TO: The Parent Community
FR: Your District Superintendent
RE: Roll Call!
The new school year is moving along briskly, and I am looking forward to a
cavalcade of outstanding achievements by students in every grade level.
Right now is a good time for all parents to remember that our tradition of
scholastic excellence can only be maintained by your involvement in the
educational process, and one of the most essential components of this
process is making sure your student is in class, ready to learn, on days
when teaching is scheduled. The term we use for this component is
"attendance."
Numerous studies have shown that academic excellence is directly affected by
this component. In other words, if a student is not in class listening to
his or her teacher when a lesson is being presented, the probability of
learning is reduced by a significant degree.
If you walk into your living room on a typical weekday morning around 11
A.M. and your student is sitting on the sofa, shoving nachos into the pie
hole, engrossed in viewing the Cartoon Network, it would be useful to pause
and ask this question: "Excuse me, but shouldn't you be in school right
now?" In many cases it will turn out the student has simply made an error
while reading the calendar or needs additional instruction in time
management. The district can provide numerous resources to assist in
resolving these situations.
If, however, the student turns to you and casually replies, "I am in
school. Don't you know about remote viewing?" there may be cause for
concern. Basic laws of physics should make it clear that any student who is
visibly at home staring at the moron box and powering down massive amounts
of empty calories cannot simultaneously be occupying space in a classroom.
Remote viewing is an unproven theory that has been rumored to be part of
various CIA cold war spying efforts but has never been officially
recognized by any governmental agency or school district.
It is important for all students to establish responsible learning habits,
and for that reason it is critical for parents to intervene when they become
aware that a pattern of non-attendance might be developing. A key warning
sign is when students who appear to be truant resort to explanations that
rely on paranormal phenomena or non-traditional science.
A positive first step in the direction of better attendance is to be
assertive and tell the student, "I can clearly see that you're here, which
tells me you are NOT in school." Be aware that some students who are truly
determined to thwart the learning process may respond with fuzzy logic to
create uncertainty and undermine parental credibility. They will look
straight at you and say, "Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"
Any doubts you may have about the location of your student on school days
can be quickly addressed by calling your school attendance office. Help is
also available here at the district headquarters, where we have compiled an
informative booklet entitled Nice Try that summarizes a wide range of
popular excuses offered by attendance-challenged students during the past
100 years, and provides effective responses for each case. The booklet also
includes simple diagnostic techniques to confirm or deny claims of serious
illness including blood poisoning, leprosy, Bell's Palsy, and river
blindness.
We look forward to providing an exciting learning environment in the weeks
ahead. Here are two important concepts to help parents and students
maintain a positive attitude about daily attendance:
1) Every time you answer "Present!" at roll call it's one more step in the
march toward a successful life.
2) As Woody Allen has correctly pointed out--the real key to success is
just showing up.