Posted on 04/09/2013 2:00:18 PM PDT by SMGFan
Princeton High School allowed a "significant" number of students to graduate over a four-year period despite their excessive absences, and in some cases could not provide documentation to justify the waiving of attendance requirements, a state investigation concluded.
District staff altered transcripts by hand to show students earning credits that had been lost because of excessive absences, according to an investigative summary by the state Department of Education’s Office for Fiscal Accountability and Compliance, which was released the school board yesterday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
So what?
If they are absent and cannot be found, it is hard to let them know they were not going to graduate....so they let them, anyway...
The No Child Left Behind Act was signed by Bush. Under obama we give college scholarships to illegal aliens who cannot even speak English. Next election term we’ll just hand out college degrees at kindergarten and save the costs of building new schools.
Can’t get that funding with drop-outs!
This is how a school district handled a similar problem in Australia, from a teqchers perspective:
<< http://www.youtube.com/embed/Pwghabw4N80?rel=0 >>
It should be a model for all public school districts .
Since they’ve already graduated, “What difference does it make?”
Good preparation for a “job” in the public sector. Show up now and then to pick up your paycheck.
Money for nothing and your chicks for free.
My son misses an excessive amount of school, in my opinion. He misses a lot of days, and he also misses a lot more classes as he sometimes goes in late, or leaves early.
On the other hand, he is a straight-A student, and as a junior was allowed to take early release and enroll in a college organic chemistry course.
So I’m not really worried that he isn’t learning the material, just that he isn’t learning about commitment. But I’d be pretty pissed if they tried to hold him up for it.
(We are fortunate that his first year he saw a suicide video and then said he thought about suicide. That made the school “kick him out” until he had a note from a professional that he wasn’t a danger to himself. Then he thought it would be good to talk to the school counselor about his feelings, but as soon as he said he thought about suicide, he was kicked out again, and then he wrote a paper on a book about suicide, and was kicked out a 3rd time.
After that, we brought his “therapist” to the school to meet with a group of teachers and administration officials, where we got them to agree to let him stay out the rest of the year (he had A grades already), and to skip school or come in late whenever he felt like he was having “a bad day”).
That was when we learned the value of having a counselor on retainer when you have a kid in school.
Of course, if my son ever actually kills himself, I’ll probably regret the whole thing. Until then, I’m impressed and also surprised that more kids haven’t figured out this trick to get out of school whenever they want. (turns out this isn’t a “suspension”, and CANNOT count against the kid, and they can make up all their classes, so it really is a “get out of the test you didn’t study for” card).
Why did you post this on FR?
12 students had special circumstances over 4 years.
That isn’t even newsworthy for the local newspaper in most weeks.
Princeton is one of the most affluent towns in the country, it is not exceptional to have students take months long trips with parents to tour the world, etc. It also explains why records are hand written, each student is treated extremely well during extenuating events, the school system employees are very aware of the power their employers weld in town and in society as a whole.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.