Making Parents Pay for Missing Parent-Teacher Conference Day

Money talks.  It also makes people listen.  And that’s the aim of a bill proposed by a Texas legislator.

Republican lawmaker, Wayne Smith, introduced a bill that would fine parents of children enrolled in public schools and leave them with a misdemeanor on their record for missing parent-teacher conferences.  Ahh, if only this would pass, and I don’t think it will.  Why?  Because the people who would have to vote on it, many most likely parents, would never set themselves up to possibly be punished by such a measure.

I do wish that there was a way to go about holding parents accountable for their children’s education though.  So many times blame is put on school districts and teachers, when children don’t pass state mandated tests or meet parents’ expectations.  However, as I’ve said many times before, a child’s education doesn’t begin or suddenly end when school bells ring. 

I now have two teenage students in my class who can’t read-one boy and one girl.  The boy can’t even copy words or letters from the board, yet he knows how tag (gang graffiti).  The girl can copy words from the board and her reading has improved thanks to a lot of one on one help, still she barely reads at the 2nd grade level.  Yet, this girl knows the words to every song that comes on the radio. Her mother has continually blamed the school system for her daughter’s delays and academic failure.  I agree that many have let this girl down by passing her along.  However, at some point along the way, the girl’s mother had to have noticed that her daughter couldn’t read.  Where was she?  What responsibility does she take in this?  None so far.  It’s been everyone else’s fault.

I’ve had to call student’s parents or guardians to come and pick them up from school.  One mother, answered the phone, still asleep (she didn’t work by the way), told me to call the girl’s grandmother and then hung up.  Another girl’s grandmother, her primary guardian, gave me three different excuses from still under the influence of sleeping pills to having to go to the doctor to having to care for someone else, before telling me to call the girl’s aunt to come and get her.

Last week, a boy’s mother rescheduled the parent-teacher conference which was to allow her son to return to school.  She didn’t reschedule just once.  No, she rescheduled the parent-teacher conference each day last week.  I was told on Friday afternoon that she was going to come in on Monday (tomorrow).  Meanwhile the boy has been out of school for seven days.  Being a new student, he had only attended school for two days prior to being sent home.  We’ll see if he shows up tomorrow, but to be honest I’m not holding my breath.

On the day that her son was sent home, that same mother told me, and the assistant principal, that her son is a teenager and that she can’t make him do anything.  She followed that with I don’t know what to do with him and then told us that she wanted to home school him but that the school district and court wouldn’t let her……..Pause a moment.  Re-read that last sentence.  What?  If you can’t make him do anything, and you don’t know what do with him, the kid who stole a car and has engaged in other forms of criminal mischief, do you actually think he will listen to you as you try to homeschool him?  But more importantly, you mean to tell me that even though this kid is living under your roof, eating up the food you paid for and you can’t make him do anything?!!?  I listened to that mother make excuse after excuse for her son.  She too didn’t wan’t to come and get him.  At first, she said that she had be in court by 10 a.m.  The mother is in the process of divorcing the boy’s father.  However, the boy blew his mother’s cover by correcting her in front of the A.P. and me, stating, “No, you don’t have to be to court until 1p.m.

I think that Rep. Smith is on to something.  I don’t know if his solution for holding parents more accountable is the way to go, but something definitely needs to be done.

Hats off and much applause to you parents who are actively involved in your child’s or children’s education.  Not because you are doing something that is oh, so great.  No, you’re doing what you’re supposed to do as a parent.  I’m applauding you, because seemingly there are so few of you who are stepping up to the plate and truly parenting.  I’m applauding you because you don’t just pass the buck and do a half assed job of it like so many that I and my colleagues have come across.  I know it’s not easy.  Believe me when I say that we (teachers) see you and we thank you.

Weigh in folks.  Do you think the government or states should hold parents legally accountable for not committing themselves to actively participating in their child’s education?

Source:

www.cnn.com