Many schools aren’t required to offer chronically absent students make-up work, and allow individual teachers the discretion of when and how to enforce this measure, which can hurt students’ grade average. Under the law, fines or jail time could be imposed, though the codes encourage schools and courts to take less punitive approaches. In Georgia, after five unexcused absences-in which a parent or a medical doctor has not provided an approved excuse-parents are sent a letter informing them of misdemeanor educational-neglect charges that could be filed against them. Some school attendance policies punish both the kids and their parents when students miss too many days. (The organization has recommended suspending the use of these guidelines during the pandemic.) That advice is similar to my daughter’s school’s policy. One of the largest attendance advocacy organizations, Attendance Works, affirms this behavior with their “ How Sick Is Too Sick?” downloadable handout, which says as long as a child hasn’t had a fever or taken any fever-reducing medication for 24 hours, and hasn’t had diarrhea or vomited in 24 hours, he or she should not stay home. And many schools’ policies are fairly lax about students coming to school with seemingly mild symptoms like a runny nose, sore throat, or cough. To motivate students, many schools award prizes for perfect attendance. Read: School wasn’t so great before COVID, either (The findings also showed that students who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, or from low-income households were more likely to be chronically absent.) Less is known about the effects of frequent absences on elementary students, but a 2015 report out of the University of Wisconsin at Madison evaluated the impacts of first-grade absences on third-grade standardized-test scores: Chronically absent students scored lower on the tests, particularly in math. Studies have shown that chronic absenteeism in middle school and high school hinders academic achievement and outcomes later in life, such as graduation rates and job opportunities. Schools place a premium on attendance because it is associated with academic performance. So I started keeping her home, which meant playing catch-up with her assignments later. I didn’t want to sacrifice my child’s well-being to meet attendance expectations. Even if her asthma wasn’t flaring up during an infection, I had to monitor her closely for signs of an impending attack and administer several medications at precise times throughout the day. But she has asthma, and it got progressively worse each grade, landing her in the hospital nearly every time she came down with “just a cold,” causing her to miss up to five days of school at a time, four times a year. She was permitted to attend school as long as she was fever-free without the use of any medicine for 24 hours. No sleepless nights.ĭuring my oldest daughter’s kindergarten and first-grade years, I sent her to school several times with a runny nose or a slight cough, just like the parents of many of her classmates did. We’re extremely fortunate that none of us have caught the coronavirus, but on top of that, our days and weeks hadn’t been upended by multiple colds or the flu over the past year. My husband and I noticed this with a sense of relief after months of virtual schooling. Staying home to avoid catching and spreading the coronavirus during the pandemic, for all the fear and anxiety it has caused, has come with one unexpected benefit for my family: My kids haven’t been sick once, not even with the common cold.
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