Comments
dsarma t1_j9b786v wrote
Please do keep us posted. I don’t have a dog in this race, because I don’t have kids. I’m happy to listen to people who do.
WaltzThinking t1_j92nzd9 wrote
The absenteeism data published by NBOE barely scratches the surface of the situation. The high school kids get marked present for the day but don't go to their classes. With the excessive understaffing, including security guards, even with cameras there is no way to enforce going to class. Many children cut loads of their classes every day and still get marked "present" for the entire day based on the official attendance data that NBOE uses for their state and public reporting. NBOE has access to class by class attendance data and they don't make it accessible to teachers and don't publish it on purpose. I manually calculate 60-65% attendance daily in my classes and I call home constantly to inform parents. Even when parents know kids are not in their classes, what can they do? Plus, many teachers at the high school level have up to 220 total kids that they see every single day this year. This is especially true in hard to staff subjects like bilingual Ed. Teachers are teaching 7 periods per day, each period far exceeding the legal max number of students allowed in a class per state law. That means these teachers barely have 30 seconds per student for grading each week... and the NTU "president" wants them to call home for the 60+ chronically absent students on their rosters? The NTU should focus on getting more pay for dual certified staff to stem the staff shortages, not giving PSAs saying to call home more when that doesn't help.
iguessitsmee t1_j92r07h wrote
We’re having the same problem at the middle school level somehow as well. We’re being told that students who make up the work at a later date should be marked as present for that day. I see upwards of 400 students a week. I have no access to the attendance of other teachers so how am I supposed to know if someone is skipping my class? Not that I would have the phone number for security if I did!
Oranginafina t1_j92qp25 wrote
In my school all teachers are required to call home if a kid misses more than 3 days of school. Most call after 2. Even so I know of kids that missed more than 80 days of school last year. We need to start fining parents like they do in other countries. Threatening to take them to court doesn’t scare them.
GhostOfRobertTreat t1_j99036y wrote
Issuing fines to parents who are below the poverty lines doesn’t seem like it would fix the situation. I don’t know what the answer is but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to help.
Oranginafina t1_j993hj1 wrote
It might help deter parents who keep their kids home for no good reason. I’ve had kids tell me they missed school to get their hair done, because it was raining, or, my favorite, they had to go shopping with their mom because “she gets lonely when she goes alone”. On Friday I was told a kid stayed home because “he didn’t want to go to school”. He’s 7.
GhostOfRobertTreat t1_j993vct wrote
That’s a good point. I just worry if fines are the best tool. What happens if the parents don’t pay the fines? We’re not going to jail them over a school debt, right? Send them to a debt collector? Does it end up destroying their credit which is probably already in bad shape? No easy solutions here.
ahtasva t1_j9are6m wrote
If my math is right, NPS is spending 28k per year per student and half of them don’t turn up for school and a majority of those that do can’t read or do math at grade level. The school board has no problem with this and quietly rehired a superintendent who by all accounts has done little or nothing to remedy the many issues the district is facing.
When are we collectively going to face up to the the facts? After 5 decades of failure, has any leader been held to account for the failure of inner city schools? What we have is a crisis of accountability. The parents are not accountable; the district is not accountable; the superintended is not accountable; the unions are not accountable and the students are not accountable. Each party is given a pass by externalizing accountability. It’s always the same tired bogeymen; lack of resources, competition from charters etc. Every problem the schools face are not solvable because the cause lay outside the control of the individuals involved. The parties involved apparently have no agency and are completely at the mercy of the “system”.
Imagine if India or China or any of the Caribbean or African countries like Ghana or Nigeria being able to spend the equivalent of 28k /year per child on education; what do you think the outcomes will be?
We will never break free from this cycle of repeated failure until we come to terms with the fact that no change is possible for the unwilling.
GhostOfRobertTreat t1_j91h071 wrote
School board election is April 25th. We are one of a few towns to keep our elections in April instead of moving them to November to save money. Because they don’t want people voting in it. Turnout is usually around 6%.
Below are the important dates. We will know who all the candidates are a little after March 6.
Last day to file petitions (50 days prior to election), March 6, 2023
Last day for registration and transfer (21 days prior to election), April 4, 2023
Last day to apply by mail for a Vote-By-Mail Ballot (7 days prior to election), April 18, 2023
https://essexboardofelections.com/election-dates/