Truancy

Don’t know how the teachers and families are handling education during these times, but I read about Zoom sessions and other online training plus the home schooling combined with a few classrooms opened in the old schoolhouse.

School was confusing enough for me even going everyday to the same classroom, sitting in the same desk, using the same locker, having lunch at the same time and the start and stop of class following a bell. This routine was good for kids who couldn’t make their own rules and could barely tell time.

There was one teacher a year to start with. Then we changed rooms for each subject after an hour. You had to change your notebooks and find your way through the crowds before the next bell rang or get caught by the hall monitor.

Every class had a roll call and coming in late was noticed. If you were tardy too many times that becomes inexcusable. Coming in late disturbed the teaching process and disrupted the class.

If a kid logs on late for an online class, how to they pick up what they missed. Can the class be replayed?

What if you don’t show up for class? Your attendance card is marked missing and the class goes on. What about home schooling? If you don’t show up to the kitchen table on time? Where is a truancy officer to bring you in?

If you act up in class does the teacher mute you or just turns you off? How do you get back into class? Where is the principle’s office? Where is detention? Can you sit in the corner wearing a dunce cone writing “I will be good” 100x on the white board while been shamed by the rest of the class?

Does the teacher send the parents an email? Does the teacher have to have an online FaceTime session to find a solution?

If it is home schooling and your kids don’t understand three different grade schedules is it due to parent’s lack of training or understanding or problems with the learning procedure? How do you, as a teacher, simplify the course for the student’s ability to comprehend or change the curriculum for each child?

Who gives the test?

At home it could be a silent room with each filling out a preprinted form with a time limit. The parent could match the correct answers and fill out an alphabetical grade by percentage.

If online, how can you avoid Googling the answer? I’d think the administrator could monitor and make it as easy as filling out your taxes or ordering from Amazon online.

          Yet some kids will continue to be truant or disruptive or absent so when is the student suspended from school?