Wayne Scott Ng = Wainscotting

Very clever. I would have never guessed.

Thanks Malkin, I feel like I’ve been outed.    But at least as wainscoting, I’m on the wall - not off the wall like some of my ‘union’ colleagues - well, one in particular! 

To begin with, about 10-15% of the students in our school are at the ‘locally developed’ level; about 30-35% are in the applied level and 40-45% in the academic level.  Interestingly, the greatest level of absenteeism is in the central, applied level.  It is not uncommon for students in that level to have a 45, 50, 60, 70 even 80% absenteeism rate.  If I have time, I’ll look at my records.  It would not surprise me if the class average absenteeism rate were 25%.  In other words, on any given day, one quarter of the students will be absent. That number drops dramatically at either of the two extremes - academic or locally developed.  Both groups have a better view of work and school than the applied.  However, the applied trend is beginning to seep into the other two groups.  I have one academic student now that has already missed 44% of classes.  Obviously, the exception vs the rule in applied.

To tie into your latest post - the large majority of applied students are boys.  The majority of academic students are girls.  So, your fears about what is happening to boys are very real and need to be addressed.

In Ontario does the province have a handle on attendance or does this information stay with school boards? Does it even leave the individual school?

Should the province be on top of this?

Chuck,

At first I thought the answer to your question(s) was simple, but I will admit, it will take a little background, so please bear with me.  The short answer to all your questions is yes.  Schools pass on data to the Ministry.  Only a complete fool in the edutocracy would think that all students attend all the time, so they must be aware.

Your next question(s):  “Why isn’t the public aware?”  “How does this happen?”

Why?  The ministry obviously has a stake in keeping these numbers on the QT.

How?  A number of factors.  Let’s take a historical look.  You said you were in school in the 60’s and 70’s.  So was I.  I also started teaching in the 80’s and things were much the same.  You know that you always had some students that were not cut out for school.  Some didn’t even go to high school, they dropped out and went to work.  Others stopped after Grade 10 and got a ‘certificate’ versus a ‘diploma’.  What has changed?  Well, a whole number of things, here are some:

1)  Our ‘progressive society discriminated against ‘certificates’ and decided that all students should get a high school diploma.

2)  One of the outgrowths of #1 - apprenticeships were put into the colleges, now students had to have a diploma if they wanted a trade (or wait until mature student status).

3)  Declining Enrollment - West Hill was designed for 1250 students.  For the first 20 years I taught here we were never below that - at one point we were over 1600.  Now we have 1150.  When I started, we used to have a school policy of 15 and out.  More than 15 truancies (ie: not including legitimate absences) and you were removed from class, or even off the roll entirely.  Now, to keep funding which is based on per pupil enrollment, not per pupil attendance, we keep what I call ghosts on the roll - they never appear, but they are still there.

4)  Changes to the Youth Justice System - judges are raising their arms in surrender to what they can’t do.  I recently spoke with our board’s Truancy Officer - sorry, not politically correct, they are now Attendance Officers.  He told me that he recently took a family to court because they were not ensuring that their child was school.  They were receiving social assistance based on the child’s attendance.  The judge’s response?  “What do you want me to do?”

5)  Requirements for school attendance: we used to expect children to be in school until age 16, now it is 18.  How do McGuinty and the Ministry expect to keep 17 and 18 year olds in a place they don’t want to be?  Result - more ghosts.

Chuck, I could go on.  You can probably add dozens of other changes in the last 30 years.  All these progressive changes have made our school system so much better and we are doing a great job raising a wonderful cohort of excited, eager and capable young people.    OK, I almost got that out without a laugh.

thanks Wayne.

I chuckled at your last line too but wrote it off as you playing a Halloween prank on us dressing your comments up as DeanDoug?

Trick or Treat Wayne.

Cheers Chuck!

PS:  Here’s a little math equation for you (since I’m a math teacher!):

Doug Little - (90% x SpellingGrammar Errors) = Dean