The other day, I received a memo in my mailbox stating that I am to meet with the administration with a remediation plan because of the failures in my class.  (Everyone who had failures got this memo.)  The majority of my failures are due to attendance issues.  I am not sure what I can personally do about a student who does not come to school on time or at all.  Yesterday, there were forms the administration wants us to fill in for every student who failed our class.  We are to put an individual remediation plan for them.  Now, is there a rocket sceientist or neurosurgeon in the house?  If so, please explain this to me:  If the issue is attendance, how can I rectify this?  (I asked for these individuals because it is my understanding that they deal with complex issues on a regular basis and I need their input.)  

Now, there are quite a few issues I have with this entire remediation plan.  One is, why is the sole responsibility falling upon the teachers?  Our principal came into our department meeting yesterday and presented us with information regarding attendance.  We are at 60%.  Now, I need my rocket scientist and neurosurgeon again for this one.  If the school's overall attendance is at 60%, please explain to my why there are so many failures?

The second concern I have is with the administration.  There are no consequences for the students who have poor attendance and multiple failures.  A lot of the students are failing multiple classes.  Some of them have friends and family members who attend the school and they are influenced by their negative behaviors.  When students are constantly absent or tardy, the administration doesn't have system in place to try and correct this, they just push it back onto the teachers.

The last issue I'll address is the lack of consistency within the building.  It makes no sense that a child can miss 32 of 40 classes and receive a passing grade in one teacher's class and a failing grade in another's.  That just doesn't make any sense.  If America is supposed to be so advanced as it relates to other countries, then why is it that something like education is a complex issue?  (I need my experts again!)  I can't believe that Americans truly believe that we are educating children.  We aren't.  All we are doing is pushing them out of one place into another.  Now, I am not suggesting that all schools are failing America's children, but the majority of them are. 

Now, I have to give my students busy work, so I can take the time out to fill in these sheets (which will probably be filed away somewhere, never to be seen again) to remediate students many of whom I have never met before.  All the time I am devoting to this could be used to 'remediate' the students who have failed.