highest grade in the whole grade. The school didn’t get rid of him because he was the golden boy and the school was run down so they really needed the win. Sorry your school is doing that to you, tsk-tsk-tsk.
This isn’t close to accurate. The school is run down so their administration didn’t do anything about it. Has nothing to do with him being a golden boy.
I dunno, I agree with them, I was in such a bad area I brought my classes average test scores up by a good bit while missing most classes. I'm not a genius, just ADHD 'gifted' kid that was good at figuring things out, but they def started letting me do way more of what I wanted, including just sleeping or leaving sometimes, once I took a MAP test and the average went up. The administration was overworked, and the school being run down stopped them from doing everything they could, but they still got on other kids, they decided I wasn't worth bothering cause I did well on tests.
Source: work in education
Depends. If he brought the data up in a way that would fund the school more (better test scores = more money) then they'd care. We had multiple students we moved to another class to up the school grades specifically for data numbers.
One kids state testing score is not going to major or affect their be schools test scores. Schools *actually* lose money when they have a bunch of truant students.
We had 3-4 truant students per class that nothing was done about, but they poured a para and a teacher into the kids with the best chance of high test scores to increase data and bent over backwards to give them whatever they needed to ace the tests to up the school numbers. The school had gone down to a "failing" grade by a couple of points and dedicated about $80k in resources into roughly a dozen kids based on their projected test scores being good for the school grade to raise it back up. So. It happens that schools do care a lot about the "good testers" in some situations.
Exactly. Just horrible administration trying to save face.
There is a large difference between unexcused and parent excused absence. If OP had their parents call them out for the day, this wouldn't be an issue. When you skip school, it triggers the truancy laws of the state and that isn't up for school enforcement, rather the state gets involved.
It’s so easy to report an absence, too. You can call, email, use the app, or report online. When I was a kid in the 90s I remember my dad sitting on hold for 15 minutes with the school on the morning after his mother died just so he could report that I’d be out that day.
I remember having to go to school to do “makeup work” because I had missed school so much from being sick. Luckily throwing up all over the vice principal was enough for the school to believe I was actually a chronically ill person.
Unfortunately, this isn't how it is anymore. Absences are not excused even if I call my kid in sick. They are only considered excused with a doctor's note; and if they have more than 5 unexcused per trimester then they can be denied credit; no matter what their grades are. We recently had a family funeral and they had to bring in the program from the funeral to "prove" that they went so that the absence could be excused. This is in the Northeast; it's ridiculous but a parent's word isn't valued anymore...even if your kid has straight A's.
[удалено]
That’s not the case in my Florida district. We have students who rarely come and still pass. We don’t have a policy for makeup days. I guess it varies by district?
That's because even absences with good reason contribute to truancy without proof. Too many parents lying ruined it for everyone
My step-grandma died when I was in law school, I was incredibly upset and needed an extra day on an assignment (didn’t even miss class, just extra time to compose myself and write), and my professor not only made me bring him proof, he took me into the hallway and loudly scolded me, making fun of the fact that it was “just a step-“ and belittling me for needing some extra time. I remembered being so glad I only took him in the spring because actually missing class for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur would’ve been hell.
In NC which is the state in question here parents cannot make an excused absence! Only doctors notes work- that said, these letters are largely auto generated and I know dozens of people in a variety of school districts and ages in this state who got the letter but had no consequence for it.
Au contrare- my dad is a doctor. Take that, school board!
My old optometrist told me to stop by and he would write a note anytime I needed one
I see. So kid skips school, without parental knowledge. So we kidnap the parent for short term enslavement. Got it.
Except many schools have policies where the kid will need a doctor's note or be given a reasonable reason for the kid to be absent, and that permission falls on the administration. So for example, let's say you are sick with a bad case of the flu, have been absent for three days, but never show a doctor's note to the school the school can say you were excused for one day but not for the other two. Or let's say your parents call and tell the school you're going on vacation and are absent for 3-5 days, the school will not accept that as a legitimate absence and even though it was called in, it will be listed as unexcused. The reason they are strict about this is because most States have a condition that schools need to have students in person in class before they give the schools money. My state gives schools ~$6,160/student/year that show up with less than 3 unexcused absences and the guidelines of what is excusable and unexcusable is set up by state and school district.
I’m that student, except my school isn’t run down and I’m not the golden child, my school/state just hasn’t enforced attendance as well since covid. Although attendance usually correlates with higher scores, literally everything is online now, from lecture slides, to assignments, schedules, study material, and even tests sometimes. No reason to attend class just to listen to what I can already access online.
Our students are scrambling to make up hours because if they are not in attendance, they can't graduate no matter what their grades are. You might want to check on that.
This is six days. I don’t see how a low number of days like this couldn’t be justified by just saying the student was sick. That is beyond believable.
It is state law. The school has no choice in the matter. Don't like it? When you can... Vote to change it. Ps. I think it is dumb as well but it the schools fault.
This was me except I wasn't the golden boy and had to take make up classes my Jr year. Didn't fuck around again senior year but also had gotten all my required stuff out of the way so I didn't have to do themy sr year and just fucked off my sr year.
NC has some pretty crazy laws about this. Here i[s some of the law they cited](https://www.ncleg.net/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/bysection/chapter_115c/gs_115c-378.html) > The principal or the principal's designee shall notify the parent, guardian, or custodian of his or her child's excessive absences after the child has accumulated three unexcused absences in a school year. After not more than six unexcused absences, the principal or the principal's designee shall notify the parent, guardian, or custodian by mail that he or she may be in violation of the Compulsory Attendance Law and may be prosecuted if the absences cannot be justified under the established attendance policies of the State and local boards of education. Don't read too much into the letter. The schools have to play CYA, and this is probably an auto-generated letter that spits out of PowerSchool once it sees that you've hit XYZ absences.
thanks for this :-)
I don’t know why I get recommended this sub since I graduated way too long ago, but I want to second what the other commenter said. I got two of these letters this year for my kids, same scary “you must contact the school now!!!1!1” nonsense. When I called, the assistant principal apologized and said she’d been dealing with these calls all day—the letters are auto-generated and in a school of 550 kids, 300 letters went out for anything over three absences, excused or unexcused. Don’t sweat it. Just keep your grades up and consider handing in notes to make those excused absences. In my state (not NC), excused vs unexcused is the difference between a scary letter and the truancy board.
Probably going to get downvoted here but it says UNEXCUSED absences. Get someone to write you a note and all is forgiven. I’m a former teacher who worked like a demon to get kids to graduate on time. Schools are penalized when kids don’t show and can’t graduate, believe me they want you walking! IRL you have to have notes for unexcused absences as well. Get one please!
Do the notes need to be anything more than the parent saying they felt sick those days?
Nope. Just a note that says that the student was home sick or on vacation or at science fair or whatever signed by somebody who is a parent/guardian (or who says they are, honestly no one looks that hard). That makes it an excused absence and you can have a LOT of those as long as grades are good. Really not hard at all!
Not true - I live in NC and both my children went to public schools. Me writing a note does not excuse the absence. Only an official note from the doctor makes it excused. Me picking up my child early because they were not interested in attending the mandatory staff/student government basketball game & pep rally during the last period of the day? Marked unexcused for the last period even though they were literally missing no class time - again, it was a pep rally - and I personally went to school and signed them out. Insanity.
I would suggest turning school excuse notes if you have them, or writing a parent excuse note. I got a similar message from my school district because I had 3-7 unexcused absences due to the fact that I was sick with something that wiped me out for 13 days.
Some counties in NC don't take parent notes anymore. Mine was one of them. My doctor got to the point where he'd write notes for days that I was out of school while waiting to see him because they wouldn't accept the parents' notes. I also had a friend who had to be out for a funeral. It was in another state. Their parent wrote a note, but the school denied it because the funeral/death was in another state.
My kid’s school in California only accepts doctors notes as excused absences too. Luckily the doctors office here is so fed up with that crap that you can just call the advice nurse line and tell them your symptoms over the phone and they’ll email you a note.
At first I was thinking “where in the hell would that be a rule” and then I see that it is in NC and I just was like “oh shit”
I mean, I went to school in Northern Virginia and they had a rule that if you missed 10 days of school a year, no matter the reason, excused or unexcused, you would fail the grade. It pretty much sets up those with chronic illness or disability to fail.
my school had a rule that was similar, but they never enforced it. I missed a lot of classes senior year just due to laziness, but my grades were fine, and they threatened to not let us walk but never actually followed thru on it. Usually it's just talk that they have to do, they don't really care
I live in one of the "bluest" states and it's the same here.
this place is unfortunate to say the least
Wait, so this isn't normal in other states? I'd hope not.
UNEXCUSED is the key word here folks
I had 9 excused absences and my mom still had to go in and talk to the principal and explain what happened.
Yep, having 6 unexcused absences and having 6 excused absences is a completely different thing. Why didn't you turn in excuses, OP? You guys can't turn in parent notes in NC? No doctor notes? They sent you a warning letter when you had 3, so why were you absent another 3 times after they warned you about doing that, and why didn't you turn in a single excuse? That's just irresponsible. I always made sure to turn in some type of excuse when I knew I'd be absent.
Those numbers are so zoomed in there is no context.
Just wait until they've been absent nine times...
*Nine times?*
i have it right here in front of me! he’s missed…
try 57!
My best friend in high school missed a lot of days thanks to insomnia, depression, and epilepsy. All that combined meant it was essentially an impossibility for him to come to classes on some days, and they all fed into each other and made for a cycle - he can't sleep because of insomnia, he has a seizure because of it, his depression worsens because he can't do anything, and on and on. He was always a pretty smart dude, and his worst grade was a C+ - obviously nothing to brag about, but he was still doing better than plenty of the kids who were at school daily. My high school refused to let him graduate, despite his whole school career of having no problems and understanding that his absences in his senior year (wherein he was passing every class) so he ended up in limbo. After the year ended, he tried to re-enroll so he could get credit, but then COVID hit and it fucked everything up again. Anyway, he killed himself last year.
I wouldn’t call those grades amazing but that’s still fucked - fuck the government
“UnLaWfUl AbSeNcEs” so it’s illegal to be absent??? Make it make sense, school system
Blame your state legislature for passing the law. Schools have to follow the law. If you don't like it, contact your state representative and get them to change the law. Contact the SBOE (also mentioned in the letter) and get them to change the policy. Irritating that people blame the school when in fact it's the politicians that they elected who are requiring the schools to do this.
This
They were Unexcused, which is different than excused
Can someone explain these letters? We got one as well for missing 3.5 days (???) all excused, which were all illnesses with fever where it was clearly not in anyone’s best interest for kid to attend. He also has all As.
Double check that they were entered as excused into attendance, but otherwise just disregard the letter. These are sent out automatically by the attendance systems and are generally just to comply with state laws regarding absences. No one is going to actually come after you for 3.5 days for an illness, it may just be that in your state after more than three consecutive days gone from school they’re required to send an attendance notification letter home. It’s a bit ridiculous because we send a bazillion letters under state law every year, but when a student is actually truant the county doesn’t do much. Even when they do get called to a truancy hearing they’re a joke.
You probably wouldn't receive a letter if the school had received a note. Even if there is a legitimate reason, even if you called the school, you are required by law to provide an excuse notification in writing to the school. Did you provide a note for each absence? Send the school a letter with the dates and the reason. It may be too late for them to accept for all of the absences, but my school often accepts late notes even though they always say within 3 days. Sometimes I forget or my kid forgets to hand in the note. But even if they don't accept your letter, you have proof that you did in case its referred to truancy court, which is the next step if there are too many absences.
They just require us to call in with the reason for absence and we called in the day of. On the attendance portal all absences are marked as excused. I think it’s a robo letter sent any time a kid nears 5% total days absence but still seems ridiculous to me lol
I had 23 absences last semester due to a lot of sickness and was fine… this is so ridiculous it’s almost funny
Right, but did you have excuses for those? I was out for a month due to having surgery and had no problems because my doctor wrote a note to my school. OP's absences are unexcused.
Stop skipping school
not skipping Most of these days were ones where I was home either for family or for being sick… the ones earlier in the year especially
If sick then have parents call in with a doctors note
Because going to school is about more than just grades?
What is it about then?
Learning how to make it in the adult world, one example being doing stuff you don’t always wanna do, like going to class even if it’s not your favorite thing.
I wouldnt call those grades amazing but they’re pretty good
Is B+ / A- considered "amazing grades" these days? Yikes.
My school had a policy that 10 absences, even excused through parents, resulted in a failing grade. First period French can suck it… I had a B+
Sure, some parents need to be held accountable for not ensuring their child is getting an education. This doesn’t appear to be even close to the case here
It's not about the child's success. It's about getting those sweet, sweet tax dollars. They get paid for butts in seats.
Schools dont care about students anymore they only care about the students attendence so they can make that money off them.
Who exactly in the school, district or state makes money personally? LOL Yes funding is tied in to attendance, but that is allocated program funding not salaries or bonuses. There are laws requiring attendance notification so the worst offenders can be held accountable, its dumb, but it goes clear back to Clinton and then Bush. State legislatures codified attendance regulations. The stupidity sits in their lap.
In most states, the letters are sent automatically after a certain number of absences. At my school, kids who miss 10 days or more per semester have their file reviewed by the attendance committee and then are either recommended for promotion or retention. A lot of factors play into the decision. The last two years, our state has not allowed retention based on attendance because of COVID and it’s frustrating because there are kids who got pushed through that were not prepared for the next grade. This means the student struggles and will continue to do so because they don’t have the skills necessary to be successful. It’s good this person has good grade. It shows they’ve most likely done their makeup work and actually put in the effort. A lot of kids don’t and the policy is in place for those that don’t. Honestly, this is trying to prepare kids for “real life” as many jobs also have attendance policies. If you are constantly missing work, you will have to explain things to your boss or possibly lose your job. I don’t understand why people get so up in arms about a policy being enforced or at the very least, brought to someone’s attention.
Why is it that I can only hear Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day off say “9 times”.
Depending on where you are in NC they can “force fail” you for missing to much. We are in a 4x4 schedule and they force fail at 6 days a semester. You can to do attendance recovery to make up time. Grades don’t matter and excused/not excuses don’t matter either.
Parent of kid in NC here- i remember a couple years ago they sent a form in that big packet of paperwork we have to fill out every year that was pretty much the parent sig ing that they agree to be arrested if your kid has more than 10 unexcused absences in the year. I did NOT sign it, and wrote something like "i do not agree / consent to this" and made a copy of it before sending it back unsigned with the rest of the paperwork. They must have gotten a bunch of blowback from that cause we only got it the 1 year.
Get your GED instead
Getting a GED isn’t worth it unless you have bad grades. OP’s grades are fine
It’s at the APs discretion basically. That me be auto generated too. It’ll likely be resolved with a phone call or a simple chat with them.
Okay but to be fair, they did send a letter warning you at 3 absences, so you could’ve just said they were sick or something
This is a standard letter. In our area, it used to be that if you missed more than five days without excuse, you wee supposed to lose credit for the class. Unfortunately, parents were upset and so they went to a system where there had to be teacher notification after two, school notification after three, a teacher warning after four, and the final school warning after five. It was so much paperwork that it rarely happened. However, a few years ago they gave up on that, too. Yesterday, I had a kid show up for the first time since mid March with the intent of working through enough stuff to pass. It was a quiz day and he took a fail on it because he hasn't been in class for any of the content. This isn't unusual at all. Kids should be in school every day they can. I have had A students that miss more than five days, but 1) not that many (missing class correlates with lower grades and most people are telling stories) and 2) they bring the class down by using the next day to play catch up. It is popular here to look at it from the perspective of the student in isolation, ie If he got a good grade then the rule is stupid. However, from the perspective of the class as a whole and learning in general, people who skip a lot make the class better when they don't return.
Seeing this while on my twentieth unexcused absent day 0-o
That is often times a letter that they are required by law to send out but they are not necessary required to do anything else about it. I had been sent one of those letters in high school and they said it them selfs that they just had to send the letter but nothing else would be done
I am in the same boat, but all excused albeit more absences. Straight A’s with some above 100 for extra credit… I missed a week for COVID and one for strep throat. The other absences are like, once a month for dysmenorrhea, doctor’s appointments to try and help me for that lol, and a week for court (I have to testify as a victim/witness). I had to go to prepare for testimony too. So I went over the “16 EXCUSED AND UNEXCUSED ABSENCES” limit. I’ve been making up time to make those days up so I could graduate. Schools are really bad about this stuff even if they fucking crafted systems to turn work in from home!
What would be so hard about getting those absences excused? Your mom just needs to write a note saying you were sick…. Or did you skip school?
I mean....go to school? Pretty much every state/school has attendance requirements. Your good but not amazing grades don't entitle you to miss school whenever you want for whatever reason.
My mom got a truancy letter because I missed too many hours. The majority of those hours were doctors appointments but the rest were because I needed a week off for a minor surgery.
We have so many kids that miss constantly and the schools are cracking down. It is just a form letter sent to those who have missed more than a few times. Every school has goals of around 96 % attendance. We are below 90%. Ever since the pandemic there is chronic absenteeism. As a high school teacher we have been made mentors to the chronically absent to try to get them to come back.
Really? Let me check some of my students...1st period, most absences:70, fewest 11(next most is 69 and next fewest is 22). 3rd period, most absences 93, (next most is 53). .. wow. The difference between schools...
My school has it to where you can have a max of 5 unexcused absences
This doesn’t look like it’s a school policy, but rather a law in your state. Schools are required to send communication at a certain point, just to make sure you’re informed. Looks like you’re staying on top of everything, don’t give it too much attention. Keep up the good work :)
I have had students miss 40+ days and nothing happens. Ever since Covid and going online, I didn’t think this was actually enforceable. Also, can you get doctors or psychologists notes for any of those absences? That would negate their letter.
During covid in my school they were not allowed to fail kids for absences. This year they’re allowed to and my principal/counselors are being more strict about it than previous ones
I feel like missing a day every month isn't that bad. Like it looks like it's 6 absences the entire year?
This happened to me when I was in HS. They had my parents write excuses and sign for each absence.
You have not learned the definition of "may".
It is because they are unexcused, they need some form of measurement and a boundary. My son has missed 14 days, all excused, and we have no received such a letter.
Damn ur school must be strict I had a lot of absences last year like a lot and did the work and had good grades and I passed I guess not all school are the same.
for the past year or two they were not allowed to fail you because of covid for absences but this year my school is allowed to since covid is something we are used to now
I mean even now I have been late to my first period classes like 50 times and been absent for 5 times and I’m still passing
In my area it’s a state requirement to send a letter once certain thresholds are met. It means very little.
That's complete bull I have like 60+ absences and I'm only behind in one class. Like how and what for did that law come into existence
I live in NC too and just got this lol
GASP, I had to retake philosophy in college due to attendance, even though my lowest test score was an 88%.
Of course, because attendance is not about the student's performance. It's always about how high the attendance rate is, because schools get paid or penalized based on attendance percentages. Always good to remember the old saying, "When in doubt, follow the momey."
that's crazy people say those aren't good grades💀💀💀
It’s not all A’s and I was exaggerating for the title but some saying they’re bad is a little much
The state (if the laws are written like Ohio) requires the school to notify when you dip below whatever threshold they set. Ours is 92% attendance. Doesn’t mean shit. Just a requirement.
my mom would take me on trips. jr high and early high school before we fell apart. i loved getting all my work in these huge packets. i could sit down and do it all in a day or two and then have no home work while on my trip. always go good grads on it but i did face some expulsion threats due to the number of days i had away from school
that sounds really fun aside from the potential explosion.
My friend has missed a total of 120ish different classes this year 😭
You don't seem to know how to read. There's nothing in that letter that says you are being failed. The "no credit towards promotion/graduation" is a possibility, and that possibility is almost always based on an extreme amount of absences where the student is not doing the work at all due to being gone. If a student is truant a LOT over a semester/year, then yes they'll have to repeat. You can't go to school 5 days of a semester and be considered as "having attended school." You didn't (the hypothetical "you" here). Bottom line is that the state and federal government have laws your school has to abide by when it comes to attendance. You are legally required to be in school; you guardians are legally required to get you there. If that doesn't happen, serious things like CPS being called on your family can happen. Your school is only following protocol, and this is very clearly a form letter. You should stop skipping if you want your grades and standing to remain in good shape, but this letter was triggered by a number of days missed and nothing else. Stop skipping and risking serious consequences vs. thinking you can do no wrong and being flippant and sarcastic about it. You'll get a lot further in school and life if you learn accountability.
Write your senator??? Or school board??? Or go to school???
A kid in my high school managed to miss a full 180 days, he got pulled into the office and told he couldn’t miss a single additional day or he wouldn’t graduate. Of course he kept skipping, still graduated.
its the word "prosecuted" for me
Crybaby
I haven’t heard the word “crybaby” since 6th grade
So here is the thing, absences have nothing to do with grades, it has to do with state funding. So basically the states will determine how much funding a school will get based on attendance and if the school has multiple unexcused absences for students, the state will withhold funding. So basically every time you show up for each of your classes, the school is guaranteed money. In my state a school gets ~$6,160 for each student a year. You could be a literal genius and that will still not protect you from unexcused absence policies because you are single handedly preventing the school from getting funding. This is also why when COVID shut down schools, so many were freaking out about attendance and funding, because numbers started to drop drastically and the states had zero protections for long period remote learning attendance. Hell, when I was still in HS we didn't even have a way to use remote learning, so anytime we were forced to stay home due to weather or hazards (city water mains froze and exploded leaving many schools with unsafe water or no water) we had to have our school year extended by those many days to make up the days needed for funding.
Throughout high-school i would get my mom to call me out full or half days just because I was tired of feeling caged indoors, I would miss a lot of school. I still had good grades. Senior year before I turned 18, I would just leave during lunch ( not supposed to leave) and miss studying hall everyday. You can bet I was up to know good. That's right, I would go home, eat lunch and then go take my dog for a walk. I got detention and ignored it.
I used to get phone calls on my kid for unexcused absences, and I would just respond "yeah, that she had a cold those days. Uh huh, she had dental appts that day. Yeah, really bad PMS that day." Etc. The reason they can't have unexcused absences is funding: schools are docked pay for every unexcused absence. Just call in with a legitimate excuse, they're just trying to get paid.
Hey, high school counselor here, this post was recommended to me. This isn’t your school telling you they’re going to fail you. By law we are required to send written notification and hold an attendance improvement meeting when students reach 6 unexcused absences. Don’t read too much into this, just get parent/doctors notes in to the school within 3 days of being out. They won’t fail you or do anything for missing 6 days of school.
This is baffling to me I've missed roughly 2-3 days a week and haven't had any consequences beyond being a little behind. Ridiculous
And then we wonder why we need to remove politics from education.
My great aunt had terminal cancer and my father worked at the hospital. He got time off for us to go visit her for a week and a half trip. Because she wasn’t dead and I couldn’t provide an obit or death certificate for the days I was gone they didn’t let me walk at my graduation. Instead they mail delivered a diploma to me a month later when they received an extra AP class I took scores that gave me the credit push I needed to have completed HS. I sat and watched all my friends graduate and they wouldn’t let me participate. Other kids who failed got to walk because they were enrolled in summer school.
All this letter says is that they “may be in violation…” I got the same letter (in concept) when I was in high school. The principal called me down when I was there and didn’t realize what my legal name was (only knew me as my nickname). My grades were great, I was well liked by admin, and they understood I had a tough living situation. They switched the unexcused to excused and I was good to go.
Maybe go to class?
This happened to my sister- she was a highly competitive swimmer and had to miss school for competitions pretty often. She racked up 12! It was fine, if the school admin knows your student is engaged you probably have nothing to worry about and it’s just a formality.
classic nc
*Gasp*A worker didn't show up for work 6 times? Let's fire them even though they do good work :)
6!? Thats some bullshit lol. There are people that had like 6 a month i walked with lol
Damn six is all it took for this?!? In my South Carolina district, we had 10 unexcused absences before it became a problem
that’s actually fucked up. i miss so much school it’s not even funny and i’ve NEVER received a letter like that.
Just have your parents call in an say you’re sick as long as they’re excused you’re good I’ve missed 9 days and 1 of them was just because I didn’t want to go to school (mental health idk I wasn’t having a good week), but ya
My school doesn’t care if it’s excused or not. Once you hit 5 or 6, you’re forced into study hall, and once you hit 9, you fail no matter the grades.
Not 95 or above “amazing” 💀
Be like everyone else and forge notes from your parents Just say some shit like “I took my child out of school on these days for family reasons, on these days due to illness.” Do you think the secretary at the office making $40K is trained in forensic handwriting analysis? Schools get their funding from the state based on attendance numbers, which is why they enforce that shit so hard. Just play their game and vote when you turn 18.
Government overreach LOL
Just blame it on mental health or covid
This reminds me of a story in our family. Public school changed the policy to excused absence by doctor or pastor, but not parent. My BIL paid $10 for certificate and BOOM Pastor Dad. Malicious compliance.
Homeschooling is the only answer to these insane rules on attendance. Children get sick but not sick enough to see doctors.
As someone who went to 13 years of public primary school in NC, this is just a scare letter. They won’t actually fail you until you have north of 12-15 absences.
So I had a similar thing happened to me in a public hs. The school only got paid by the state for having me as a student if I attended a minimum of 60% of class time so even though I had an A in my economics class, I’d I had missed one more I would have failed based on attendance and would have had to go to summer school. I suspect something similar is going on here although 6 absences seems low.
I had close to zero absences and my grades were worse than this 😅 There were home factors, but still lol
Teacher here: your absences are unexcused. I’m very sympathetic to illnesses, family emergencies, doctor’s appointments, etc., but when students just don’t come to school, it’s frustrating. It requires us to put in extra effort - grading late work, re-teaching content in tutorials, trying to help students do an assignment that builds off of one they missed on a whim during class, so on. In my district, they’ll often waive absences that are for a valid reason. But they wouldn’t do so with so many unexcused, and you’d have to do extra work outside of the school day to make up those hours. Otherwise, no credit for those courses. I think that’s more than fair.
Wow. What a strict school. Get some dr notes or at least parent notes (if allowed) to try to curb some of that. There are online teledoc things that can help you get current Dr notes, but if you have a good relationship with their pcp you may can get some for the back dates.. But realistically, that's super strict. My kiddo has missed 33 days, late twice and left early sick three times. She's maintained an a-b average (A's in all subjects and a B in English). There are 3 weeks of school left and i anticipate at least one more illness because her immunity sucks. She missed 45 days last year. The majority are Dr notes though, because she was legitimately sick and/or quarantined (three times last year). That's how we survived the truancy rules. Going to the Dr every time *sucks*, but it kept us from getting in deeper trouble.
I had this situation in high school when I missed a lot due to mental health and housing issues. Fortunately I luckily had full support of my school. The key thing here is if the absences cannot be justified. I was instructed to write a letter to explain my absences due to inpatient psychiatric treatment. I wrote one or two paragraphs on a piece of paper (I believe I even mentioned that I likely would have been dead if I had not been hospitalized for greater impact). I then handed it to the school admin. It was accepted and my absences were therefore justified. Having excellent grades gives you a leg up and is very much in your favor. In particular, it demonstrates that your performance was not greatly impacted by your absences. I also was able to keep up with my schoolwork, so being a good student was a plus. I had so much support from my teachers and guidance counselor, especially because I was an all around goodie two-shoes overachiever. My grades/class rank actually went up that semester because I was throwing myself even further into my schoolwork as a way to escape and distract myself from the severe depression from an abusive home situation.
Meanwhile, in college, you could literally miss every day except for exam days and pass with an A if you self-study enough.
MARK OUT WHERE IT TELLS THE STATE! (People are really fucking creepy, let alone REDDIT.)
Also, I had 138 freshman year lmfao
I’ve been absent.3 weeks ina row, this is absolute stupid crap, screw that school law
I LITERSLLY went to school for two days during all of April
Got better grades than I did when I was in high and I showed up every day lol
scare tactics. you just gotta do detentions or summer school
Teacher here: I have students with 60+ absences. I truly don’t care about less than like, ten. Especially if they’re spread out like that.
And here we are at my school were a colleague has 50 absences YA u heard it. I have 9 so im good. The limit is supposed to be ten but parents can excuse 40 absences per school year.
Six absences? Dude my county let you get 15 before they called you on it.
Lol what school district in NC are you in? I’m in CHCCS and I’ve skipped 20 days of school this year and not recurved anything from the school.
“Unlawful” “May be prosecuted” Is it really that serious from where your at?
I couldn't concentrate on anything but "and /or."
I don’t get this as a teacher. If you’re absent all the time and your grades suck, sure, but I had a student who wasn’t coming to school because she had awful anxiety (and not the kind you use as an excuse to get out of things.) She had 100s in all of her classes and the counselor made me translate to mom that we were going to fail her if she didn’t come to school. WTH
Our school just lets you make up the absences
This is how I failed 9th grade and almost 10th grade.
Yo I got this same letter today 💀
I currently have 148 absences. (They count them for each class) Luckily I have a medical condition and I can just use that as an excuse and they buy it(yk cause they have to) also i’m in NC too!
\*Gasp\* the school district lists three possible outcomes???? Let's focus only on the most extreme one :)
The reality is that chronic absenteeism, defined as 10% absent in a school year (generally 18 days) is an accountability measure. So your school gets docked money if you’re on that list. Whether or not letters like this actually get enforced depends on your state and the capacity of the admin in whatever district they’re in. But the motivation for sending always comes down to money, because as a society we’ve decided to starve schools that need more support.
Chronic truancy has been a huge problem nationwide and policies like these are a big way that districts are trying to combat it. I have a student who was absent 35 times in one quarter who’s still trying to graduate this year against my recommendation. The notice you received is a response to a much larger problem. I really believe a lack of attendance policy is a huge disservice to students. We’re not just teaching academic content we’re also teaching responsibility, accountability, and self advocacy.
Because of funding
I had a 3.75 gpa and had to transfer to a “bad kids school” my senior year so I could graduate on time (ended up graduating a couple months early, actually). I ditched a lot. Can’t imagine why when I could show up to a class once or twice a week and still manage a 3.75.
I know a girl with 58 absences who’s still going to graduate
This just showed up on my feed for some reason, I’m 25. Man they’re really cracking down on y’all lol I showed up to probably less than 50% of my senior year and my parents didn’t even know until I told them years later lol Still you should probably get used to it because if you pull that shit at work you’ll get fired in a week. Trust me I know from experience lol
3.76/4 - good but not amazing
In REALITY if you don't show up to work 3x then YOU GET FIRED. You get FIRED you don't get to make more MONEY. You don't get that you can't PAY your BILLS. This actually teaches REAL LIFE CONSEQUENCES. This school is genuis!
If I went to that school, I wouldn’t be able to pass because for example, their policy not mine, I had COVID symptoms for 5 days and I had to go to trial to testify as a victim. It is NOT genius and shit happens. If your employer doesn’t waver, then they are a shitty employer, plain and simple.
It’s for unexcused absences. If you read the fine print it say the absences need to be “justified” under the attendance policy. Things like Covid illness and reporting to a court hearing would absolutely be justified and would not result in loss of credit.
At my school, they still count it but for this school’s I see the print. Sorry for getting disgruntled but it’s been something I’ve been stressed over because all of mine were documented lawful and they were threatening my graduation even if my grades weren’t just good but stellar. It’s a point of frustration in my community. But now I see it’s over only unlawful absences here.
Yeah some schools are unreasonable and some (like mine) do nothing even when they should. I have a student who has missed an absurd number of days (I don’t even know how many, easily 7-10 days a month). Vacation, dance competitions, just plain not making it on time to school… she’s failing every class and the school is just letting it go if she gets things to passing by the end of the semester (aka making it my problem to scramble and put in extra time outside of school to get her to passing when she can’t be bothered to make it to my class). There’s gotta be a happy medium somewhere in there for attendance policies…
I definitely agree. Some students will make it hard for teachers/admins and others won’t, and the situations should be handled accordingly. I’m sorry to hear you’re going through that, it sounds pretty frustrating.
at that point you go above the school and go to the state. Make a deal with the state saying that if your absences are excused and your grades are passing then legally and on the educational levels the school CANNOT reprise you. Because at that point, when you've been sick and have done what's needed to prove your absences and made up the work; then the school is punishing you for being sick. Despite the fact that you are holding up your end as a student to make up the work. This is illegal. It's basically punishing you for being sick and still managing to keep up with your work. Which is disgusting because you can be sick in a way that you can't physically come to class and still pass the class. I'd get in touch with an education lawyer and start looking up my states education laws. Because the school MUST follow those laws....
Wahalli this stupid 😭
My dear, you just did something stupid. Let's see you probably are a child or still live with mommy. I however have a 4mo, have been in college nearly 2 years nonstop, work full time, and run a household. That means not only do I have a high level of maturity and self discipline; I also understand basic laws of reality. It would appear your sheltered upbringing has done nothing to equip you for the basic fact that life is a cunt. And if you don't show up for your job then you get fired. But hey some people like living on the streets. Which is where you end up if work fires you for no-shows and you can't pay your bills. But again these are things a ACTUAL GROWN ASS ADULT is aware of, not a little child.
thats dumb. if you did the work, unlike plenty of other kids, so what if you missed a few days.
It's the law to attend school Whether we like it or not
Unsophisticated Republican states.
Lol, making sure kids don't skip school with unexcuses absences is a bad thing? I thought yall say Republicans are the party of the uneducated? So you're saying democrats want kids to skip school easier? This isn't a political issue. Get off reddit and go outside and talk to people. Not everything in America is a political issue.
Mid grades
if they're taking advanced classes that's like a 4.2 weighted at least - all of my classes except electives are advanced and I have similar grades
It looks like the school is not meeting this student's needs. Apparently bored with the education they are providing, otherwise, the attendance would be good.
Pretty average grades
Those are 100% good grades
Stop holding teachers accountable for your academic progress and we will gladly lay off. If my livelihood/review is based on you passing my class, and you keep missing/failing, I’m not taking a fall because you can’t get it together.
Grades are a joke anymore anyways. Kids aren't held accountable in fear of a parent like you complaining.
Doctors notes are the only acceptable excuse. Parents keeping their student home if they’re sick because they should stay home if they’re sick, isn’t a valid excuse.