Letter: School absence policy needs to be revised

The absentee policy states that 10 (excused or unexcused) absences, will cause my child to fail his or her classes. It then goes on to state that the child has three days to bring in an excuse.

My question is why.

If they are not going to be excused anyway, why bring a note? This is a prime example of a bunch of bureaucrats, and a bunch of overzealous PTA radicals (who believe that because of a few parents who could care less whether their child is in school and will excuse them for anything) getting together and deciding what they think is best for all. Well, this would all be fine and dandy if you didn't have to bring childhood diseases and other trauma into the picture.

So we're faced with the problem of whether to send our child to school, and allow him to learn and possibly get sicker, or take the chance that he doesn't get this ill the remainder of the year, or seriously injured, so that we can make sure he attends to pass his classes and go to the next grade level, with a level of degraded health.

While this law weeds out the students who are constant truants and absentees, the ones who suffer are the ones who want to learn and can't help when sickness, injury or tragedy occurs.

I hope that this ridiculous law will be amended, or better yet, wiped out completely.

Barry Gallegos

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