Migraine

As some of you may have read, about two weeks ago I had a meeting with my son Alex's school. It was his annual IEP meeting and included his two teachers and his tutor. At the time we discussed his frequent absences and the fact that he is behind because he has missed so much school. I also presented them with a letter from his doctor explaining his medical condition as well as how he is being treated. Everyone was very understanding and encouraged me in my decision to home school him next year. Today I was gone for the day and returned home after 5:00. There was a message on my answering machine from the school social worker asking me to call her tomorrow. She said that after speaking with the teachers and the tutor she wants to touch base with me about the frequent absences. Should I be concerned? Does anyone know why they would call a social worker after I just presented them with a letter? Any advice would be appreciated.

Let's hope this is a case of two beaucrats not talking. In our school system your kid misses so many days and the Juvenile Probation Office gets called in--even though they may have a valid reason. In so many cases the paperwork is automatically created.

Mary in NM

Alison

I have no idea. But, try not to worry about it tonight. It could be as Mary suggested that the bureaucrats aren't talking to each other. It might be as simple as them wanting more info.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Please let us know what happens.
Jean Ann

I can't help but think that the support I felt I was receiving from the school was nothing more than lip service. I know that the school gets extra money for children with learning disabilities and wonder if the concern here is that they will lose that money when I pull him out. I don't care what their views are about absences, I will NOT send my son to school with a migraine. Yesterday he had a headache and went to bed at 4 p.m. and woke at 10 p.m. When that happens, he can't get back to sleep until 2 or 3 in the morning. It's next to impossible to get him into any kind of shape to be able to go to school the next day after that happens. I can't wait until the school year is over and I don't have to deal with this anymore. Which brings me to another question, why would they wait until the end of the school year to address this?

Alison

I can't wait until this school year is over either. I'm going to be doing a happy dance when that day finally comes.

It's hard to guess what the school is thinking. I've recently had a horrible experience with my school. There are a few nice, helpful people and a few rotten ones that I have to deal with. I'm hoping that this is a nice person that won't give you any grief about all of this.

I don't think you have anything to worry about. You have a legitimate reason for him not to be there. You have your doctor to back you up. No matter what the rules are, there has to be some flexibility in this type of situation.

Last year my son missed 30 days of school before we removed him from school. We didn't have any problems with that at all.

I have been through the same things with Andrew being up all night with a migraine and his sleep gets messed up which causes more migraines. It's a never ending cycle.

Good luck.
Jean Ann

Thanks Jean Ann, it's nice to know that people like you can relate to the issues we are having. Did you have to give some period of notice before you could pull Andrew out of school? Here they require that you notify the School Superintendant 30 days before doing so. I would pull Alex out right now if I could!

Alison

We took Andrew out of school on homebound instruction. All the school requires is a note from the doctor and a note from us.

We took him out of school in late Feb of last year. He first missed 30 days of school. Then he was on a part time schedule. Things were not improving so we had no choice, but to pull him out.

This year we took him out right after Easter break. It's not a good education though on homebound instruction. It's only 5 hours per week of instruction. That's it.

Our school does not yet know that he won't be back next year. They will find that out when the new school tells them.

There has to be homebound instruction available for your son. Your state probably has its own set of rules on that, but you could ask about it for the remainder of this year. Or what about going to a part time schedule? Last year when Andrew was in 8th grade, we dropped all of the unnecessary classes and he only went to school for a half day for the basic courses that he had to have.

I can't believe you have to give 30 days notice. If you moved to a new school district you wouldn't have to give any notice.

Taking Andrew out of school was a hard decision. It made me very sad to have to do it, but it was the right thing for him and us. It certainly reduced the stress.

When will school be out for the summer? We only have 18 days left, but who's counting?

Jean Ann

hi alison,
last year my daughter chloe missed 81 days of school due to migraines. we did not have an iep or 504 for her at the time, but i had called for several meetings with the school to see how we/they can assist her academically. we met at different times with her team of teachers (she was in 6th grade), the school principal, the guidance counselor, and the school psychologist. her team of teachers tried to be understanding and helpful but her principal had a totally different attitude. he was antagonistic from day one, the school psychologist and guidance counselor went along with whatever he said and didn't consider chloe's best interest... the bottom line was money and they didn't want to give her any home tutoring or homebound instruction. at one point the principal threatened to call child protective services on us because of her absences.... even though we had provided the school with medical documentation from her pediatrician and 2 neurologists.

i'm not trying to freak you out but to warn you that sometimes schools use these sort of tactics to scare you/make you go away so that they don't have to be bothered with you. we ended up consulting with a lawyer, the threats were never carried out thankfully and this year chloes's migraines are more sporadic. if you have an iep does it mention anything about not being penalized for absences? hopefully the social worker is just calling to check in and maybe you can discuss with her what is going on and any changes you might need to make regarding the iep to better serve your child. i just wouldn't want you to be blindsided like we were last year when the school made threats.
keep us posted and my best wishes!

I wanted to let everyone know that I spoke with the Social Worker this morning and the call went very well. Apparently she has not seen the letter from Alex's doctor although she was aware that I gave it to the school. She did say that after speaking to me she felt assured that we are doing everything possible for Alex and are good parents. My concern was why did his teacher feel it was necessary to involve her? About 2 months ago I made an appointment with his Guidance Counselor to ask about a 504 plan as well as to introduce myself to her and explain Alex's frequent absences. Also, 2 weeks ago we had his annual IEP meeting and I spoke at length about his absences and how they affected him academically. I also presented the doctor's letter. Everyone was very understanding and supportive. My question was why now are they reporting this to the Social worker? Her answer was that teachers have a responsibility to report frequent absences and since it is close to the end of the school year and she has not done so, she was simply covering her butt. The Social worker also was supportive of home-schooling for Alex. She did assure me that it ends here and she will not be reporting this to the Dept.of Children and Families or the Police Dept. I hope that is the case and I don't have any more problems. I can't wait for this school year to be over with!

Hey Alison!

Is it possible that it's just your daughters schools standard procedure to contact a social worker in any type of case - no matter what the reasons are?

I would think it would be a "just to be on the safe side" type of reason. You never know. I wouldn't think they would involve child and family services, since they have deemed that the reasons for your daughters abscenses are indeed medical and with reason. Which I'm sure they can contact her doctor if need be as well.

I would think that in this day and age, that sorry to say, it's probably some sort of standard operating procedure to call social services.

Glad to hear the call went well though!!!

It just never seems to end does it.

I'll keep my fingers crossed to you guys.

Alison

I'm so glad that's all it was. It must be a relief for you. Who knows why this happened now. My school seems to be disorganized and uncertain of who is supposed to do what when.

I hope the rest of the school year goes well for you. It's almost over.

Take Care
Jean Ann

Alison, I am not surprised that this was a case of two beaucrats not talking. However, I would like to share some information and heads up that influences these policies.

The town I live in is fairly rural. Our little community has been devestated by METH. Children who have been exposed to meth, have many issues.

One established fact about METH families is that their children miss days and weeks of school. Their parents are totally unable to maintain jobs, meet deadlines, and handle normal life. They use long illnesses to explain their children's absences, when in reality they are high or crashed from the METH and have lost track of time.

Kids that are legitimately ill and have real severe issues are much less common than neglected druggie's children. So sad and so terrible but the truth.

Mary in NM

Not only that, but sometimes families of ill children, who are doing their very best for their children, may still need assistance. Who knows, a family may need assistance affording meds, getting transportation to the doctor, etc. It's not necessarily the parents' fault, and certainly not something to hotline; everyone needs help at some time, and families often need to be pointed in the direction of resources.

I am a teacher and totally understand how hard this all is. There are a lot of problems in education but please understand that many times, we educators have policies we have to follow (even if they don't make sense). I know there are bad apples in the educational field (as there are in all fields) but I hope you can see that most of us really care about our kids and want what's best for them. Often, what's best is a matter of opinion.

As already mentioned, there are cases where kids miss a lot of school and parents lie about why they are absent, usually creating some illness to cover their lack of parental responsiblity. I know that's not the case here but school employees are not allowed to make that determination. We have to gather facts and report those facts to professionals, usually counselors. The counselors have to side on the worse case assumption for the kids' sake and that's why social workers have to get involved. It's their job to sort out facts to determine if parents are legit or flakes.

Please understand that if the school assumed you were telling the truth and something awful happened to your child, they could be sued for failure to report the facts to the authorities. There are laws about attendance, even with legitimate medical documentation.

I don't happen to agree with many of the laws and I feel that policies are often geared to a one size fits all but they are the law/policies we educators have to abide by. If I don't do the proper reporting, I could lose my teaching credential.

I'm glad the talk with the social worker went relatively well.