Well, Ana got a note home about the prize(s) for 100% attendance

[conuly]

First off, stylistically this note is a mess. They have words in bold for emphasis. They have words in bold and italics for even more emphasis. They have words in bold and underlined for when they got bored with bold-and-italics. And sometimes, to really make a point, they put words in bold, italics, AND underlined! I should be grateful that somebody got through to them about overusing exclamation points. But I'm not!!!! They only have one at the end of sentences (yay!), but they still have far! too! many! of! them!

Now, there's two different awards for having 100% attendance (no lateness - reading is taught in the morning! By my estimation they have three different reading and writing lessons a day, so I'm not sold on the argument that missing one of them once is going to ruin their literacy for life.)

The first is an individual prize. Children with 100% perfect attendance (no lateness!) for a month get tokens! And they can pick out a prize!

Now, this is... not my thing? But whatever, they're committed to this little token economy of theirs. Except here's something that actually pisses me off. Every month, the class with the most perfect attendance gets a pizza party at the start of the month. (Because "this school is a serious institution of learning and students spend the entire day engaged in meaningful educational activities... except when they're spending the first day of the month engaged in throwing pizza at each other.)

Now, they give a sop to those of us rightfully concerned that prizes for attendance encourage children to come to school sick and infect us all. "Of course we understand that when a child has a fever they must stay home and be under the care of a doctor...." Except that children who are absent for a legitimate illness - something well beyond their control - are still penalized! So if a classmate is truly seriously ill, or if they lack a car and are *just* too close to the school to get bus service on a day of truly inclement weather, or if they have to go see their great-grandmother (conversation overheard on the way home. Friend's comment? "But she CAN'T see her, she'll miss the basketball game!" (the special prize for attendance next month). Message learned, apparently? 93 year old relatives aren't as important as cheap trinkets and basketball games and pizza), will the class have sympathy for them? Well, maybe. Theoretically, the school wants to encourage compassion and other aspects of character. But more likely they'll resent their classmate for making them lose the pizza party. (They'll also resent that one perfect kid who skews the average for the class next door. That kid will ALSO keep them from winning a pizza party.)

This problem could be alleviated by counting excused absences as being present, or by asking for high (and not totally perfect) attendance instead. Of course, that'd overlook what is probably the most crucial reason they want perfect attendance, something they curiously avoided mentioning.

They get paid based on how many kids are in class each day.

So really, it's not what's best for each individual kid, it's what's best for the school - full funds. And I don't blame them. It's not like their costs actually go down just because there's a flu epidemic in December, they still have to heat and light the building and pay the teachers the same. But it would be nice if they just admitted that upfront, you know?

Comments

[keeva]

Yeah, I hate this kind of nonsense. Basically it's a way of punishing the poor and/or disabled children.

You know, the ones who need those resources the most.

[conuly]

If you ask, it's sure to be "we're rewarding the other students" instead. But the distinction that seems clear to grown-ups isn't so clear to kids.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Viral illnesses are most contagious in the prodromal phase, before the body's defenses have marshalled against them. The symptoms of those illnesses are actually caused by those defense-mechanisms kicking in: fever to fry the invaders, mucus to flood them out, etcetera.

What this means is that any time a child is 'borderline' sick, temp up to 99, say, a little sniffly or scratchy in the throat, tummy not feeling so well, that child should stay home in bed! Keeping them home the next day, when they're well and truly sick for all to see, is too damn late, because they've already shed a host of happy live viruses all over their classroom.

This means that in a week or so, a bunch more children will be getting that first little tickle in the throat and slightly warm forehead that means the next wave of Virus Troopers is ready to move out in search of new hosts.

Unfortunately, if the child stays home from school, a parent either has to stay home from work or get someone else to stay with the child, and many won't do that until the child is too well-and-truly sick for the school to let her attend, because they can't afford to either risk their jobs or hire a caregiver.

That line about "Of course we understand that when a child has a fever they must stay home and be under the care of a doctor...." is an egregious slap in the face of all the working-poor parents with no health care, whose children are only ever "under the care of a doctor" when they require emergency service.

What the hell do they expect "a doctor's care" to do for a kid with a viral fever, anyway? Sure, it may increase the doctor's business by shedding happy live viruses all over his waiting-room, and if the doctor prescribes a fever-reducer, there's a good chance the kid will be a 'return customer' in a couple of weeks. But in terms of making the child well, there's not jack-shit the doctor can do, besides give the Tried And True Advice: hot bath, stay warm in bed, take vitamins, drink tea and eat soup. If one already knows all that, there's no point in going to the doctor just to hear it again.

Children who are staying home sick need to stay in their own beds, not be laying about on the couch watching videos or sitting at the computer, and if they're not too sick to read, they're not too sick to do their homework. Sick children get soup and crackers, tea and toast, rice and applesauce; they do not get ice cream, chips, soda pop or pizza. This policy, inflexibly enforced, will prevent children from 'playing hookie sick', because staying in bed drinking herbal tea all day is way too boring for a healthy child.

Children who prefer staying in bed to going to school are not healthy even if there's nothing physically wrong with them. The two major causes of school avoidance are bullying at school, and anxiety about a parent being harmed or disappearing in the child's absence.

I am very much opposed to classroom parties of any sort during school hours, even Mommies bringing in cupcakes for birthdays in Kindergarten. School is supposed to be school, not a social club. If teachers want to hold parties after school on their own time, that's okay, but not something to encourage.

[conuly]

Well, I don't mind birthday parties (and particularly not in Kindergarten or pre-k), but I grew up with them. However, Ana's school did, last year, seem to have rather a lot of parties - one every time they finished a topic, one every time they had their monthly assembly, one for every birthday and holiday.

[conuly]

Or, they participate in the Boxtops program to funnel money towards the school, I've posted about that.

And they give a party to the class which brings in the most boxtops. Except you're basically rewarding the kids whose families buy the most junk, because they don't record which class you're from if you order stuff online through the portal. So classes with many kids who eat real food, or whose families are too poor to get that stuff? They're basically being punished for not being able to get this stuff. Last year, Ana's class "won" - because one of the kids brought in literally a dozen times more than anybody else. How could anybody else compete when he brought in some 1000 odd boxtops?

If they're going to give a party, they should reward based upon meeting the goal for the year ($500 in boxtops) rather than an arbitrary competition with one class of winners and everybody else loses. Teaches cooperation, I'm sure. Huh.

[beezelbubbles.livejournal.com]

I was the kid who ruined it for everyone because I had asthma, and chronic bronchitis. Lucky for us, our school also gave pizza parties for honor roll, and so I managed to redeem myself there. In fourth grade, my class racked up so many parties that at the end of the year we "gave" them away to other classes, because it would have been impossible for us to have them all without having pizza every day for a month.
I do think it's good to give kids a sort of light at the end of the tunnel in school. There is plenty of time for soul crushing when they hit the adult world. Even then, in my horrid evil corporate job, we still got cake once in a while.

[conuly]

Better for the schools to be designed not to be totally ebil in the first place rather than to try to pretty it up with parties, right?

Ana certainly enjoys school, and it seems different from how it was when I was a kid, although I don't know enough about their days to know that.

[beezelbubbles.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I mean, what's the point of making kids hate school for being boring and monotonous? Odds are good they'll start thinking of learning as boring and monotonous.
My daughter isn't anywhere near school-age, so I have a while before I have to start personally dealing with this stuff. I think really, as long as they're learning, school should be enjoyable. We'll still probably be doing a lot of supplemental learning once she is in school. (And pre-learning until then.)

[conuly]

What your child does before school starts isn't pre-learning, it's learning. And very important learning too. We do no favors for kids by acting as though academic skills (readin' and ritin' and rithmatic) are the only ones that "count".

[leora.livejournal.com]

I am unbelievably glad my school had no such policies; I was disliked enough already as a kid.

I don't know what my absence rate was in Elementary or Middle School. Partway through High School I started to pay attention when a teacher made a comment about me being absent yet again. I was so used to frequent absences; it was just life. Once I paid attention I noticed that there was ~never~ a school week where I was in class for all 5 days of the week. Most weeks I went for 4, some weeks I went for 3. I had chronic migraines and was just generally sickly. However, I learned the material and kept up. As far as I know, my schools simply faked my attendance records and I was recorded as having no more than could legally let me graduate each year.

At some point I simply stopped bringing in absence notes when I realized that absolutely nobody cared about me bringing them in.