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April 13, 2007
To the Parent/Guardian of: C.B.
We at Irvington Middle School routinely monitor attendance to insure our reports are accurate and to prevent any patterns of absenteeism from developing. A review of our records indicates that your child has been absent a total of 17 days to date. Please confirm that you are aware of, and are in agreement with, this figure by signing and returning this letter to the main office within five days of receiving it.
If you believe an error has been made or there are extenuating circumstances that need to be brought to our attention, please contact our attendance office so this information can be documented. Likewise, if your child suffers from a medical condition that will cause him to miss school on a regular basis, kindly submit a signed statement from his physician on official letterhead verifying that fact.
Thank you for your support.
Sincerely, etc.
What?!
Thank you for your support?
What happened to thank you for your ongoing cooperation and support?
As it happens, I do think C. "suffers from a medical condition that will cause him to miss school on a regular basis" (and thank you for asking!)
I have discussed it with the school nurse on several occasions, last year as well as this.
C. is acutely vulnerable to viral infections. What is a 3-day absence for other children is routinely a 2-week absence for him, punctuated by days when we send him back to school and the nurse calls us an hour later to come pick him up again.
This fact is in the records.
They could look it up.
update, from Ben Calvin
Schools are much more vigilant to attendance now that much funding is tied to the number of pupils in school each day.
My neighbor's public elementary schools stopped sending home kids with head lice, claiming that "new research" proved that it was not really very contagious.
Surprisingly they had to reinstate the rule after four or five epidemics of head lice swept the school.
thank you for your ongoing support and cooperation
thank you for your cooperation and support in this endeavor
today's form letter from the school
16 comments:
Perhaps I should mention that the entire school has around 450 kids.
Schools are much more vigilant to attendance now that much funding is tied to the number of pupils in school each day.
My neighbor's public elementary schools stopped sending home kids with head lice, claiming that "new research" proved that it was not really very contagious.
Surprisingly they had too reinstate the rule after four or five epidemics of head lice swept the school.
snort
"Dear, attendance officer with only 15 minutes of experience, would you like us to super-size your records for you?"
I don't know what the legal qualifications are for an excused absence, it may vary from state to state. Wouldn't surprise me if what the nurse says and your interactions with her don't count diddly and you were really supposed to take the kid to the doctor. I know this legal requirement presents a burden to some families in my area who have children with chronic illnesses...they are too sick to go to school but not sick enough to take to the doctor and there would be nothing the doctor could do anyway. The families say that they have to pony up the money for the doctors visit just to get a legally acceptable excuse.
Viva compulsory attendance laws. They have everyone's best interest at heart.
Funny thing is, I don't think that's a factor here.
We don't get any money from the federal govt (to my knowledge) and we get almost none from the state. (What we did get is now slated to disappear altogether or close to.)
I think this guy just can't get a handle on where he's working.
He's spent his entire career to date in Albany, I believe, at schools with disadvantaged students.
I'm pretty sure he treats Irvington parents the same way he treated low-income black & Hispanic parents.
On back to school night, when everyone was getting his first impression of the new principal, he did the chicken dance to a polka tune and had the kids present a skit on how to evaluate your school (4 factors: quality of school, quality of students, quality of parents, quality of community).
All super warm, super-friendly.
People were horrified (by the dance - don't know what they felt about the skit - can't imagine that was a hit, either).
At the end of the evening, on the dot of 10 pm, the principal announced over the P.A. system, "It's is now 10 o'clock and the evening's events have concluded. Please exit the building immediately."
Please exit the building immediately!
We just so happened to be sitting in Ms. K's class at the moment; I wish you guys could have been there.
That was not a happy crowd of parents to begin with.
Meanwhile he's got the school in lockdown. The kids aren't allowed to get up out of their chairs in the super-fancy, come-ceilinged, palatial cafeteria, and they can only have 6 chairs per table.
They've got kids circulating petitions about freedom; they've got some kind of elaborate ID-checking process at the bathroom doors; they strip-search parents before we get to come in the build.
No!
Wait!
That last part is wrong.
It just seems like they strip-search parents before we come into the building.
A friend of mine was at some kind of sports event last weekend; she says the middle school parents are seething.
no doubt
Basically he runs the thing like that old movie about the Bronx. You know, the movie with Paul Newman.
This experience is one of the reasons I simply can't bear to read pundits talking about how black parents don't show up for teacher conferences.
fyi, we're not sending a return letter within 5 days
nor are we soliciting a letter from our physician on her letterhead
or providing an accounting of extenuating circumstances
so....we're going to act kinda like all those irresponsible poor people who DON'T COOPERATE WITH SCHOOL AUTHORITIES
our child is doomed
so....we're going to act kinda like all those irresponsible poor people who DON'T COOPERATE WITH SCHOOL AUTHORITIES
Hey, maybe if you do that they’ll start treating your son like he actually needs to learn content, not those cool higher order thinking skills that the stinky rich kids are craving.
Well, maybe not.
Sigh.
I thought of you today. It was number 91 on Amazon's top 100 books. There's a section on helicopter parents! I wouldn't be surprised if you've encountered some of their tips.
Hey, maybe if you do that they’ll start treating your son like he actually needs to learn content, not those cool higher order thinking skills that the stinky rich kids are craving.
You're too much!
Hi Terri!
omg!!!!
I know that book!
I wrote an email to the publisher telling her that the online blurbs were offensive.
Never heard back.
Number 91, you say.
Check out page 9.
A good parent helps with bake sales and votes for the school budget.
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