Some kids apparently have gotten too used to the idea of no school

 

Because of my particular work hours I get on a bus at times when I see these relatively young kids and wonder why they are not in school. And frankly yes they tend to behave like your typical truant, joking and laughing and not having a care in the world. Now I admit that some people look younger than they are; when I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas I had a day off after a charge of quarters (CQ) shift, and I decided after a few hours of sleep to take a look around Killeen, which back then at least not a whole heck of a lot was going on.

Well, alright, there were  apparently females in town with something to sell to GIs with a little cash, because one night I was waiting outside a Greyhound bus station to go somewhere and this petite woman approached me and asked me if I was interested in conducting business with her. I told her I only had 30 minutes before my bus showed up; she kind of laughed at me and said it wouldn’t take that long. OK, I get the "point"; I kind of felt sorry for her because she appeared to have a bruise on her face, but I insisted I didn’t have the time.

Anyways, I was on this field trip to Killeen and found myself sitting in some park area when I was approached by a man who identified himself as a truant officer. He wanted to know why I wasn’t in school, and we shared a laugh when I showed my ID card identifying myself as a sergeant in the U.S. Army. Those were the “good old days” when you actually had people snooping around looking for the wayward kid playing hooky. Today we don't have truant officers, just toothless policies like this:

Washington State Law RCW 28A.225.010 requires, with some exceptions, that all children between the ages of 8 and 18 are required to attend school every day when school is in session. Six and seven year olds who are enrolled in school are required to attend every day (RCW 28A.225.015). If a child who is required to attend is absent from school and the absence is not verified by a parent or guardian and/or the reason for the absence does not meet the definition under Washington State Law (Chapter 392-401 WAC) or school district policy, that absences is considered “unexcused”.  Washington State Law further requires that school districts take steps to eliminate or reduce unexcused absences from school, and file truancy petitions with the Juvenile Court when students have accumulated seven unexcused absences in one month or not later than fifteen unexcused absences in an academic year. Superior Court supports many responses to truancy including providing resource and referral assistance for parents, students, and schools to address barriers to attendance, technical assistance to schools and school districts in King County to meet duties under the law, facilitating the King County Community Attendance Support Team (CAST), and a formal truancy court process.

The "process," believe it or not, is if all else fails, kick the kid out of school for awhile to teach him a "lesson." I mean really, the state isn't going to spend a lot of time or money on "educating" someone who doesn't want to be educated, and frankly most of these kids are not reported by school officials because they are seen as "incorrigibles." Unless of course you are a girl, and you are a "victim" of the "system" even though schools today cater more to the "sensitivities" of girls and punish boys for being "boys."

For me, I actually “liked” school—not because I was into learning so much, but because it was a much friendlier atmosphere than what I was used to at home. I did a post on the Dennis Jurgens case here 1 where I quoted a passage from Barry Siegel’s book A Death In White Bear Lake concerning the adopted children in the “care” of Lois Jurgens:

“Once, after Lois had whipped him with a belt buckle, a school counselor and coach noticed big purple welts on Grant, but he explained he had gotten them falling down the driveway. ‘If I tell, they’d just send me back to Lois'…Over time, the children became scared even to come home from school. When the bus dropped them off each afternoon, they would go up the steep driveway to see if Lois’ Buick Skylark was parked by the house, relaxing if it was gone, cringing if it was there because they knew that she ‘would walk through the house and down into the basement until she found something wrong or out of place’ and they would 'hear' about it.”

I guess I wasn’t so “alone” or "crazy" after all. I recall a high school teacher reacting in horror to the welts she saw around my neck; I told her I suffered a “whiplash” when the bus that morning was involved in an “accident.” It was a lie, but I went through the drill to see the school nurse and then to the hospital. My mother had to show up; like that boy in Francois Truffault's semi-autobiographical film The 400 Blows, it didn’t matter if what I said was a lie or not—I “never” told the truth, especially if it was the truth—but this time she actually had a reason to “believe” me and wanted everyone else to as well.

Unfortunately for some, the school day just wasn’t long enough; here is a post I wrote in regard to the Sylvia Likens case 2 and the self-serving and hypocritical “take” on her killing by radical feminist Kate Millett, trying to put herself in the minds of both the victim and the perpetrator, implanting her own fantasies which bore absolutely no reality to the case other than exposing her own bizarre psychological “issues.”

 Nevertheless, for many kids, school is just a chore they have to endure. During the pandemic many kids got used to the idea of not being in classrooms, and once schools started reopening some were too used to the idea. Of course chronic absenteeism isn’t a “new” phenomenon; according to a PBS story in 2011, “Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education finds that on average, 10 to 15 percent of students in America are chronically absent from school,” meaning at least 18 days a school year. A research group called Attendance Works estimates that 16 million kids are “chronically absent” today.

Back then, it was claimed that being absentee from school wasn’t a “casual” decision—meaning kids had to stay for “legitimate” reasons other than being sick, like watching younger siblings while mom and dad worked, or they had to work to help pay the bills at home. Kids who were homeless was also given as a rationalization. 

But frankly, some kids just lose interest in learning or are easily discouraged and just quit. Or maybe they see better “opportunities” for making money that don't require a classroom education. If parents know or not is beside the point; many kids don’t even listen to their parents anymore, especially if they are not exactly good role models themselves.

One thing that did occur during the pandemic was that math scores especially were at their lowest level in decades, and were lower in all states according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress; this included Florida, where Ron DeSantis boasted that his school opening policies were the "exception" to the rule. For some people it is better to learn in a classroom where you are being watched and might even be called upon to answer questions; the "personal touch" from a teacher also can motivate a kid to figure things out.

The doomsayers insist that you can’t learn if you are not in class, which I suppose makes some sense, but its hard to get inside a hard head. In a Los Angeles Times story a year ago, 57 percent of black students, 47 percent of Latino students and 68 percent of homeless kids were “chronically absent” from reopened schools in the LA school district. More recently, the Times estimated that 152,000 California kids were still “unaccounted for.” While Asian students are presumably more "studious" than even white kids, just give them a generation or two to get "acclimated" to their new surroundings.

Some say that kids’ “mental health” is the problem, and Seattle recently set aside $4.5 million for “mental health” counseling in schools. Is it working? We are told that some school districts consider students who feel “sad” is a good enough excuse for an absence “without consequence,” but mental health experts say that there are no clinical studies that actually proves this helps a “sad” student—especially when they can fake it, or are simply people who are chronically filled with self-pity or are just angry at the world; in fact the latter type is probably better off with “adult” supervision because, who knows, they might feel that no one cares, so what can they do with these guns laying around the house?

Motivation always helps. When I was a kid, as noted, my principle motivation was “escape,” but it helped that my early years were in a private Catholic school where it was a little hard to be anonymous because you were in the same classroom with the same people year after year, and so a little self-consciousness took hold. 

But then came the “anonymity” of a public high school, and those were the worst years of my life, and “escape” was even more a motivating factor than was actual learning. However, my motivation for going to college had nothing to do with “escape”—well, maybe from Army life—but doing whatever was required to get that piece of parchment.

It doesn’t mean as much as it used to, but at least I can point to it counter the ignorant thoughts of people who just see a car prowler/drug dealer/child molester. I recall when I was working at the airport I had to sit in the DHS office for hours waiting for the DHS stamp on my ID card because the white female ICE agent was certain I was an illegal alien because of my “fake” name. 

My supervisor was called in (again, like that thing about the "lost" ID badge) and had to work overtime to convince the agent I was “legal” as proven by the FBI background check everyone had to submit to before they were allowed to work on the areas outside the passenger terminal. My education or military service mean nothing to people who only see "surface" detail, which is a topic I'll touch on in my next post.