Our children are forced to go to school, 5 days a week, 6.5 hours a day. There is no time for appointments with doctors, dentists, therapists, optometrists because school hours are the same as doctor office hours.
Districts can require doctors notes. OSPI, the primary agency charged with overseeing public K–12 education in Washington state does not agree with requesting doctors notes for excusing absences as there are barriers for many that can prevent access to doctors. Still our districts choose to put this strain on families.
Maybe if you are lucky, you can manage to get an appointment towards the end of the day and only have to pick your child up an hour early. But in our school district, if you arrive an hour late or leave an hour early, that is considered a half day absence.
Schools are continuing to become more strict on attendance, and what an absence is. Excused or unexcused, if you reach a certain number of either then you will be in trouble. Your child can be considered truant even with excused absences. Even if you have a note from the doctors.
These are our children. Their safety, their health, quality family time should be everyone’s main priorities. There aren’t enough hours in the day to nurture our kids and make sure they receive the care they need when the school system has set us up to fail.
Attendance policies either need to change, or the hours our schools have need to change. There is not enough flexibility or wiggle room to work around what we have now.
If we implemented a 4 day school week, there is one day every week that we can use for the important things. For going to medical appointments, for mental health, for spending more time together with our children before they grow up and we grow old.
I know there are some counties that have gone with a 4 day week, and the results are positive. Students are less likely to miss school, are able to get better sleep, an over-all better work/life balance for teachers and students.
Our school systems in America need an overhaul. Our students are struggling. Our children are tired and overworked. There is more to life than work and school. We deserve to experience it.