"Excused Absences" Are Classist Bullsh*t

I called the absolutely obnoxious "attendance line" for my daughter’s school at 7:30 a.m. "Hey! It's Mathilda's mom. She'll be out today, Thursday, Nov. 7. She was up all night puking her brains out, so I think it's best to keep her home for at least today. We don't want to spread anything."

I also emailed her teacher, with whom I have an amazing relationship. She thoughtfully responded by sending well wishes to my kid and letting me know that my daughter wasn't missing anything new. Mathilda missed Friday, too, because the obvious stomach bug left her exhausted, and I didn't want to risk getting a classroom of kindergarteners (and their families) sick. It felt like... the responsible thing to do.

A few weeks later, I signed into our online grading portal at the end of the term to look at Mathilda's progress. A warning flashed at the top: She had two unexcused absences. Since she's a little young to be skipping school, I investigated and discovered that on the Thursday and Friday she was out with the stomach bug, she was marked absent. And unexcused.

Um, no?

I called the school and was told that Mathilda's absences were unexcused because she didn't have a doctor's note. Hold up. My kid was puking for a day, sluggish the next, and potentially contagious the entire time. Yet, unless I take her to the doctor every time she's sick, her absences will always be unexcused.

There was no need for her to go to the doctor. She had a stomach bug — a fact as plain as day to this mama. Taking her to the doctor would not only spread her sickness further but would cost us the price of a co-pay just so the doctor could say, "Yep. It's a bug. It's going around." It was obvious she was sick, and as an adult and a mom, I should be trusted to decide if my kid is sick enough to stay home, right? Not according to her school district.

And if I don't have money for a co-pay, I guess I should send her to school sick? Of course not! If we learned anything from COVID-19, it's to stay home when you're sick.

I hung up on the attendance secretary, which, OK, was rude. But if I'd stayed on the phone, what came out of my mouth next would have been even ruder. This policy was absurd and severely out of place, especially considering that we live in a relatively poor school district. For me personally, it mostly just calls into question my parenting. It's demeaning and annoying but manageable. For others in our school district, it's much bigger.

If your kid is home from school and you work outside of the house, you might already be missing work. To then be told you must have a doctor's note means you're probably paying a co-pay to see the doctor and, if your doctor is as popular as ours, probably missing yet another day of work and school because the doctor rarely has any "same day sick" appointments available — especially during cold and flu season. So, this policy not only costs parents money by expecting them to pay a co-pay but also by requiring them to miss even more work.

Two parents of kids in my daughter's kindergarten class work at the grocery store up the street. Each afternoon, they walk down after their shift, still in uniform, to pick up their kids. At least one of those parents doesn't have a car and takes the metro home every day. If their kids get sick, the absence policy suggests that the school district expects them to miss work, pay a co-pay, shell out for a bus ride (for at least two people), and travel to their doctor or an Urgent Care (which will cost even more money) that has availability in their limited time off.

Aside from the sheer amount of hassle, money, and time illustrated here, we're not even considering the fact that this might mean bringing along other siblings or finding a sitter for them. It means exposing an entire bus full of people to a potentially contagious kid. And, as is the case during most of flu season, it means dragging an already sick kid out into horrible weather instead of letting them rest at home in warmth and comfort.

What are their other options? They might just choose to send their sick kid to school, thus infecting everyone else. This is often the only option for working parents who can't take off and don't have a reliable village that can help.

They might choose just to keep their kiddo home and accept the unexcused absence. That seems fine when it's the first absence or two of the school year, but once we start making it through March, those numbers can be a bit worrisome. How long until my perpetually sick kid ends up being sat down with Children and Family Services? How long until someone shows up at my door threatening to take away my Mathilda when my fully vaccinated girl is fighting her second bout of the flu and fourth ear infection of the school year?

Schools want strict policies and demand adherence to those rules and "expectations." The problem? Those policies are made by those in power, and power isn't typically held by people of the same socioeconomic position as the residents in their school district.

For a school administrator with a decent PTO package and insurance, missing a few days with their sick kids won't hurt them. Paying that co-pay to get the excused note might mean, at the very most, they miss a few trips to Starbucks. However, for many parents in school districts across our nation, a day out of work is enough to set back a household budget significantly. Make it two days and an expensive co-pay, and they're essentially screwed.

I understand the need for policy. I get that administrators are oh-so-worried about the "everyday" people who "cheat the system" and "break the rules." That's just not the case most of the time, though. Further, if you make a system and set rules that actually consider the needs of the community you lead, fewer people will need to even consider the workarounds.

I'm not suggesting we do away with counting absences altogether. I'm simply saying that when a school absence policy dictates how parents spend their hard-earned money and puts jobs and stability at stake, it's a policy that fails the district's families. It's classist. School administrators need to trust that the majority of parents want and know what's best for their children. If they're missing school and Mom says they're sick, that needs to be enough.

For what it's worth, we got those absences excused with a bit of pushback and an "after-visit summary" from the following week that showed my kid did, indeed, end up having the flu. But we are lucky to have insurance without a co-pay, and my kid is fortunate enough to have a mom with the time and tenacity to be a squeaky wheel.

Still, I sincerely believe excused absences are classist and that school policy writers must consider their district residents before demanding costly and time-consuming things from students and parents.

Deirdre Kaye is a writer/journalist and mother to one very smart, sweet deviled egg. She enjoys taking three months to finish a book, planning all the tiny details of road trips she’ll never take, and decorating her craftsman bungalow. In addition to Scary Mommy, her writing can be found on Bridal Guide, Yahoo, HuffPo, TheDad, and Cleveland Scene.