attendance/tardiness

[TR041]

My daughter is a senior in a public school in New York. She is in the top ten of her class, good kid, never in trouble. She was called into the office this past week and informed that she had three late to schools (since September of 01) and therefore would have to stay for 4:30 detention. The three late to schools were all because she was ill and she did bring in a parent note indicating such (she suffers migraines and sometimes the medicine takes an hour or two to kick in). The principal told her that a parent excuse is not good enough and it is an illegal absence. The principal indicated that parents will lie for their kids so they don't accept parent excuses for in-late. However, they do accept them when a child is out all day. Seems to me they are advocating taking the whole day off instead of saying good job, you came in to complete your work even though you might not be feeling 100%. Is this true? Can they tell a parent that their excuse is "not good enough" because parents of high school children tend to lie on the excuse (they do not enforce this rule with the elementary age children). Also, can I request to see how they marked my daughter with regard to state aid? I am interested to see if they consider her legal to recoup state aid and punish her anyway or if they marked her illegally absent and denied the district the state aid for her attendance. Just an added note, when I called the principal and told him this was ridiculous and perhaps they should take a serious look at her background because her gpa doesn't indicate an attendance problem, the principal told me that he was sorry I was so unhappy with his decision and there were plenty of other school districts out there for me if I didn't like this one. Please if anyone can help me out with this, I would appreciate it.

 

[JETX]

I am sure that part of this problem is due to the school wanting to get the proper 'student funding' from the state.

Most states (and I assume NY is among them) determine state funding that a school district gets from its attendance role. If there are 100 students counted (at the first count) that day, they get funds for 100 students. However, if 5 students are 'tardy' and miss that count (even if they show up later), the school only gets funds for 95 students.

I would assume that is why the school provides for a reverse 'incentive' (detention for excessive tardy) to get those students in class for the attendance count. This has NOTHING to do with age, grades or 'good conduct'. This has EVERYTHING to do with funds. After all, schools are businesses also.

And, you would very probably run into this exact same problem at ANY publicly financed school that you might consider.

 

[TR041]

I know the funding issue, my concern is does the school district have the right to state a parent's excuse is not a valid excuse in instances of lateness yet will accept in instances of full day absences. It also seems to me that they are discriminating against the high school age kids since they do not require the same with the elementary age. If a parent can write in for a young child, is it legitimate to say that because your kid is older therefore you must be lying and we will not take the excuse? I can't help but think that this is not an acceptable practice. I obtained a copy of a NYS Attendance form submitted by schools, on it lists legal absences and such requirements which indicated that a parent's excuse for an in-late due to illness was a legal excuse yet our school (which by the way does not have any policy stating this in writing, they verbally informed the children in September that this is the way it is being done. There is nothing written in any school regulation to date that states this is the way it is.) believes a child should be punished because they came into school late. Isn't there some type of requirement about forming policy within a school district or changing an existing policy of attendance by notification of the public and not through a verbal notice to the school kids the first day of school? It just seems to me that when a regulation or policy is new and is going to be implemented, there should be some type of notification or at least they should include that in the student handbook that I was told was "gospel" to the students. Thanks for any assitance

 

[Kittyscorpio]

TR041
thats an interesting sitution with your daugther. My senior year my school did somewhat that kind of rule in our school expect for the fact that we had 5 late excuse aslong as it wasn't after 8am and if it was our parents had to come into the school with us or call and give us a note. Just feel lucky your daugther's school isn't inforcing if she miss 10 or more days she won't graduate.