<p>I’ll admit that the idea of taking a mental health day can easily be stretched. I’ve taken two in my high school career - one was after a full slate of AP exams (I just needed to give my mind a break, plus we weren’t doing anything in class anyway), and another was on a day where every junior was being offered the SAT during the school day (I’d already gotten the score I wanted, so I just stayed home that day). I took a pretty loaded schedule last year, and I didn’t see the need for more mental health days than this. Any more than one per semester just isn’t necessary, in my opinion.</p>
<p>For the record, the only class I’ve “skipped” this year was AP Euro, and that was to teach a lesson to the AP Calc AB class of the teacher I had last year.</p>
<p>If my youngest had missed school every time she didn’t have an assignment on time? She would have missed so much school during a couple of years, they would have sent a truancy officer to our house. </p>
<p>I can laugh about it now because it’s over. Now she does her work on time. But, I don’t think she ever cared about it much until SHE cared. </p>
<p>Both my kids prefer to go to school for social reasons. They aren’t sitter arounders. If they say they need a mental health day? They NEED a mental health day.</p>
<p>I very rarely missed school for anything but illness, but on the occasion that I asked to be picked up at lunch, my parents would do so with no questions asked. If I tried to tell my parents I was sick when I wasn’t then that would have been a no go, but if I was honest they didn’t mind as long as it wasn’t in excess-- I was sick often enough that I only had one or two allowed absences to spare. I never bailed on a test or a project due date, I never needed to-- I was always prepared without ever having to study anyway, but I did take a mental health day here and there and probably did get myself more time to finish an assignment once or twice. I was one deeply depressed and stressed out teenager. I don’t really think it’s anybody’s place to judge the choices my parents made. You never know what is going on at home. Rest assured that the students who skip are missing out while you are getting a superior education and let it go.</p>
<p>where I drew the line: knowingly telling a falsehood for my kid’s convenience. Your don’t feel well? OK. I trust you. But you want me to call in and lie so you can go to the beach on skip day? Nope.</p>
<p>Since we don’t live in an affluent area with a ton of privileged students, I’d have to say that our biggest problem would be parents non-collegebound students who don’t care if their kids go to school or not. To combat that, high school students who missed only one day of a class used to be exempt from taking a final. That was supposed to encourage attendance. Instead, it caused the students who cared to come to school when they were sick and should have stayed home–just so they wouldn’t have to take a final.</p>
<p>Now that rule is gone because parents complained that their kids weren’t prepared for college because they got all the way through high school without taking a final.</p>
<p>If you miss too many days, you cannot run for student body office and you cannot go to the prom as a junior or senior. We have one friend whose daughter competes at a pretty high level in equestrian events. She frequently misses Fridays to travel to events. Those horse shows are her ticket to a scholarship at her list of colleges (all with equestrian majors). But she cannot go to the prom because she has missed so many days. Yet, kids in school-sanctioned sports miss many days and are excused.</p>
<p>Helping your child to skip school to complete an assignment or miss a test shows a lack of integrity, IMO.</p>
<p>You know, Mafool, I really agree with that. Actually, when my girls have taken the occaisonal mental health day, I have simply said they were “taking a mental health day.” No repercussions. I suppose if the teachers are allowed to take three a year, they figure the kids can have one or two, as well.</p>
<p>But it could just be area specific. Who knows?</p>
<p>I always have a dilemma about this because of school policy.
I have “allowed” my kids to stay home when they were overloaded with work, but I have not written excuses for them.
However, our district has an unusual policy - if you have five absences during a quarter, and one of them was unexcused, you fail the class, even if the other four were due to a serious illness.
So - there is a huge incentive for parents to write false excuses.
Add to that the whole system of high school education where multiple teachers spring work on the kids suddenly - there is no syllabus like college where the kids know what to expect, and the fact that kids do not yet have the executive functioning to plan out how to do multiple assignments all due at once, and I find that I cannot be judgemental about parents who excuse their kids.</p>
<p>Wait…why are the teachers not penalizing a student who bails on class? If the kid shows up for part of the day, he can turn in the work before he leaves. And doesn’t the school have a policy on absences? At our high school, the number of permitted absences for other than religious observance, documented illness or school-sponsored activities is limited, and if exceeded, students don’t pass.</p>
<p>I will make an exception for senior skip day and I am not above pulling DS out to visit a college or two in April (since snow days eliminated MLK Day and now Presidents Day) but I would never let him miss due to an assignment. He has learned the hard way about procrastination and organization. </p>
<p>I consider senior skip day to the a huge exception, however, since it remains one of the best bonding experiences of my high school friends. My DS is a much better kid than I was and I would hate to see him miss out on this rather tame act of rebellion.</p>
<p>College visits: Frankly, I don’t know what I would have done if we hadn’t been able to work something out for that.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how many days were officially permitted for college visits; I think t was 3. This is a district where few students go very far from home. I met with the principal and explained that our son had several schools he wanted to visit that were 2 plane rides away; weekends were not sufficient. The principal made exceptions, as long as our son informed him in advance of the dates and the schools. Had our son not been doing as well in his classes, I don’t know that the same accommodations would have been made.</p>
<p>So, having been so high minded in previous posts, I must admit that, if the HS had not allowed the extra days for college visits, I might not have been so forthcoming. I’m glad I didn’t have to wrestle with that.</p>
<p>It’s been many years since my kids were in public middle and elementary schools, but I remember when my son “needed” to skip a Friday in order to go on a Scouting event where he had a leadership role. I had him tell all of his teachers in advance and get cleared by them as far as the work goes. He had to turn anything in that was due the day ahead of time. We also were expected to pay for his cost of attendance that day to make up for what the school district lost by his being absent. In return, he was given an excused absence but didn’t have to lie.
I think our school administrators did the same thing for kids who were in sports events- ice skating and riding events that were not affiliated with the school. I thought it was a good policy, as there actually are some good reasons to miss classes occassionally besides illness. But the district shouldn’t have to pick up the bill for a kid’s extra curricular and outside activities.</p>
<p>In many places daily attendance is quantifiable in money from the state to the district. I think in mine, every kid absent per day is about $35.</p>
<p>I don’t think we had any days off permitted for college visits. That would be an unexcused absence if your parents didn’t lie and say you were sick, and no unexcused absences were permitted. For the one college visit I went on, I had to miss a friday to allow for an eight hour drive, and I am pretty sure my mom called me in sick. Not sure what we were supposed to do otherwise other than assume I was not going to be bothered by a completely isolated, very tiny campus with arctic temperatures and nothing to do for fun but drink and commit acts of vandalism. (thank god we didn’t do THAT!)</p>
<p>^^I think $35 is about what we had to pay for missing a day. I am surprised it was so little, actually.</p>
<p>By the time college visits were an issue, my kids were in private school. No problem missing school for just about any legitimate reason- sports, trips, etc. The kids had to get the work in first, though, not afterwards.
Since we were paying the same tuition whether our kids showed up or not, the money wasn’t an issue.</p>
<p>As a general rule, I will not lie for my kids. They went to school every day, even Senior Skip Day. Some teachers deliberately planned tests and labs for that day so as to discourage truancy. Without a note saying they were sick, they wouldn’t have been able to make up these tests and labs, and would have gotten a number of zeros. So if I wasn’t willilng to give them an excuse, they couldn’t chance the possible hit to their GPA. College visits are excused absences, thankfully. </p>
<p>OP, I’d say the teachers at your school are too trusting. Most of my kids’ high school teachers told them that homework had to be submitted regardless of illness. If the student is sick, the assignment should be scanned and/or e-mailed from home. The only exception to this would be an extended or very serious illness, such as one requiring hospitalization. Once my D had to go in to school just to hand in a big project to a teacher before class started, and then returned home and went back to bed. If the workload was excessive, it meant sleepless nights for my kids.</p>
<p>I think I only made an exception once for each child. Both were situations where the workload was completely unreasonable, the kid had not shown any signs of irresponsibility, and yet could not finish the work without taking a day. I agree that sometimes managing the high school workload is very difficult because of the lack of syllabi and the occasional, last-minute big assigments (which sometimes are due to disorganization on the teacher’s part).</p>
<p>I don’t do it for my kids. My D17 asked me to do it for her once when she was a freshman, and I said no. She got the idea from her good friend, whose mother routinely will call her out of class so she can finish an assignment, study for a test later in the day or miss a quiz she’s not ready for. However, doing this was originally the mother’s idea, not the girl’s. Once my D realized I wasn’t going along with that program, she never bothered to ask again. Her friend gets better grades because her mother does this for her, but I don’t think she’s learning any good life lessons and she’d probably be better off learning how to get her work done when it’s supposed to be done. I don’t know how prevalent it is at D’s school beyond her friend, though. It’s a pretty competitive public high school in an affluent area where 96% of the grads go to college, so it wouldn’t surprise me if other parents are doing it to help out the GPA.</p>
<p>At my kids school, they have to get papers, etc., turned in on time, even if they are absent.</p>
<p>Sunday night son got home very late from a a weekend soccer event, and wondered if he might skip school like the boy he had traveled with. When told no, he said "yeah-yeah. … different families… "</p>
<p>in government class, there are 3 seniors taking ap physics (myself included) who take the class the next period. we all spend our time doing physics hw in the class because gov is a joke. one time, my friend didn’t realize that we had a physics exam that day and freaked out; he called his dad and told it like it is. his dad took him home. the funny thing is that the test was actually cancelled because the teacher couldn’t come to school that day. lol. and it’s not only him. i think a lot of people do it at my school</p>
<p>Eh, I don’t necessarily see a problem with this. At least, not in all cases. I know people who skip a lot of school. At the end of the day, they still have to perform on tests just like everyone else. If they can learn the material without sitting around in class or completing assignments exactly on schedule, I don’t see why we should rain on their parade.</p>
<p>Of course, good time management skills are very important. The line between strategically prioritizing actions and procrastinating is a thin one indeed. I don’t think too many bosses allow their employees to skip work routinely to finish up some undone paperwork.</p>
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