NO WONDER PEOPLE SEND THEIR KIDS TO SCHOOL SICK!

[dman12323]

Last week, we only had school on Friday (Mardi Gras). Naturally my 5M got sick. Took him to the walk-in on Saturday--no flu, just a virus. Fever, barking cough, runny nose. He ran a low grade fever last night, so following the 24-hour rule, of course I kept him home. Kept home 6F, too, because same symptoms.

So, I do my due diligence and email teachers, asked if it would be excused. OF COURSE NOT WE NEED A DAMN EXCUSE.

FIRST OF ALL, walk-in clinics don't give excuses on Saturdays. SECOND OF ALL, I'm not taking them back to the doctor for a virus that is likely on its way out. I just spent $100 at the walk-in, I'll not fixing to pay another $40 co-pay ($80 for both) at the pediatrician...FOR A FUCKING SCHOOL EXCUSE. (I did email the ped's nurse explaining the situation and am waiting for a response.)

DoNt SeNd YoUr KiDs To ScHoOl SiCk BuT iT wOnT bE eXcUsEd UnTiL yOu PaY tO PrOvE tHeYrE sIcK

UPDATE: The pediatrician excused them! Suck it, bullshit truancy laws!

 

[katrina2017]

@dman12323 This is completely bonkers to me. An excused absence in my kids school is one in which I called and said “he won’t be in”. I excused him, I’m his parent, I get to make that decision.

I had a discussion with an American friend about truancy laws once and they completely blew me away. Yes, attendance is important. But -I- get to make those decisions.

 

[optimis2]

@katrina2017 This varies from state to state and even county to county. I only know that truancy is a thing because of friends getting picked up for it in high school in Manhattan. I came to the conclusion that if I was going to skip school, I should be quiet about it. Wouldn't you know it? If you're not being an asshole, the police don't care that you're skipping school.

 

[katrina2017]

@optimis2 This particular friend lives in a place that if your kid has too many unexcused absences, the parents will get fined and in some instances jail time.

This is 100% insane.

 

[dee1720]

@katrina2017 That’s how my school district was too. I don’t think it was ever really enforced though. Myself and several others skipped more than the allowed number of days in high school. Nothing ever came up it, except a note sent to our parents about our unexcused absences and what “could” happen. (Fines, can’t walk at Graduation, jail time, etc). To be fair though, that was in the early 2000s, east coast USA.

 

[jakefromsf]

@katrina2017 This is how it is in every state we lived in. We are now in a state that at least there are unlimited doctor excuse notes, five unexcused, and five parent. Last state, it was five of each max.

 

[apocalypes7]

@optimis2 In middle school I got detention for being absent or late. They mixed my file up with another student. It was the worst years because that student was a trouble maker but I was a goth, thus treated like crap.

 

[samsunguser]

@katrina2017 I'm in the US and all I have to do is send a note to school for it to be excused.

 

[aaronroberts327]

@katrina2017 I'm in the US. An excused absence in our school requires a note the day after explaining the absence even if you sent a note the day prior or called in to the attendance line.

Anything past three days requires a doctor's note.

 

[joelburntout]

@katrina2017 Yeah it does vary from state to state, but all students in the US public education system get funds from their states and the fed for attendance. All students must accounted for and must attend a certain number of days to be funded. That’s why schools and districts are bat shit crazy about excused absences and such. I agree with everyone here though, it should be parental decision regarding absences.

 

[summerw]

@katrina2017 At my high school, we needed the doctors note if sick, and if we missed school due to a funeral they wanted a copy of the death certificate.

 

[suterron]

@katrina2017 This blows my mind too. Where I live, it's totally normal to take kids out of school to go on vacations, or for any reason at all, especially in the younger grades. I keep my kids home when they are sick and I am grateful others do too. And for what it's worth, for kids who don't struggle, I don't really think attendance is that important at all until they get to high school. What they cover in the younger grades in a day is shockingly little!

 

[wowo]

@suterron We used to be able to do this in England but we can't any more, I used to book our holidays (vacation) in May when the weather stood a chance of being decent and they weren't charging those outrageous August school holiday prices (in England is not uncommon for holiday prices to double during school breaks). They brought in a law to stop you doing it when our son was maybe 8? But, it was up to the school to report you, his headmistress booked our last holiday as unauthorised absence but didn't report it so we didn't get fined.

 

[redeemed20300]

@dman12323 As a Canadian this is completely bananas to me! What? We don’t have this up here, and if we did at least visits to the doc are free.
Is it.. all just a huge con to get you to pay more money to doctors offices? What’s the logic???
I too would also be so mad.

 

[dale_r]

@redeemed20300

Is it.. all just a huge con to get you to pay more money to doctors offices? What’s the logic???

Schools get paid per ass in seat. They lose out on $$ each day a child is absent. That's the motivation.

 

[redeemed20300]

@dale_r Whhaa? Really?? I had no idea.

 

[katrina2017]

@redeemed20300 Sort of. Schools get reimbursement based on total attendance. There are a few attendance census days, so schools have an incentive to make sure their kids are present particularly on those days. Students have to be present a certain number of days to be counted, schools get reimbursed for meal service based on number served so if they get a lot fewer kids than they plan to, they have wasted food and sunk costs.

Outside of that, a lot of States use attendance/ chronic absenteeism as a marker of school success, since chronically absent students aren't likely receiving the services they need and aren't going to do well in the long term. It's meant to incentivize schools to do outreach to parents and figure out WHY kids are absent, but often they resort to the cheapest, laziest thing, which is angry letters.

 

[jnat]

@katrina2017 Yeah, my high school had to shut off the plumbing when a water main burst. They kept us there until 12:30 with no running water or working toilets because they didn’t get their funding unless a kid was in school at least 4 hours.

 

[dale_r]

@redeemed20300 Yeah, maybe not all states but probably most do it that way. There's a mention of it here although the study is focused specifically on bullying as a reason for missing school and not illness, but either way the school lost out on that money.

The team also calculated the average amount of money allocated for each student each day based on average daily attendance funding (about $50).

Analyses showed that 10.4 percent of students reported they missed at least one day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe. This extrapolates to an estimated 301,000 students missing school because of feeling unsafe and $276 million in lost revenue each year in California public schools.

 

[porcelainsoul]

@redeemed20300 Not in Canada, at least not in Quebec, Ontario and BC for sure.