My son is ten years old and three weeks away from the end of fourth grade. He’s missed twenty-four days of school this year, mostly for stomach aches, and a strep throat in the beginning of the school year. The rest were con jobs; he’d come to me in the morning and complain of a headache, or that he’d thrown up and I, believing my son couldn’t possibly lie to my face, let him stay home.
The last time I called him in sick to the school nurse, I received a lecture about the amount of time my son has missed. It was condescending and threatening at the same time. “You know,” the nurse said, “we take parents to court if their kids miss too much school”. I reminded her that I was also an RN, for twenty-five years as a matter of fact, and when my son says he’s sick, I believe him. “And,” I added, “he’s a straight A student. What does that say about the school?” She had no answer. I left it at that.
I had a talk with my son. He’s bored in school. He gets picked on because he gets A’s. I see his grades, follow them throughout the school year on our district’s “Power School” computer program, where parents can see their child’s grades. He has a 106 average in music and 105 average in art. The rest of his grades are 96 to 99. I wrote an email to his teacher and told her that if I’m ever threatened with court again, my attorney will file a complaint of a “hostile school atmosphere.” I mentioned the punches, shoves, pencil stabs. Things my son wouldn’t tell his teacher because then he would be labeled a tattle-tale.
So, last week, he woke me up at 11 a.m. (my husband, who works nights, gets him ready for school in the morning and I take care of dinner, homework, shower, and bedtime). My husband apparently fell asleep on the couch and my son didn’t think to wake him up. He also didn’t think to get dressed and walk the half block to the school bus. I made my husband get up and take him to school, even though it was after twelve noon and it technically was considered an unexcused absence. Then Wednesday, he did it again and it was 1 p.m. by the time I got my husband awake to discuss how we were going to handle this.
