In a new memo, my AP is telling everyone that since the school's daily attendance is 90%, we should have 90% attendance in our classes every day. He walked into a few classes this week and saw only 71% of the kids present. This is not acceptable! If kids are chronically absent or cutters, parents must be called. if we need working numbers we can call dean's office, nurse's office or guidance counselor. If all these things fail, we should just keep of a log of our efforts in case we are asked about this.
I don't have the energy now to fight with him and I also don't have the energy to do this. Even if I did, I refuse. How much more can we be expected to do? Does he have any idea how time consuming this activity is? It would take more than my lunch and prep periods and I only have poor attendance in one class. Imagine teachers with 5 bad classes! Besides, school ends in a few weeks. Even if I could get these kids back, what would it accomplish? They've already missed too much time to be able to pass. His memo of last week told us to fail kids with more than 10 absences. And, if they have been cutting, the probably know nothing and will just be discipline problems.
I'm guessing that this new push has something to do with school ratings. Again, school ratings do not affect me or any other teacher directly. We won't get bonuses or even thank you's. Even if they were given to teachers, I can guarantee that I would never be given one. I know the kids in my AP class nominated me for the Heart Award again this year. I know that Principal Suit will give it to someone else and tell anyone who mentions me that I am not the kind of teacher he is looking for. That is fine with me. I don't need the award or even his thanks. I need him to stop making these crazy demands on my work day.
4 comments:
There was an article in my local paper stating that funding was based on attendance. They are cracking down and referring all cases of excess absences to completely disintrested DAs to be prosecuted (but that's another story)
Your administrators have been out of the classroom way too long.
That's why the school hires and attendance clerk....whose job is to deal ONLY with attendance. Failing that, it's the admins job, if a kid is ditching class. You're responsible only for what happens when the kid's actually IN your class.
We have an attendance office. The school is so big that they are probably overwhelmed too. Our school finds it easier to push the work on the teachers. Many of the new ones are too afraid not to do this stuff. I can't blame them. I did lots of stuff I didn't like when I was a newbie also.
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