Skipping School, With Permission of Course

Every school year, students skip school. Students hang out at malls, home or parks. Sometimes students even work instead of going to school. Parents, administrators and truant officers fight this tendency, but it is a tough battle. Parents are now soldiering against schools. An escalating trend that schools fight is parents helping their students skip school.

Parents who help their children skip school fall into two categories. First, parents cover for their children who are late to school or do not have assignments completed. They call with an illness or car excuse. These parents damage the school's ability to discipline and maintain order, but they also hurt their children. Parents teach their children that deadlines are useless, and manipulating a situation is easier than the truth. The second category of parents take their students out of school for days or weeks at a time. Many parents argue that in doing so, they are providing an education outside the classroom, maybe even emphasizing curriculum. What students do on vacations during the school year might be of value. Normally, students visit a foreign country, grandparents or a parent with only partial custody. However, this situation causes harm to the school, more than the first category does.

The problem is multilayered. Schools have increased standards and created tough curriculums. The national core standards dictate what teachers must cover. School funding depends on students who perform well on standardized tests. Almost every day of a school year is planned out to meet standards, and thus better performances on tests. When a child misses school, sometimes for weeks at a time, that student will be behind. Additionally, schools that are instituting plans because they have not met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) especially suffer. Often times, schools striving to meet AYP analyze every student and test answer. When a student skips school, with or without help from his parents, he is punishing teachers and administrators who work hard to meet AYP. Standards and rigorous testing: this is how parents and society wanted it, right?

Not only will the child be behind concerning the overall school year and in regards to standards, but he also missed hours of instruction time that review cannot replace. When the child returns to school, he is to make up the work the class did while he was gone. This too creates more problems. Teachers are forced to catch up a student, either at cost to themselves (unpaid hours) or at cost to other students (less time). With parents' permission, students can skip school. Schools have very little recourse in regards to this situation. As usual, educating others about the situation may help, but for the current time, the trend flourishes. Parents must understand the reasons schools want students in attendance. Accountability must be for every involved party.

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