School attendance and parent's rights...

[nebenaube]

So my child has a dental appointment today. I plan to pick her up from school at 10:30. School calls and insists that in order to do that I had to send a note with my child then proceeds to act as if I cannot pull her from class for the appointment. They say that staff cuts caused a policy change and act like I cannot take the child out of class. What are my rights as a parent?

[hypocrisyandlies]

1. I'm a little confused...

The school called you, right? So they knew about you taking your child out of class today ahead of time?

[nebenaube]

2. Yes, precisely...

The woman was adamant that I would be unable to pull her from class. I informed her that I would be there to get her and that she was going to see the dentist. She comes back with "Well you can talk to the principle". At that point, I curtly informed her that I would be picking my child up to take her to the dentist at 10:30 and then I hung the phone up.

[hypocrisyandlies]

7. Well....

Then this sounds ridiculous to me. The way I see it, the note is only necessary to give warning to the school that your child will be leaving. This way, parents aren't just showing up whenever to get their child. But if you contacted the school ahead of time and told them that you were taking their child, there shouldn't be a problem. Unless they just want documentation? You should show up with a note that you are taking your child when you go pick her up! ;-)

[zbdent]

3. Well, from what I remember from the debate about censorship in schools,

a lot of talk was about how rights are somewhat surrendered once the person enters the schools ... also probably about "search and seizure" stuff, too ...

but then, you have a lot of people who applauded such measures now taking their kids into homeschooling (and then saying "Well, where's my reimbursement from my property taxes?" since their kids don't go there, but they enjoy their property values going up for selling the house when the school district is favorable to them ... :silly:)

[nebenaube]

5. Is this about the price of tea in china? n/t

[brendan120678]

4. I always needed a note to leave school early, from what I can recall (nt).

[nebenaube]

6. She's not leaving on her own, I am picking her up.

They can document it when I enter the office.

[Kali]

8. If some dipshit at a school tried to tell me I couldn't take my kid out

for ANY reason, I'd have a deputy meet me there.

[nebenaube]

9. Funny thing...

I get there and there's no problem at all. I guess the woman got the point when I told her that I would be there to pick her up regardless of their current "Policy".

[LWolf]

10. Of course you can take your child out of class.

I don't know what staff cuts would impact something like that.

You enter the school, stop at the front office, they call down to the room and the teacher sends the kid up.

How did the school know you planned to pick her up, in order to call you, before you even got there?

[KristinGarris]

11. Parental Rights

Is your child in public or private school?

[donco6]

12. Sounds odd to me.

And I've worked in public school for 14 years.

The only time I've seen this is when there's a custody issue - sometimes the non-custodial parent gets in a fight with the custodial and the school gets in the middle. But I don't know if that's the case here.

[Nevernose]

13. Taking kids out early is a HUGE problem at some schools

Especially at the elementary and middle levels, and worse in lower SES neighborhoods. There are peopel who will show up every single day and pick their kid up early, then wonder why their kids are failing. So sometimes schools begin taking draonian measures. Your kid's school is apparently on step one, which is making it difficult. Step two is telling parents that they aren't allowed to take their own children out of school. I once did after-school tutoring at one inner city school that had gone to step three, which is physicaly locking the gates so parents can't even get to the office during the last hour of school.

Don't misunderstand: I think all these are terrible ideas, and no matter how bad frequent absenteeism may be for kids or disruptive to classrooms, the parents can do whatever the hell they want with their own kids. But bad parents are the reason for the bad response from the school.