For those of you who've had your last day of school, how many students were absent & do you know the reason? My last day was today (May 25th) & I work w/ LSH (language, speech, & hearing) kids of all gr levels K-8. 4 out of 23 speech kids were absent at the 1 school I was at & the dismissal time was 11:45 as it is. All I know is that the mom of 1 kinder pulled him out...don't really know why.
I doubt many of our will be there on the last day. This is the first time in a long time, maybe ever, that our district comes back after Memorial Day for one day of class. There are no exams scheduled for that day. Therefore, I am sure no one will be here. Many people have long-standing vacation and holiday plans.
Our school ends with exams. The number of absentees will drop dramatically over the last 5 days of review, and no one will miss the final exam if it's at all possible for them to be in.
I've never had a student absent on the last day my 3 years teaching. However, when I taught 5th grade 80% of the kids were dismissed right after the graduation ceremony.
Beginning the middle of June, we usually lose a few students from each class as families who travel overseas for the summer take advantage of the lower rates. Our last day is a half day and I'm sure that there will be students not there. The grade 8s have their graduation on Monday, June 27 (the last day is the 29th), and some won't come for the last day and a half.
Haven't had last day yet, but invariably some will miss for a variety of reasons...vacations that were planned before we added on snow days, leaving for summer sleep away camp, other family events.
We have lots of kids absent the last day of school and the numbers increase as the age increases. Elementary tends to have higher enrollment because they do award ceremonies and other parties for the couple of hours (not even half day) in school. MS and HS have lots of kids not coming because report cards are mailed. The school day is a little over 2 hours and the kids just have 10 or 15 minutes in each class to find out their final exam scores and say goodbye to in-school friends and teachers, but mostly they just let the kids roam the school and go where they want to see who they want. So many kids just don't bother going. This is really on purpose because it gives the teachers a lighter load to so they can pack up (if they haven't already) and do last minute tasks that can be done.
My last school ended at exams like Alice said. This makes so much more sense to me. We were available for make ups but for the most part, why does a student need to come after the final assessment? Here we have a day and a half after exams and it is such a waste. our grades have to be done so we can't really give any work. It turns into babysitting at a time when I already have so much to do.
Our last day is June 4th (Saturday), and I'm expecting a few to not be there. However I expected a few of mine to be absent the last Saturday we had school, and I was the only one who had all their kids show up! Since our report cards go home that Friday, I am also sending student supplies home that day. For those that are here, we will be sorting and putting things away for the summer. We're also going to have a picnic and do some fun end of the year things. Not sure what yet. I'm still working on that.
Some days people have half their classes out. Like the other day, which was election day, we had school...but apparently not all the parents knew that...
I notice that absenteeism tends to rise during the last week of school, to the point where I usually only have 1 or 2 students in my class on the last day. The school year officially ends with a week of exams, so students take time off to "study" (that's what they tell me...funny, because the last week of my classes are devoted to study and review periods, hmmm.) In some cases, the parents do pull their kids early for extended vacation etc, though that still baffles me since the students have an entire summer to travel...I dunno...
On my last day I had 11 of my 24 kids there. We had our final award assembly the day before, so most chose not to come. A couple of mine had started their summer vacations (one a cruise to Mexico for his brother's graduation gift and the other a cruise to the Bahamas). Those that were left helped us move furniture around, dusted, watched Journey to the Center of the Earth (again! their request! lol) and it was a half day, so not much time.
Today is our last day. We are watching movies and waiting for the Awards assembly to start at 11AM. We dismiss at 12:30pm. I thought we would have a lot of absences, they had been telling me all week long. I think from my three classes we only had maybe 3 absent. However, I think for many they came because of their friends. If we had the assembly yesterday, we wouldn't have to have class today. Due to some snow make up days, we are here today.
Our school (like most high schools) ends with exams, too. The tough day for us will be tomorrow. It's the day we review for finals, so the kids who are exempt probably won't show. Truthfully, I understand their reasoning. I wouldn't want to come either.
This year our last day is June 24th, but June 23rd is a holiday. My kids have only a half day anyway on the 24th so I bet a lot of them will not bother going. Where I work it's a full day, so maybe we'll get more.
Most of ours don't come on the last day. Typically their parents drop the off at the door, they pick up their report cards, and they leave.
Today was our last day. I had one absent. He was gone all week. Not sure why except that he had told me he would be gone, but he's a first grader. Not always sure he knows exactly what's going on with his Mom. Anyway I really missed him. I probably would have cried if he had been there.
Our students only miss that last day if their parents don't have anyone to pick them up. It's a half day, and we're in an urban setting. So I send everything home the day before, and we have an end of the year party that day. Almost everyone shows up.
I had a student go to the beach with his parents this weekend - Thurs - Tues. Are we going to miss anything? Are you kidding - it's the last few days of the year - YES! End of unit assessment, review for finals... Hello! Then yesterday was something called "bike day" which is a tradition where the kids dress in silly costumes and ride their bikes around the school. Then many of them ditch school for the rest of the day. I am all for traditions, but the problem is they planned it on an intensive day (we have a rotating schedule and 2 days per cycle we have all even/all odd classes for longer block periods) when I was giving an assessment, and I couldn't change what we were doing Friday because I also would have had to change what we did Thursday in class. Plus there are no more extra help times in the schedule either. I just told the kids, normally I would support the tradition and lighten up what we did in class, but seriously, you guys weren't very smart in scheduling it so the test is Friday, if you aren't going to be here, figure it out. I have 8 kids who will have to make it up sometime.
