In middle school, I don't think an unexcused absence is detrimental. School can easily give extensions to homework, tests, etc...

Bigger issue is the runaround PAUSD continually gives to parents/students instead of addressing the issue.

There was a Pop Warner team several years ago that went to Florida two years in a row. I never heard that this caused any issues.

The CEC section can be found here:

Web Link

The controversy has to do with "justifiable personal reasons" and "average daily attendance". The school district may, or may not, be financially punished for your students absence-- I'm not sure how this works under the current financing system.

Or, it could be that PAUSD is indirectly discouraging Pop Warner football for this reason:

Web Link

Original Poster:

Here's a link to the Truancy page for the CA Dept of Ed. Web Link

It specifically says:

Effective January 1, 2013, the law was amended to authorize school administrators to excuse school absences due to the pupil’s circumstances, even if the excuse is not one of the valid excuses listed in the California Education Code (EC) or the uniform standards established by the governing board of the district.

So the principal of the school appears to have the discretion to excuse absences "due to pupil circumstances." That would seem to apply in your case, if the principal saw fit.

FWIW, it sounds like you've done most or all of these exchanges via email. You might try an in person meeting with the principal, Ms. Ofek, or Ms. Hendricks. Harder for anyone to say no in person.

Good luck.

@Anon - Pausd is a "basic aid" district and is not funded via average daily attendance formulas. Most districts are, however, and since the principal is new to the district, she may have been trained to be unrelenting on truancy (not necessarily a bad thing).

You are most likely correct.
Non "basic aid" districts used to (and may still) give tons of "independent study" to kids who took short break to visit family etc.
"Independent Study" usually was piles of busy work. Useless worksheets. Took a while to figure out that this is/was the way for the districts not to lose the daily student's "allowance".

In response to Anon, I think what the poster asked was where in the California Education Code does it direct inflexible unexcused, so the link which specifies which reasons would be excused is not exactly the same thing. Also, even that list if you read it, uses the phrase "not limited to." So, what I suspect is that like the poster feels, the attendance woman or perhaps department at Jordan has poor communication skills, and her bosses, no accountability for her habits. The parent was deemed 'wrong' after the fact, and the truancy letter threats "right" because it was easy. The rare accomplishment of the student, was abnormal, and stuck out, so that too, made it circumspect and easy to deny on the basis of conformity.

While it may be true that the Administrators in question may have a personal prejudice against tackle football for kids, based on the media's reporting of concussions for professional adults, this subjective preference is not in any way mentioned by the California education code.

Then there is the very high probability that the Jordan attendance monitors saw the word "Disneyworld" and immediately decided that no matter what the parent said, this was in reality a "family vacation" and denied the request on those grounds.

http:/sites/google.com/site/Jordanmsweb/about/attendance

Thanks for everyone's response, especially to 'PAUSD a mess' and 'The Real Slim K.'

However, as no one specifically answered my questions, I will self-answer them now, pending of course, more knowledgeable correction.

1. "Nowhere" is the proper answer. (to where in the California Education Code does it specify that all sports team achievement-based requests off from California public school must be designated "unexcused."

2. "Nowhere" is the proper answer. (See, my link above, to where on the Jordan middle school attendance page does it specify that a personal business absence request cannot be for purposes of a sport team achievement based request off from California public school.

3. This is the one I still don't know. Is the reason that California Public School Administrators, by instinct, intentionally and as fast as they can, strive to sweep under the rug and rubber stamp mistakes, based on the Teachers' Union, which '60 Minutes' and so forth has told me fights tooth and nail to keep any and all of the worst teachers employed? or is it PAUSD itself?

__________________________________________________________________________

It is here that I would like to make a distinction. I was not asking whether, a California public school Administrator (or your boss, or your landlord, etc.) can subjectively do unfair things without specific constraint or prohibition by law. The obvious answer I admittedly know, is 'of course, all the time,' duh. But I was asking for a higher standard.
What about the appropriate, sympathetic, logical, even kind response to unusual situations and special problems? Why not consider that standard?

I appreciate the suggestion by 'Old Timer' for oral contact, I really do. I am not of the texting generation, as Ms. Karla Valenzuela is, and we did in fact make such a suggestion way back on December 3, 2017, that she customarily ignored. Then, when Principal Royaltey-Quandt and then Interim Superintendent Karen Hendicks, with the assistance of Chief Academic Officer of Secondary Education Sharon Ofek, used the word "inflexible" in their brief one and two paragraph responses, respectively...well, of course, the prospect of such an oral meeting appeared futile, so we did not insist.

I also very much appreciate the word choice of "The Real Slim K" of "inflexible" because that is the exact wording these Administrators used in their responses to us, to describe the certainty of our children's "unexcused" status as directed by the California Education Code. In fact, our very own circumstances contradict that word choice, as we have one son who attends one Palo Alto public school who was excused for the exact same absence and reason as the other son who attends another Palo Alto public school. Also contradictive of that word choice would be the anecdotal evidence provided by 'PAUSD a mess', in that he remembers a not so distant other Palo Alto football team who went to Florida for the same reason, yet "I never heard that caused any issues."

This is something that you really shouldn't get so worked up about. It's state law to send the letter home and for Palo Alto, it's meaningless. You know where your kid was, the school knows where your kid was, and they aren't punishing him. They have too many kids with too many issues at Jordan to have time to deal with your son's absence for football.

We've received the truancy letter before, too. Know what I did with it? I recycled it. Period.

Really, this isn't a big enough deal for you to go trashing the Jordan admin. They have much bigger issues to deal with, and I'm sure you do as well!
Do yourself and your kids a favor and chill out!

With all due respect, and I'm not trying to be funny, it makes perfect sense to me that a 'resident of Jordan Middle School' would only read part of my posts.

If it was "a state law to send the (truancy) letter home" under these circumstances, why didn't one of my sons who attends another Palo Alto School also receive the same letter? Why wasn't the same letter sent to the football team referenced above, by "PAUSD a mess"? Why just keep saying false things and expect me to agree?

I am advised to 'chill out'. fine. I will, but please also consider my advice to you.

(1) Jordan should respond in a timely manner to parent communications involving students. 2 and 3 weeks later and no response is not acceptable. Further, when you say 'I will conduct an investigation' and the parent responds, "thanks, please let us know the results," you then actually respond back to them. This is good manners.

2nd. Be accountable for chronic mistakes. for example, 'sorry we did not respond to your written request 2 weeks ago, or 1 week ago, would be a start. Then, stop repeating generalized falsehoods to justify your mistakes.

p.s. was the above-mentioned suspicion of seeing the word 'Disneyworld', checking off unexcused, and not reading anything else, accurate? If so, just admit it, and we can go forward from there.

If anyone wonders why we’ve had four principals in four years at Jordan...
This thread. ^^^^

Well, I cannot speak with any authority of observation regarding the prior 3. However, the most recent one sent us a very short email, making an easily verifiable mistake on the number of days my kid was absent from school, then informed that 'out of equity', the robo-truancy letter (with the threats of parent arrest and 12 year-old driving privilege suspension) must always be sent out regardless of the reason for the absences. That is 'to be fair to everyone', the same pernicious letter must be mass sent to the parents who notified the school before hand and the school knew were not there, exactly the same as they are sent to the truly truant kids.'

I'll just let that statement speak for itself, other than to opine, this should not be the case.

Posted by The Real Slilm K, a resident of Midtown

>> While it may be true that the Administrators in question may have a personal prejudice against tackle football for kids, based on the media's reporting of concussions for professional adults, this subjective preference is not in any way mentioned by the California education code.

To clarify, the article I linked to is specifically about the (counterintuitive, I agree) increased (statistical) risk of playing tackle football before high school age.

This article is mainly about a couple of lawsuits:

Web Link

This article is about the increased risk:

Web Link

This subject is probably tangential to the discussion here, although we don't know that for sure, but, "since you brought it up", I think the -objective- evidence actually does argue against tackle football for kids younger than high school. If you doubt this, read the second article.

@ Chill Out
I don't see the request as being out of line. All they want is a simple DIRECT answer as to why absences are being classified as unexcused. If that's too much to ask for a principal making $200K + benefits of taxpayer money, then maybe they should look elsewhere. If they have too many students at Jordan than the district needs to hire more people or open another middle school. Neither are excuses to not address a parent's concerns.

@ Chen Kai Wen - This is why anytime my child misses school, either for family vacation, sporting event, illness, etc... I just tell the school that they have a doctor's appointment or that they are sick. Problem solved.

As anon so aptly pointed out in the second response, and, may I add, helpfully provided a link to the relevant section of the CEC, it comes down to what the school considers 'justifiable personal reasons'. Maybe some schools think participation on private sports teams should be excused absences. But keep in mind that it takes extra work for teachers to schedule make-up tests, pull together assignments, and grade off-schedule due to your student's absence.

Although you personally highly value 'sports achievement', other families might just as highly value traveling together on vacation. At some point, if it were anything goes, teachers would be overloaded trying to deal with multiple individual student schedules. The CEC does not specify either way whether 'sports-achievement' should be unexcused, it's left open to the school and probably therefore to the individual in charge of attendance. You were fortunate that Ohlone was willing to count it excused. That doesn't mean that you get to demand that Jordan do the same.

When you're in public school, you really do not have a right to a lot of special privileges. That's why children who are very serious about athletics or music or whatever are often home-schooled or attend a specialty private school - for the flexible schedule. Otherwise, extra-curriculars are just that. Something done outside of school for enrichment, not something that you insist the school modify their schedule for.

I think the school should have been more prompt in responding to your emails, with that I agree. But I disagree that the school needs to excuse your child's 'sports-achievement' related absence.

thanks for more responses. To bemused, thanks, and to you Anon, thanks-- even though you must know, your 'evidence' in support of your, uh, rather trendy crusade against tackle football in favor of (I'm guessing?) the flag version your son plays, is exceedingly slim and is without comparative stats of concussions and head injuries in other sports, such as skiing, surfing, snow-boarding, soccer, even cheerleading, etc. You gonna ban these for your son, too? and later driving, maybe rock-climbing like Ned Flanders does with Rod and Todd?

However, this was not the subject being debated, but basically, one school's poor communications and lack of accountability regarding chronic mistakes. The principal in fact told me that she 'fully supported all the work' of the administrator we were complaining about--this was really a non-starter regarding improving or resolving those mistakes.

Bemused: of course we were not talking about mere participation in sports, but the very rare achievement of 27 boys all working together to win so many games they were representing the Western U.S. in a national Pop Warner Superbowl. In this specific case, this meant no extra work for the teachers, as the kids solicited the future assignments and completed them all in a timely fashion. We may quibble on your apparent lack of appreciation for the value of sustained outstanding team sports performances based on hundreds of hours of practice and learned skills of teamwork, toughness, and performance, but a family vacation is not the same thing. If you are wondering, my kids are in the Pop Warner scholastic hall of fame, for achieving an average of at least 90 points in all their classes for 3 consecutive years and in one of those years, at least 95. In short, neither they, nor their teachers, suffered at all (for this once in a lifetime accomplishment-based trip that they will remember the rest of their lives).

I am not demanding--I am merely pointing out the falseness of Jordan's assertion that they were in effect passively handcuffed by the California Educational code demand that our trip be unexcused. This was false--as I pointed out the Ohlone example and fellow poster 'PAUSD a mess' also pointed out the Palo Alto football team not so long ago (Palo Alto Knights, no doubt). I have this fear frankly, that the PC people in Palo Alto are striving to make us all more of the same by removing differences as they find non-PC, and these differences might even be recognition and respect for very high/very difficult accomplishments, simply because there are other kids who are instead, playing video games every afternoon, July-October. Well, I dissent to that trend.

Maybe, Anon, unless you wanted to continue the tangential debate on another forum? then very briefly here: if you are sincere about banning based on stats of concussions, you would ban football starting with high school, rather than until high school. That's when the high numbers begin, along with, in college and the pros, the gambling and steroids and crime etc. Why ban the part of sport with the fewest concussions?, no mob infiltration, no liquor sponsorships, and no paid players and coaches? I loved playing little league football, and never played pro football or even college football. Glad my father wasn't so PC. Palo Alto is still part of America.

Further, to quote Ronnie Lott, one does not live their life for fear of getting hurt. 50% marriages end in divorce, does not mean you should stay single. How many serious car accidents are there? Doesn't mean you don't drive a car. Hockey? skateboard? Injuries? Of course. Don't play? in favor of what, bubble wrap? In short, just because someone gets hurt doing something, doesn't mean you will be similarly hurt, so you shouldn't do it. thanks for consideration.

Agreed that this is not the main issue under discussion here, but, as to "evidence" and "trendy crusade", you might want to read the following:

Web Link

Including the helpful figure here:

Web Linkfigure/F2/

My personal risk threshold is probably limited to women's tennis or better (ie less risk) -- see graph, but, I certainly realize that not everyone agrees with me. I do want to point out, though, that the connections among head trauma, concussion, and CTE, require significant further research. (See the article.)

Wow. Wrestling sure is dangerous!

I am enjoying both discussions. I suppose my take is that there is a kind of person in the U.S. who likes to ride motorcycles, and another type of person, who doesn't. I rode dirt bikes in my early teens, long before licensed, and I crashed several times, but I am still glad no one banned me. So, I agree that if you want to ride a motorcycle, good, ride one, and if you don't want to ride one, good, too, just don't tell each other what to do. Football should be the same.

But reading closer, Anon, both of your links are primarily addressing injuries for collegiate and high school athletes, which is non-responsive to Chen Kai Wen's Pop Warner age group.

thanks, The Real Slim K, I agree.

btw, because my son's team won even both of their games in Florida, over Michigan and North Carolina teams, respectively, to become U.S. PW national divisional champions, they will be officially recognized next Tuesday night at San Jose City Hall, first on the agenda at 6 pm., City Council Chambers.

yes, it's a sign of the times, that there was no Palo Alto Knights this year, and the PW team long gone, so we must look outside the immediate area for a tackle football team. An advantage in life for them, though, is they have on their team and regularly interact with black and brown people, which of course, are few in increasingly non-diverse Palo Alto. What's even worse than racial exclusion, though, is this kind of ultra-conformist group think, which if truth be known, was the perfect incubator for an oblivious FACEBOOK-supported Manchurian Candidate...

Anon: my college professor used to say that 'citing research compliments your audience,' and I agree; but improper use of stats is propaganda. Of course I have you as well and bemused at a serious disadvantage regarding an informed opinion on the subject of injuries in tackle football for the 5-14 year-old (pre-high school) age group, because I have for the past 5 years, personally watched hours and hours and hours of these practices and games for months at a time each year, so frankly, I do not have to rely upon a Will Smith entertainment for guidance. Serious injuries? There just not that many, not as many as in baseball or basketball according to my experience, for the ages 5-12 at least.. and that lawsuit? really, I should take that seriously? Do you know how easy it is in this country to sue anyone for anything? These (men-hating?) woman have no chance in this lawsuit, and I should add, that at my kids' age, PW has girls on teams. The tackle football haters would have you believe not only that they are helpless to take responsibility for their own decisions, but that tackle football is the same as cigarettes. Yet, cigarettes offer no physical and mental health benefits, do they? Further, my kid will remember his well-earned U.S. championship earned at Disneyworld Wide World of Sports Complex and then being honored at City Hall. [Portion removed.]

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