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Why Daily Attendance is Important

One of the most important life skills taught in schools is writing skills.  Good writing skills are required in almost every profession.  When young people seek employment, the applicant who demonstrates good writing skills (spelling, grammar, punctuation) will always be selected for the job over applicants who submit applications or resumes containing spelling, grammar errors and poor sentence structure. 

Good writing skills are learned in small steps and developed over time.  For example, students need to know the difference between a noun and a verb, and how they are used in sentences. 

Suppose your child is absent on the days when the class is taught how a noun is used in a sentence.  Or what if they are absent when prefixes and suffixes are covered?  Your child will struggle with writing forever, without an understanding of these basic writing concepts.  Students who fall behind because of educational gaps quickly become discouraged and lose interest. 

Typical Parent Response:  “Why can’t the teacher help my child ‘catch up’?  That’s their job.  That’s what they get paid for.” 

Fact:  The teacher has a responsibility to the other 25-35 students in the class and cannot hold up their education for each student who was absent. 

Further and most importantly, the examples, questions, and ideas shared in the classroom are impossible to make up.  These classroom discussions between the students reinforce the concept being taught, make the lessons more real, interesting, and easier to remember. 

Parent Response:  “My child only misses school for important and necessary family obligations, like deaths in the family, christenings, weddings, hunting, etc.” 

If our students only missed school because of deaths or ceremonies, with help, they would be able to keep up.  Unfortunately, too many students also miss 1, 2, 3 or more days of school a week because of over-sleeping or missing their bus.  When you combine this with absences due to Pow Wow trips, weddings, etc., you have children who are missing 20-30 days of instruction per year. 

Note:  Poor results on a college or technical school entrance test will not be overlooked because of excuses like, “I overslept” or “We did the early Pow Wow circuit”. 

Sleep is important

If your child falls asleep during class daily because of parents’ late night parties, TV, movies, etc., he/she might as well be absent.  When a child is that sleepy, they have almost “zero” recall of what they hear or read in school. 

Children, especially teenagers, need nine (9) hours of sleep each night.   

With STC/STT parent training, all parents become knowledgeable and skilled to help their children achieve in school. 

Save the Child/Save the Teenager™

4198 W. 99^th Court, Westminster, CO  80031

Phone or Fax:  720-887-0533       E-Mail:  stcstt@msn.com