$70 fine if a child misses school

[grandmoon]

Have your children had a day off school lately? Just a day off without a good reason?

Well, under a proposed change to the law, you could be hit with a $70 fine if your child misses more than five days a year without a good excuse.

But that’s not half bad, when you realise that it’s a 50 per cent discount on the usual $140 fine.

Education Minister Martin Dixon  says that from  next year, parents will be fined $70.42 if they  don’t provide a valid excuse for their child’s absence.

The fine now is $140.84, but it has not been used against any parents since  the law was introduced in 2006. Under the current law, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development  have to take parents to court to fine them.

Under new laws proposed by Mr Dixon, lame excuses such as shopping days, sleeping in and family visits on more than five days in a year would result in a $70.42 a fine. Truancy, school refusal (where a student is sent home) and cultural days would be exempt.

Details are slim, but principals would be able to alert attendance officers to problem parents with lame excuses. Those parents would then be issued with school attendance notices and would need to provide a valid explanation for their child’s absence.

If they can’t provide a valid excuse, they will be issued with an infringement notice of half a penalty unit.

‘‘On a very small percentage of occasions, parents neglect that important duty, and we need to send a very strong message,’’ Mr Dixon said.

Parents Victoria executive director Gail McHardy said parents needed to be clear about what was an acceptable excuse to their principal.

‘‘Where these measures are resorted to, Victorian parents need to know what is deemed reasonable,’’ Ms McHardy said.

‘‘There  need to be communication messages about the importance of school attendance. At the same time, parents need to know in advance if a breach of uniform policy is important enough to keep a child home.’’

Ms McHardy pointed to Victoria University Secondary College, which sent children home on the first day of school for not having the correct uniform.

She said the proposed laws could encourage parents to lie to school principals about when their child would be absent and why.

She said parents needed to understand the importance of attending school, but there was no need for concern if parents obeyed the rules.

‘‘At this stage, it seems to be like a parking fine, if you don’t park illegally you won’t get fined,’’ she said.

‘‘You do have to ask though, are the people they are targeting likely to pay the fine anyway?’’

She called on the state government to increase support for parents and schools to help with school refusal and truancy to engage children at school.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/70-fine-if-a-child-misses-school-20130211-2e72g.html#ixzz2KZ9EGlQ8

[*pepe]

let me see if i have this right... other people need to get a job that fits in with school holidays to spend quality time with their kids or just suck it up,  but your family are entitled to remove your child from school to spend quality time together?

is that what you are saying?

[kilroy_is_here]

it wont work as it dosnt deal with the underlieing isues of why they are not attending

[*crikey*mate*]

Also pepe - that wasn't for a holiday - there were other issues at play there that you're aware of. Because of her father's work schedule, she very rarely got to see him at all - he would leave before she woke up in the mornings and get home after she was in bed - and she was having some problems because of that. - one of them being that she wasn't getting enough sleep because she would stay awake until he got home from work.

A problem arose - in consultation with doctors and her school, we developed a strategy to address the issue the best way we could.

We didn't just pull her out of school cos we felt like a holiday.

[*crikey*mate*]

let me see if i have this right... other people need to get a job that fits in with school holidays to spend quality time with their kids or just suck it up,  but your family are entitled to remove your child from school to spend quality time together?

is that what you are saying?

No, it's not what I said at all.

[freakiness]

I don't have any problem with kids taking time off primary school for holidays.

They can be given any key work to take with them and they learn so much from the experience it is worth it.

With young children out of holiday season is a much more relaxing time to holiday   :^O

[*crikey*mate*]

also remember, her father has never been home on a weekend, and has never even had a Christmas Day off.

The school dictated which day she could miss according to there being only one actual class she was missing - and she was expected to not only make that class up by learning the content of it at homeand doing any relevant work (ie her teacher was not expected to take more of her time to go over things she had already done)

Plus, we were expected to make up all the other things she missed that day such as sport outside of school, library etc (though we got away with assembly).

She didn't just miss a big chunk of school and expect other people to spend extra time helping her catch up etc.

[j*oono]

Crikey, you managed to keep her up to date.  What makes you think that other parents can't?

[*pepe]

crikey plenty of families are in similar scenarios as your family was - some choose to get some quality time by taking a couple of weeks off, you chose to get the quality time by taking a day a week off.

we took our kids out of school for a week every year of primary school up to grade 6 so we could have a family holiday, the teachers were really supportive and our kids didn't fall behind.

as they say - different strokes for different folks,

[*crikey*mate*]

Crikey, you managed to keep her up to date.  What makes you think that other parents can't?

Then that's really good and fair enough - I did say generally speaking, as I am sure that a lot of parent's don't/can't.

It was also a consideration of the school at that time that all of my kids do/did extra curricular tuition. All three have finished the KUMON English program, the two boys have finished the Math program - the little girl still has about 3 years to go on the math (this takes them to the equivilent of 2nd year university) and the eldest has also completed the KOJUGO and Japanese programs as well - (his choice - he wanted to do them)

Plus they all went to Saturday School where they studied at the year level they were capable of - not necessarily the year level their age dictated they should be in - throughout Primary School. Except for English for the middle child - all three were grade advanced here) (It was called Northshore Development - runs on the NSW curriculum). Eldest continued through till the end by choice and he also went to Japanese School twice a week where the curriculum is the same as in school but delivered in Japanese - his choice - I didn't make him)

Plus, I also followed the school curriculum at home and taught them at home to ensure mastery until grade 10 (well that's when I stopped with the eldest - I still do it with the little kids)

The school was reasonably confident that my kids were well equipped academically. Missing one class a week was hardly an issue or likely to be a concern.

[j*oono]

My kids didn't do any of that stuff :^O