Denial of education?

[wildchld97]

What is the name of your state? Pennsylvania

My son woke up late and I drove him to school. I took him to the office but they said that he either had to have a medical excuse or court papers to excuse the tardiness. My son has never been late, but he was still denied entry into school because it was after 9am.

The official school handbook states clearly that "no child shall be admitted to school after 9am..." However, this school policy seems to be in direct conflict with the Pa education law that says that (I'm paraphrasing here because I'm quoting from memory) children between the ages of 7-19 cannot be denied an education without due process. I told the school principal that by sending my son home it was akin to being suspended for 1 day and under the same school policy, suspensions were reserved for 5 or more tardys and even then it was a 1 day IN school suspension. There seems to be policy conflicts all over the place.

It seems foolish to send a kid home that WANTS to go to school. I was shocked that the school had a policy like this. Now, if my kid is late again I have no recourse but to just let him stay home. (I do my job as a parent by punishing him for being irresponsible, but the school seems to be "rewarding" bad behavior by giving him a "free" day. Whatever happend to getting detention?

I'm just curious if there is any legal recourse to remedy the faulty school policy?

 

[stephenk]

how old is your son?

the school is not giving him a free day, but making sure you stay with him. you can punish him as you please for waking up late.

how come he woke up late? since you were available to drive him to school, how come you didnt make sure he was up and ready on time?

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

how old is your son?

the school is not giving him a free day, but making sure you stay with him. you can punish him as you please for waking up late.

how come he woke up late? since you were available to drive him to school, how come you didnt make sure he was up and ready on time?

My response:

Good questions, Stephen. But, I doubt we'll get a cogent, non-defensive answer. Remember, everyone that comes here has an excuse for their own behavior.

For example, this "parent" probably has dyptheria, or is missing both legs, or has a brain tumor, or is bi-polar, or ate Cheerios for breakfast, and just couldn't make it out the door on time.

You're not really expecting this parent to "take the rap", are you?

IAAL

 

[stealth2]

A lot of parents feel that it is the child's responsibility to get up and ready for school on their own. If they don't, then they are to suffer the consequences of their actions. Of course, they expect the school to mete out the consequence (usually a tardy on their attendence record and eventually detention). In this situation, the school is placing the onus right back where it belongs - on the parents. The school is expecting not only the child to be responsible, but fot the parents to take up the slack when the child is NOT responsible enough to make sure s/he gets to school on time.

OP - while you may think the school's policy is funky, you are actually the one who gave your kid a free day. You could have imposed your own consequences on him for being late. Had I been in your shoes, I would have made my son miserable for causing me to miss a day of work (and if you don't work, a day of whatever plans you may have had) to sit home with him. There would have been a list of chores a mile long - and not the "fun" ones, but stuff like cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning out the fridge, yard work, etc. There would be no sitting in front of the TV or video games. And, of course, I would have asked to have his day's assignments put together for me to pick up at the end of the day so he could make up the missed work before returning the next day. I can almost guarantee that it would be a long time before my kid thought sleeping in beat getting to school on time.

 

[oberauerdorf]

It seems to me that this child was not denied an education. Just the opposite. This child, AND PARENT, has received a very valuable education as to the penality and punishment received for irresponsible behavior.

Now, let's see if either actually learns from it.

 

[wildchld97]

how old is your son?

the school is not giving him a free day, but making sure you stay with him. you can punish him as you please for waking up late.

how come he woke up late? since you were available to drive him to school, how come you didnt make sure he was up and ready on time?

My son is 15 years old, and fully able get HIMESELF up for school and has NEVER been late before. He is also fully able to WALK to school on his own. The only reason I DROVE him to school is because the school website said that a child had to be signed in by a PARENT if he was late, which goes back to the MANY conflicting statements in the policy that I mentioned. Had I KNOWN that the policy was to send the kid home I wouldn't have bothered....and YES he DID get punished. My comment regarding a FREE day was not meant to be taken seriously. Of course if it was a parent that really DIDN'T give a damn about their kid...or a kid that didn't WANT to go to school...I guess that the FREE day comment would be appropriate.

Look...I didn't expect much from you bozos. It's a "free advice" web site afterall and you get what you pay for. I had an honest question and all I got were sarcastic answers from lawyer wannabes. What was I thinking. LOL. Go back to playing in your sandboxes.

 

[oberauerdorf]

I didn't expect much from you bozos.

I'm glad. Because we won't be giving you much anymore. Simply put, you have no legal claim against the school. PERIOD!

Now, try to stay in reality next time. at 15 I was living on my own and dragging my ass out of bed to make the school bus every day. And if I missed it, I had no one to blame but myself.

 

[stealth2]

and YES he DID get punished.

So what was his punishment? It's still YOUR responsibility to make sure he meets his obligations.

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

Good questions, Stephen. But, I doubt we'll get a cogent, non-defensive answer. Remember, everyone that comes here has an excuse for their own behavior.

For example, this "parent" probably has dyptheria, or is missing both legs, or has a brain tumor, or is bi-polar, or ate Cheerios for breakfast, and just couldn't make it out the door on time.

You're not really expecting this parent to "take the rap", are you?

IAAL

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Our writer said - -

"My son is 15 years old, and fully able get HIMESELF up for school and has NEVER been late before. He is also fully able to WALK to school on his own. The only reason I DROVE him to school is because the school website said that a child had to be signed in by a PARENT if he was late, which goes back to the MANY conflicting statements in the policy that I mentioned. Had I KNOWN that the policy was to send the kid home I wouldn't have bothered....and YES he DID get punished. My comment regarding a FREE day was not meant to be taken seriously. Of course if it was a parent that really DIDN'T give a damn about their kid...or a kid that didn't WANT to go to school...I guess that the FREE day comment would be appropriate.

Look...I didn't expect much from you bozos. It's a "free advice" web site afterall and you get what you pay for. I had an honest question and all I got were sarcastic answers from lawyer wannabes. What was I thinking. LOL. Go back to playing in your sandboxes."

========================================

My response:

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!

Excuses, excuses, excuses!

You'll notice that she doesn't take "the rap", and she never answers the $64,000.00 question that Stephen so eloquently asked; i.e., "how come you didnt make sure he was up and ready on time?"

Instead of "taking the rap", she'd rather look up a "law" to relieve her of the final responsibility.

Lady, "the Buck stops with you"! - - paraphrasing President Harry Truman.

IAAL

 

[stealth2]

My son is 15 years old, and fully able get HIMESELF up for school and has NEVER been late before.

Okay. So he is obviously a responsible young man. Given that premise - why would you NOT have woken him up if it was the first time he's overslept? Have you NEVER done so yourself? Doesn't family help one another out? It makes absolutely no sense if this was a one-off thing.