What To Do With School Absenteeism

A month after I was at the middle school with the tardy kids, returned there for another assignment.

One of my duties this time was to call the homes of the kids who were absent to see why they did not attend school that day.

As much as I was shocked by the kids who were tardy, I was even more surprised by the number of the kids who were absent, which was about a page and a half, (the secretary told me that the list usually longer than that!?!)

• Amazingly, most the calls went pretty fast:

* About half of the phone numbers were disconnected (probably due to people losing their cell phone service).

• Some of the parents/guardians could not speak English, so it was difficult to ask them about their child, (there should be a bi-lingual educator on staff who should handle these calls).

 

• I left quite a few messages on voicemail, which at times felt like I was calling a club due to music and slang that I heard on the voice mails, ( Hey its C-Dizzle, you know what to do…Beep!)

But some of the calls were encouraging.

• The parents/guardians whom I was able to connect with told me they forgot to call the school to report the child’s absence and some asked me about the child’s homework.


• Unfortunately in other cases, the parent/guardian did not know their child was absent  from school that day.

When I was growing up, the very thought of me skipping or flicking school wasn’t in my vocabulary.

 I knew once the school called my home, my mom and then my dad would punish me swiftly. 

I know that kids skipping school is nothing new and this has been going on schools began, but having nearly two pages or more of children absent is quite frighteningly because some of these kids might not ever come back.

It’s hard enough to find a job with a degree, but to try to find a job with a limited education, makes the world a much tougher place to survive.

So why do you think so kids skip school these days?

What do you think parents and school systems should do to decrease these numbers?  

Should we give kids incentives for going?