I was listening to an excerpt from Mayor Bloomberg's "State of the City" address on my way home from work, and I was curious about something he mentioned:"Truancy is the best signal we have that something is very wrong - and about to get worse. Unfortunately, too many parents miss the signal because they're never told that their children are skipping day after day of school. That's wrong - and we will fix it."
At the two schools in which I've worked, we were very proactive about attendance. One school had major attendance problems, though my current school has much better attendance. We have one LTA in my grade, and her attendance has been monitored to the point that an adult now accompanies her from class to class to make sure she doesn't make a run for it in the middle of the day.
But is Mayor Bloomberg's statement that schools, on the whole, drop the ball on reporting erratic attendance patterns to parents? I feel like this is something I don't know much about. Maybe my school's excellent attendance is the exception rather than the rule. I'd like to know if other people think that Bloomberg is right on this, or if he is exaggerating the problem.
What do you think?
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