Ridiculous Attendance Policies...

I mentioned that Jake could only miss one more day this trimester. I figured the discussion regarding that could use a whole blog entry on its own! It could go into the category "Things that make you want to homeschool."! Our junior and high school has the most ridiculous attendance policy in our state...and probably in our country! To digress only slightly--I have always been against any awards for perfect attendance. They in fact, make me very angry. For a child to not miss a single one of those 180 days of the year....it means either A) your child is extremely LUCKY to have not gotten sick enough to miss a day of school or B) you sent your child to school sick BECAUSE of attendance awards (or policies) and have now likely infected several others in the process. So why would you reward anyone for something like that? I understand that they want to eliminate those days where you just "don't feel like it" and want to motivate them to suck it up and go....but can we find another way?

Anyway, this attendance policy that is in place. RIDICULOUS! They are not permitted to miss more than 6 days in any class during the trimester. IF they do, they lose ALL credit for any class missed more than 6 times for any reason. Excused, excused with a note from the doctor, hospitalization....it doesn't matter! I think that our trimesters are 8 weeks long.... I would have to check. So, if you think about it as almost a day a week missed --it can sound excessive. But what about a big illness? Flu? Swine Flu? Even simple fevers--because policy states that they have to be fever free for 24 hours before they can return to school. So you have to take 2 days for running a fever.... And now throw in those doctor appts, dentist appts., and ortho appts. that sometimes simply can't be scheduled after school because every other kid in town needs them after school? RIDICULOUS!

That's my rant. And now (with the day for the endoscopy) Jake has missed all that he can miss. We have several weeks to go. He will have to be one of those ones that goes even if he is sicker than a dog. Because of the school policy!