I find it ironic that in the days after we issued a new attendance policy, illness and social events immediately took students out of school in large numbers. You would have to be living under a rock to be unaware of how bad the flu, strep throat and other viruses have plagued our schools lately. In fact, I am late sending this week's message out due to the fact that I had to get one of my own daughters from school today. Even our Superintendent had to urge parents not to send their children to school if they showed symptoms. In this case we wanted children to be absent to protect the others.
On Thursday, a social event also led to quite a few absences. Many of our hispanic students participated in a "day without immigrants" protest and stayed home from school and work. I learned about this early in the week and I have been torn on the subject ever since. Having worked closely with many undocumented students, I can understand how they and their families must feel recently. As someone that studied American History, I can empathize with their struggle as it is so similar to the struggle of almost every immigrant group before them. I can only imagine the internal struggle many families had deciding if they were to participate. On the other hand, the educator in me wanted these children at school. I want school to be sacred. I want it to be a place for everyone, all of the time. I think overall we do a very good job with that in our school. Like most schools, students align themselves in groups and cliques, but at our school they all generally respect one another. That has a lot to do with what you expect in your classrooms and in our halls.
The revised attendance policy was born in the idea that students were abusing the makeup policy and were absent far too often. When we look at problems like that, we only look at the data that is relative to the problem. We ignore the students that value school because they do not contribute to the attendance problem. This week's events made me see both sides. As the moderator of the school's social media accounts I get to see the posts from students, parents and alumni. I want to conclude this week's message with the following words from a Greene Central student (yes, we have a lot of good ones):
"My siblings woke up early, went to school. I woke up early, went to school...Mama woke up early, fixed my dad some lunch for work and dad left for work. Moral of the story, I still went to school on this "no immigrants day" because that was my purpose; to do so. That's what my parents came here for, a better education for me and my siblings and to make a move forward, little by little. Because every day that I or my siblings miss a school day is a day wasted. One last thing. I will not protest or march or anything because my parents crossed over. Instead, I went to school today to educate myself and so did my siblings so that my parents efforts in coming over are beneficial for them, for me and my siblings, for a successful life. I still support the movement."
