Government schools have become centers for grooming little kids. Want to sexualize your child? Send them to a government school. Need to make them haters and bigots—your government schools will meet that need. Want an education for your child? Government schools are not the place.
“Enrollment in kindergarten has long lagged below other grades — due in part to its optional status in California. But enrollment among kindergartners and transitional kindergartners dropped most rapidly between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years: 9 points and 15 points respectively.
Peterson said right now is a good time to teach parents that early childhood education is about more than finger painting and naps.”
Yes, the first grade is about teaching kids about sex. At the same time teachers force the kids to think about being a boy or a gorl—without telling the parents they are grooming the kids for sex.
I am shocked that the absentee rate is so low. By high school most kids know that classes have little to do with science or education—so why waste the time. What surprises me is that so many parents continue to send their children to schools that abuse them mentally and promote secrecy.
It is easy to stop this. For a couple of weeks parents keep their children at home.
Reaching kindergarten parents is key to addressing dramatic post-pandemic rise in chronic absenteeism, panel says
EMMA GALLEGOS, EdSource, 8/25/23 https://edsource.org/2023/reaching-kindergarten-parents-is-key-to-addressing-dramatic-post-pandemic-rise-in-chronic-absenteeism-panel-says/696511
Record-high chronic absentee rates in California show little sign of returning to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon, and data shows that’s especially true for kindergarten students.
Chronic absenteeism surged to 40% among kindergarten students in the 2021-22 school year, said Hedy Nai-Lin Chang, founder and executive director of Attendance Works.
Initial numbers from the 2022-23 school year aren’t much better, according to Erica Peterson, the director of education and engagement for School Innovations & Achievement, a national firm that tracks attendance at 356 school districts in California. Numbers improved 2-3 points for most grade levels, but they didn’t budge for kindergarten students.
California’s Dramatic Jump In Chronically Absent Students Part Of A Nationwide Surge
Enrollment in kindergarten has long lagged below other grades — due in part to its optional status in California. But enrollment among kindergartners and transitional kindergartners dropped most rapidly between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years: 9 points and 15 points respectively.
Peterson said right now is a good time to teach parents that early childhood education is about more than finger painting and naps.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunity to educate parents, especially of early and young learners about the critical foundational skills that are laid down in early grades,” Peterson said. “But I don’t think parents know that.”
Chang and Peterson were part of a panel of experts in a round table, “Chronic Absenteeism: How can schools get students back to class post-Covid?”, hosted by EdSource on Thursday.
With schools fully reopened, millions of students were missing school during the 2021-22 school year at a much higher level than before the pandemic. In California, the percentage of chronically absent students zoomed from the pre-pandemic rate of 12.1% in 2018-19 to 30% in 2021-22.
Nationally, the number of students who were chronically absent since the pandemic nearly doubled to about 13.6 million, with 1.8 million of them in California, according to national data compiled by Stanford University education professor Thomas S. Dee in partnership with The Associated Press. EdSource collaborated in the effort with an analysis of California data showing increases in nearly every district in the number of students missing what amounts to weeks of school. Chronic absence is defined as missing 10% or more of the school year. For students on a typical 180-day school calendar, this totals to about one month of missed school.
“I’m a little worried that sometimes people think that this was an aspect of Covid, and now that we’re through and Covid is endemic, it’s all going to go back to normal,” Chang said. “I’m concerned that’s not going to be the case.”
The problem goes back to before kindergarten. Attending preschool is one of the best predictors of good attendance in kindergarten, Chang said, but the preschool system took a hit during the pandemic. The lack of preschool slots to meet demand sends the message that early education is optional rather than essential. That is having ramifications for the K-12 system, Chang said.
School districts have used both federal and state Covid relief funds to address the surge in chronic absenteeism that has been especially acute among Native American, Black, Pacific Islander, Latino and English learners. Experts said chronic absenteeism has varied causes, and so there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Rather, solutions vary depending on the district and community’s needs.
Modoc Joint Unified School District in rural Northern California has spent money to train a nurse practioner who can better address the health needs of a community that is 150 miles away from the nearest major city and reliable health care. Some urban school districts have pooled together with other local agencies, including charter schools, churches and public transportation systems, to ensure that students can get to school, Chang said.
Home visit teams have been a popular approach, and one backed by research, Chang said.
“That individual one-on-one contact and trying to get to root causes of absences in each individual instance has been effective for us, and that’s what we’ll continue to do,” said Tom O’Malley, superintendent of Modoc Joint Unified School District. “The problem is obviously employees, and none of us have enough, right?”
With its limited resources, the district has made an effort to reach students when they’re younger and can be easier to change their habits, O’Malley said.
Millions Of Kids Are Missing Weeks Of School As Attendance Tanks Across The US
Peterson’s firm, which has contracts to work with 356 of the state’s nearly 1,000 districts, has found that districts that make a proactive effort to educate parents about the value of school attendance are able to reduce chronic absenteeism. That also means not waiting until a student is missing school to make sure parents know that their child has access to services, such as medical care or transportation.
Los Angeles Unified School District has made a big effort to address chronic absenteeism at the acute stage with child welfare and attendance counselors — and occasionally Superintendent Alberto Carvalho himself — knocking on the doors of students who have struggled with attendance.
But Ofelia “Sofi” Ryan, president of the Association of Pupil Services and Attendance Counselors in LAUSD, said that making sure that students and parents feel connected with school is crucial for getting kids to actually show up.
“We make sure that our schools are friendly, affirming, inclusive and schools that provide a lot of support to the families,” Ryan said.
The reopening of schools wasn’t felt among everyone. Chang noted that even though most school sites fully reopened for students during the 2021-22 school year, parents weren’t welcomed in.
Renee Slater, a teacher at Rio Bravo-Greeley Unified School District on the rural fringe of Bakersfield, said that the sense of community took a hit during the pandemic and didn’t come back right away.
“I think there’s been a little bit of a disconnect with school,” Slater said.
It affected not only students in her classes, but also her daughter, an honors student who was chronically absent. But she has noticed that it was easier for her daughter to catch up with missed school because she was already academically ahead and has reliable internet at home to keep up with her assignments. It’s been a bigger struggle for Slater’s students who were academically behind before the pandemic and don’t have resources at home to stay connected to school.
This year, her district began a new proactive effort to engage students and make them feel more connected to school. The first half hour of every Wednesday is dedicated to community-building and developing social-emotional skills — the skills that arguably took a hit as big as any academic subject during the pandemic. She calls the community the “first line of defense.”
“I have high hopes for it,” Slater said. “The kids were really excited about it, and so were the teachers.”
