Managing Absent Work

Hey teaching friends!  School attendance is a tough topic because many times chronically absent students aren’t out of school by choice.  

Sometimes (at least in primary school), the problem falls to the caregiver who may not be getting the child to school on time – or even out of bed themselves.  

That is a tough situation for everyone.

“Janet” was always late. Every day of third grade.

I met with parents for a regularly scheduled parent teacher conference and she was on time for 2 days after, then late again every day after that.

The thing was that Janet’s family lived across town.  There were 12 people living in the house and the parents worked all sorts of crazy hours trying to make ends meet.  If someone overslept and missed the alarm (which happened frequently), then Janet – and her siblings – missed the bus.

Sometimes they didn’t have access to a car.  On the days they did, it took a long time in traffic to get across town.  If they didn’t have a car, she was not just late, but marked absent.

It became apparent very quickly that this situation was not going to change no matter how much the parents were talked to.  I do believe they were doing the best they could.  Thankfully, I had the empathy to try and put myself in their shoes.

Even if Janet’s parents weren’t struggling to get her to school, and it was simply because they didn’t care (let’s get real – that does happen in real life), then I still can’t control that.

If it is out of my circle of control, then the one thing I CAN control is my reaction and how I could help the student catch up on the work she was missing out on whether by choice or not.

I needed a system to remember to get her the work she was missing.

Need something super simple for making sure students who are absent get the work they missed when they return? 

I made these super fun {and VERY easy} clips in about 10 minutes!  Cute!

Supplies needed:

• Plastic bag clips
• Packing tape
• Cardstock
• Printable tags (see below)

Check out the 43 second video below for directions!

Why does attendance matter?

As pretty much any teacher can tell you, students that come to school regularly will have a much better chance at academic success than those that do not.

While data and facts also support this – they are not even needed.

Having a consistent safe place where there is hope and forward progress will show improvement of all students who are part of school communities.

School districts should continue programs that educate caregivers about the importance of coming to school and how it impacts their children socially and emotionally, as well as academically.

How do you take care of absent work in your class?  We would love to hear all ideas in the comments below!

~Charity

This post originally appeared at Organized Classroom.