Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas has adopted another strategy to address the problem of chronic truancy in the district: recognizing students who are models of good attendance.
Vargas and Mayor Tom Richards personally visited the homes of four district families, chosen because those students and their siblings had exceptional attendance records in schools where attendance has been a serious problem.
About 3,000 students RCSD students have 100 percent attendance, and another 6,000 students have attendance above 97 percent. The students will each receive a decal that district officials hope parents will post in a window. The students will also receive a certificate for their high performance.
The district’s truancy reduction efforts will continue, says Chip Partner, an RCSD spokesperson. But the superintendent also wants to also recognize students who are attending school, Partner says.
On a different kind of attendance matter, the district is correcting a communication problem involving students who have received out-of-school suspension. It seems that city school officials have not been properly informing parents that they have the right to appeal the suspension to the school board. Parents are supposed to receive the information in writing.
But while parents have been notified of their child’s suspension, says school board member Van White, they have not been told of their right to appeal. White says it’s unclear how long the practice has been going on.
Thousands of city students received out-of-school suspensions until former Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard drew attention to the problem and pushed for a controversial overhaul of the policy. Had the letter to parents included information alerting them of their right to appeal the suspension, district officials might have spent an inordinate amount of their time listening to appeals.
White says there is no way of knowing whether the information about the appeal was intentionally not provided or an oversight.
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2013.
The suspension problem in the city would not be as severe as it is if parents began to behave more like parents, and enacted discipline on their kids instead of requiring the schools to do it. There are more than a few students who are remarkably resistant to behavioral modification and make teaching and learning exceptionally difficult for others.
If parents started disciplining their kids in elementary school and took measures that caused the kids to behave in manners more conducive to teaching and learning, the suspension rate would not be so high. The suspension rate is as high as it is, not because schools aren’t flexible and haven’t tried damn near everything they can think of (they have… I’ve seen a goofy number of different attempts, only a few with even moderate results), but because the students all over the district, for whatever reason, have decided that they have no reason to behave as scholars, or even allow others to behave as scholars.
The reasons are numerous and come from all sides of the problem. A few:
1 – Students realize their prospects for getting jobs that they can support themselves with is minimal at best, and that a high school diploma won’t provide enough help, and that college is an unrealistic goal.
2 – Students have been socially promoted far above their ability level, and rather than make the effort to either get themselves up to speed, or find someone to help them get up to speed, have decided to camouflage their ineffectiveness with unruly behavior.
3 – Discipline begins too lax at the beginning of the school year, and by the time the school catches up to what needs to happen, those horses are out of the barn and running for the hills.
4 – As stated above, parents are not effective enough at exerting discipline on their kids.
5 – The pull of the streets (short-term reward) is stronger than the desire for an education (long-term reward).
6 – Poor diets and too much X-Box mitigate against their ability to sit still for 40 minutes.
7 – Students are fed a diet of unhealthy media that impacts behaviors in very subtle ways, especially when there is little to counter-balance those behaviors.
This is obviously not a comprehensive list, but it begins to give one a sense of the struggle being waged. If a parent decides to appeal a long-term suspension, some serious questions need to be asked of BOTH side of the appeal. Something has gone tragically wrong, and the kids are the ones suffering. (Doesn’t mean I want to keep unruly kids in my class, though… I’ve got too many “good” kids who need an education).
Thank you for some insights, Yugoboy. I think the problem is more particular, though. Serious behavioral problems are found mostly amongst African American kids and the relevant parental critique is that the parents care very little about their kids (and thus such basics as discipline).
One phenomenon I have seen in working with kids is what I call “The Kiss of Death”. Every few months I will get one or more new African American kids from the same family to show up at my table and wanting to do some worksheets with me. Later that day, or perhaps the next, their parent (almost always a mom) will find their kids there working and awkwardly express gratitude to me (and other tutors present) that there is local tutoring/learning help available. That is “The Kiss of Death”. I almost never see their kids again.
The larger context is that amongst our tutors we do have many poor kids showing up regularly – quite a few with illiterate refugee parents – and they try and they behave (and it works). Behind it all they appear to have the essential ingredient – a supportive parent or parents.
Short of a significant change of direction amongst a good chunk of the city’s African American community – including getting on board with learning (which one way or another can help in the long run and feels good in the short run), RCSD is going to have an ongoing uphill battle.