Albany teacher presses school district over lenient attendance policy: 'Short-changing the kids'
The City School District of Albany said the Board of Education and district leadership take the teacher's concerns 'very seriously'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}An Albany teacher raised concerns over an attendance policy at a school board meeting, citing a rising in absenteeism without consequence.
"My concern is that we are short-changing the kids who are on the brink. The kids who are the most challenged," Albany High School English teacher Loren Green, who has taught English in the district for 27 years, told the City School District of Albany Board of Education last week.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The attendance policy Green wanted to bring to "public light" gives students credit for attendance for showing up to class for at least one minute and going to two classes a day. Fox News Digital received a statement from Green regarding the concerns he raised at the school board meeting.
Image of an empty classroom from a hallway. (iStock)
"I brought these issues to public light so that parents would have the transparency they deserve and so that our District could work toward reforms that will correct the trends that I spoke to. I want to give the new District Leader, who has only been in office for 2 days, a chance to turn these policies around," Green told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
Before the pandemic, the City School District of Albany implemented a change in the attendance policy that dissolved punishments for students who missed more than seven days a quarter or 28 days in a school year. If students were absent, they faced failing the quarter or the year and were required to attend summer school.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Green, who teaches AP literature to 150 students, implored the Board of Education last week to address the policy because, he said, it is not working.
Green recalled to the Board that attendance was "compulsory" when he was attending school.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"You went to school, you went to class," he said. "If you didn't, you got in trouble and that was the bottom line."
Green recommended that the Board of Education review statistics about attendance "per student, per period, per day" as opposed to celebrating "inflated" graduation rates.
He added that staff is encouraged to pass students at the end of the year who have not been in the classrooms nor done assignments, which inflates the graduation rates that are celebrated and "lauded."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The ACLU argued that a transgender student at the Martinsville school in Indiana should be able to use a bathroom which corresponds with his gender identity. (iStock)
"But it is a lie. We are selling out our most at-risk students. We are not serving them and for a lot of conversation today about how we’re lifting everybody up, we are not, I’m sorry."
Fox News Digital received a statement from the City School District of Albany saying that the Board of Education and the district leadership take "Mr. Green’s concerns very seriously."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Mr. Green did not bring these concerns to the district level prior to his remarks during public comment at last Thursday’s board meeting," the City School District of Albany said. "Subsequent to that meeting, our interim superintendent met in-person with Mr. Green on Monday – his first day on the job – and our board president also has responded to Mr. Green. Both let Mr. Green know that his concerns have been heard, his position is appreciated and his continued input is valued as we conduct a comprehensive review of our attendance practices."
A school bus is shown in Rancho Bernardo, California May 12, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake (REUTERS)
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"Our district currently follows the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) to address student needs such as poor attendance, social-emotional needs, and academic performance," the district continued. "MTSS includes a range of interventions that begin with the classroom teacher and include individual meetings with a school counselor. MTSS supports also can include, depending on an individual student’s needs, increased communication with the family and additional support from an attendance teacher, social worker, school psychologist, behavior specialist, and a reading or math interventionist. Albany High School also offers after-school and in-school credit recovery opportunities, as well as a range of tutoring and mentorship opportunities."