Indianapolis is My Home

search

Indianapolis is My Home

01
Jun

Kid’s Penalized for Parent’s Involvement in Education

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Education

Here’s a situation for you. How would you handle it?

Your kid’s class is taking a trip to Washington, DC at the end of the year as an educational experience trip. For a variety of reasons you’re not able to afford to send your kids on the trip so they don’t get to go. Now, they along with some other kids, spend their days sitting in a classroom doing nothing more than entertaining themselves with games and puzzles and teen chatter.

You find out about the lack of educating going on for your child and you decide to keep them home from school so they can spend their time doing something more interesting, challenging or productive.

Because you pulled them out of school, it’s considered an unexcused absence and your kids don’t get to participate in the annual "Field Day" competitions and instead have to spend their time in detention.

Sound amazing? Unbelievable? It’s actually happening to a mother and her kids here in Indiana, just east of Indianapolis.

You can read all the details about her situation at these posts where she shares the events and thoughts behind what’s been happening:

  • Expensive Class Trips and Those Left Behind
  • Punishment After Shocks
  • Open Letter to a Public School
  • More Expensive Class Field Trip Drama

    • What do you think? What would you have done? When is it okay for a parent to pull their child out of school for valid reasons? Should they always have to have a "valid" reason as viewed by administration?

    One Response for "Kid’s Penalized for Parent’s Involvement in Education"

    1. Matt

      June 6th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

      1

      I can tell you that this is not exceptional: state law requires the school to account for X days in class (or on class-activities). When a student does not participate in a class-activity, the school is still required to provide “instruction” or appropriate activities (I KNOW that this is part of the issue - was the activity provided of any real value?!?). But the requirements of the state law are more clear about the “in-class” than the “what has to occur [in class]”. When students are not there, the school is ‘dinged’ in the attendance performance categories.

      Should we petition the state to let teachers determine whether a student needs to attend X days (a)? Maybe parents should decide?

      (a) I *cannot* imagine that school districts facing deficites would ever let that factor into how many days it takes to get a kid through #th grade.


    RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI

    Leave a reply