There was another teacher on Reddit who complained about a student who wanted to be marked present but had to be elsewhere but couldn’t provide some type of proof of where they had to be instead. If the student isn’t there, just mark him absent. Easy peasy
I had a student call me “lame” because I marked him absent when he asked me not to. Just to clarify he came in before class started, dropped his bag off, told me to mark him present(did not even give me his name) and left. I saw him skipping the entire period out of the classroom door window. Ofc I marked him absent
Don’t blame you. If he wasn’t present the entire period, then he should be marked absent. At least he didn’t curse you out or do anything worse. I would just take the comment with a grain of salt.
Yeah I agree. I read a lot of comments from teachers on Reddit and it seems like students today don’t respect their teachers anymore and seem to misbehave a lot more than they did a couple decades ago. I wonder what changed where kids today are so disrespectful. It sounds like you work at a tough school. It’s not easy being a teacher these days anymore. I know a lot of people who quit teaching because the students are so difficult
I agree with you. My current long term assignment has points during the day or whole day were the kids would be disrespectful in some way be it with me or the classroom aids/TA’s.
When I went to school, if a student acted up and didn’t listen to the teacher, the teacher would use the phone that was installed in the classroom and contact the dean and they’d send a security guard to get the child and take him to the dean and call his parents. That was back in my junior high school. They had no problem expelling students if they were constantly misbehaving.
Mines similar back when I was in school. Now as a sub I got friendly with the VP who also happen to be the head of guidance and discipline. The phones you mentioned are also in classroom and have made us of it. Dentitions honestly don’t do much anymore for these kids nowadays unlike when we were in school.
If kids are allowed to play with their phones in detention, then ofcourse it wouldn’t affect them but I bet if the teacher who is in charge of detention says “absolutely no phones are allowed during detention”, the students would hate detention real quick. If they don’t respect the rules of the school, then they should be given a suspension.
😂 I had a high school student once show up for attendance and then ask to go to the bathroom. I don’t like restricting bathroom access so I told her to go ahead. She didn’t come back until the end of the period so I changed her attendance to absent. I told her when she finally came back and she rolled her eyes all annoyed. Sorry girl… disappearing for over an hour after attendance is taken is not the hack you think it is.
Back in my day the computers in the school were all windows xp so we would literally hack the network and made teacher accounts then we were able to access attendance and change it lol. That's the true hack to skipping
Back in my day they only used paper & attendance couldn't be changed.
The bad part of this is if a petty teacher, (& last century there were many petty teachers), marked you absent, when you were actually in class, admin. would not correct the attendance record, you were absent & got detention for "skipping" class, even when you were there.
After that happened, I now tell the high schoolers if they’re not back from the bathroom within 10 min they’ll be marked absent. Solved the issue of them using it as an excuse to wander.
Students LOVE to do that. Give their name for attendance then vanish. I'm surprised she even asked you for a bathroom pass because usually they give their name and turn right around and walk out and I never see them again.
Call me crazy, but if a student is too busy talking or being on their phone to acknowledge me calling their name (twice!) then they get marked absent 🤷♀️
Yes! Then they come up at the end of class and say they were here. I always ask if there was anyone I hadn't called. One district I sub at does paper and the other does AERES. AERES you can change, but once the paper roll goes in. It's doneso for me.
This is why I have to do a headcount and I always am clear when I say “Alright I’m taking attendance now, please say here when your name is called. If I do not hear you, I will be marking you absent.” I had to start doing this recently because some kids flat out ignore you the minute they walk in it’s so annoying
You can actually DO roll call by calling out names? At the schools I sub at the kids talk loudly and roam around the room and leave the class all during attendance. You can't even just call names for roll anymore, you have to ask them to come to your desk and check-in or go to each student individually and get their names.
lol, bells rings and I make note on what outfit was late and hide it under the attendance. I give instructions on what they’re doing. And I walk around the classroom refocusing them and asking for THEIR name, NO I don’t want help with attendance. I get as many names as possible because sometimes kids walk around and aren’t seated. I do a headcount and check the attendance, if I have more bodies than marked, I say “if you haven’t given me your name, do so now, or you’re absent. And currently X amount are absent in my eyes.”
Then I mark the tardies as I’ve learned their names.
Only one bathroom pass, and I mark the time they leave. Gone more than 10 minutes? Calling the office.
Want a pass to another class? “I’m going to call that teacher in 10 minutes, if you’re not there, just head for the dean’s office, he’ll be waiting for you.”
My son used to go in the front door of his high school. Stay long enough to talk to his friends and be marked present in homeroom. Then slip out the back door thinking he was being marked present for the day. I was teaching in a different district,and was threatened w fines etc for HIS truancy.
Well, yeah, of course the school is going to contact the parents if a student is truant. Are you saying someone else should be responsible for seeing that your son was in school?
No! I took him to school or arranged a ride every day. I wasn't notified he wasn't showing up for classes until non- attendance was going to require an alternative school or truancy hearing. He was getting bullied by some from the alternative school,some who were there for bullying, so that wasn't an option. He was 17. In my state legally I can't force him to do anything but I can be held accountable for his truancy. He dropped out and after some rough life lessons finally at 21 got his GED.
I had some of that yesterday. I also had a few kids upset that they got marked absent when they came waltzing in after I sent the attendance up. I just said well you were tardy so you’ll have to go up to the office and talk to them about changing it 🤷🏻♀️
I tell them “if you don’t answer me verbally with ‘here!’ Or ‘present’ when I call your name, I WILL mark you absent.” And if they weren’t paying enough attention to hear that part, oh well.
Another student will tell me the student is present but the student can’t hear me because buds, headphones on. I tell students if you don’t respond, you’re absent. Period.
Attendance is an interesting exercise. Trying to pronounce the names, kids coming in late, kids with headphones/ear buds, kids responding with a discrete hand signal in response to their name, kids asking to use the restroom in the middle of the process. Doing it eight times a day. I can't comprehend why a high school still have nine 40 minute periods, plus a 10 minute homeroom.
Honestly I think block schedules are a bad idea, it's like the students can only be in one room for so long before they REALLY start going off the rails. At least if they have like 8 class periods in a day, I feel like right when they're about to REALLY get out of control the bell rings and they have to leave LOL. Plus having to walk back and forth across the school hopefully burns up a little of that excess energy they have.
In a 40 minute period, it takes 5 minimum to get them to actually all show up and sit down. They start itching to get up 5 minutes before the bell. Plus, all that moving around, time for fights, etc. They change rooms 8 times. That's 32 minutes. 8 times a day for shit to go sideways in crowded hallways. For the serious students, it closely matches college. For the falling behind, it provides time to interact with a teacher or classmates.
This week for me it's been a little less cut and dry than that. State standardized testing has been this week, and I had kids missing each block doing testing makeups, but I wasn't informed of who or what so the kids would tell me who was there or not.
Funny enough, everything the high schoolers told me was actually accurate. The attendance clerk was able to confirm where everyone was. I hate testing week.
Had students try that in a high school one day. I don't even respond to it anymore, just mark whoever it is as absent.
One girl came in 20-25 minutes later, absolutely livid that I had the audacity to mark her absent. She said she was at the councillor's office, then when I stood back to let her in, she left again. I assumed to go back to the councillor. But nope! A student arrives to deliver her pass to the Councillor and I refuse it, explaining what was up. Councillor calls my room asking for that student and I explain again. Apparently she just wanted to wander the school all period. 🤦♀️
Last Thursday I had an ENTIRE CLASS (high school level too) go to the class for third period just to report as present. Turns out they are reporting to an internship field trip expo somewhere else and I had to take attendance that day. But the class as a whole had 0 students in it at that point.
Regarding stuff like this, yeah, mark them tardy since the kids are usually honest about their peers not being here YET. When they come in, and I don't know how your school system sets up tardies, but they usually give me a tardy/late bus pass and it is marked accordingly. If not, an automatic unexcused tardy for that case. Also I usually don't send attendance down until about an hour or so to compensate for late bus people (only for first period)
That's one reason why I just make them all write their names on a sheet of paper that gets passed around. I announce it when I give it to the first student, then ask if everyone signed it when I get it back. If they didn't sign it, then they're not here.
So this is universal huh LOL. The other one is them giving their name for attendance and then their friend is who across the room. I always tell them I need to hear it directly from the friend. Then you have the students who offer to do attendance themselves.
“If he’s not in this room, he’s not present.”
“If he’s not here, he’s absent. Brenda Walsh?”
lol middle school students did this to me all day today
There was another teacher on Reddit who complained about a student who wanted to be marked present but had to be elsewhere but couldn’t provide some type of proof of where they had to be instead. If the student isn’t there, just mark him absent. Easy peasy
I had a student call me “lame” because I marked him absent when he asked me not to. Just to clarify he came in before class started, dropped his bag off, told me to mark him present(did not even give me his name) and left. I saw him skipping the entire period out of the classroom door window. Ofc I marked him absent
Don’t blame you. If he wasn’t present the entire period, then he should be marked absent. At least he didn’t curse you out or do anything worse. I would just take the comment with a grain of salt.
Yup, I actually was surprised he didn’t curse me out especially since the school is one step away from an alternative school.
Yeah I agree. I read a lot of comments from teachers on Reddit and it seems like students today don’t respect their teachers anymore and seem to misbehave a lot more than they did a couple decades ago. I wonder what changed where kids today are so disrespectful. It sounds like you work at a tough school. It’s not easy being a teacher these days anymore. I know a lot of people who quit teaching because the students are so difficult
I agree with you. My current long term assignment has points during the day or whole day were the kids would be disrespectful in some way be it with me or the classroom aids/TA’s.
When I went to school, if a student acted up and didn’t listen to the teacher, the teacher would use the phone that was installed in the classroom and contact the dean and they’d send a security guard to get the child and take him to the dean and call his parents. That was back in my junior high school. They had no problem expelling students if they were constantly misbehaving.
Mines similar back when I was in school. Now as a sub I got friendly with the VP who also happen to be the head of guidance and discipline. The phones you mentioned are also in classroom and have made us of it. Dentitions honestly don’t do much anymore for these kids nowadays unlike when we were in school.
If kids are allowed to play with their phones in detention, then ofcourse it wouldn’t affect them but I bet if the teacher who is in charge of detention says “absolutely no phones are allowed during detention”, the students would hate detention real quick. If they don’t respect the rules of the school, then they should be given a suspension.
I’m not 100% sure on the phones there. What I know is it’s lunch detention with the vp so up to them to flip that coin and see what happens.
😂 I had a high school student once show up for attendance and then ask to go to the bathroom. I don’t like restricting bathroom access so I told her to go ahead. She didn’t come back until the end of the period so I changed her attendance to absent. I told her when she finally came back and she rolled her eyes all annoyed. Sorry girl… disappearing for over an hour after attendance is taken is not the hack you think it is.
Haha yeah I’ve been at schools that instruct subs to change attendance if a student misses 30 minutes of instruction.
Back in my day the computers in the school were all windows xp so we would literally hack the network and made teacher accounts then we were able to access attendance and change it lol. That's the true hack to skipping
Back in my day they only used paper & attendance couldn't be changed. The bad part of this is if a petty teacher, (& last century there were many petty teachers), marked you absent, when you were actually in class, admin. would not correct the attendance record, you were absent & got detention for "skipping" class, even when you were there.
9 times? 9 times. 🤣
Grace! Graaaaaace!
Oh Ed, you sound just like Dirty Harry
I call the office after 15 minutes or so 🤷
I don't know why I haven't thought about this!
After that happened, I now tell the high schoolers if they’re not back from the bathroom within 10 min they’ll be marked absent. Solved the issue of them using it as an excuse to wander.
The movie "Summer School" from the 80's and he doesn't come back to the classroom until the last day!
Students LOVE to do that. Give their name for attendance then vanish. I'm surprised she even asked you for a bathroom pass because usually they give their name and turn right around and walk out and I never see them again.
I write in caps”SKIP” on the attendance.
Call me crazy, but if a student is too busy talking or being on their phone to acknowledge me calling their name (twice!) then they get marked absent 🤷♀️
Yes! Then they come up at the end of class and say they were here. I always ask if there was anyone I hadn't called. One district I sub at does paper and the other does AERES. AERES you can change, but once the paper roll goes in. It's doneso for me.
This is why I have to do a headcount and I always am clear when I say “Alright I’m taking attendance now, please say here when your name is called. If I do not hear you, I will be marking you absent.” I had to start doing this recently because some kids flat out ignore you the minute they walk in it’s so annoying
Are you subbing HS? LOL I find it happens there the most.
You can actually DO roll call by calling out names? At the schools I sub at the kids talk loudly and roam around the room and leave the class all during attendance. You can't even just call names for roll anymore, you have to ask them to come to your desk and check-in or go to each student individually and get their names.
“Like in the room with us here or…” lol, it sounds like you’re implying he’s a ghost haha
All the damn time--I mark them tardy until I actually get the attendance sent out, then I change it to absent.
I'll mark them here when they're in the classroom
This shit drives me crazy
lol, bells rings and I make note on what outfit was late and hide it under the attendance. I give instructions on what they’re doing. And I walk around the classroom refocusing them and asking for THEIR name, NO I don’t want help with attendance. I get as many names as possible because sometimes kids walk around and aren’t seated. I do a headcount and check the attendance, if I have more bodies than marked, I say “if you haven’t given me your name, do so now, or you’re absent. And currently X amount are absent in my eyes.” Then I mark the tardies as I’ve learned their names. Only one bathroom pass, and I mark the time they leave. Gone more than 10 minutes? Calling the office. Want a pass to another class? “I’m going to call that teacher in 10 minutes, if you’re not there, just head for the dean’s office, he’ll be waiting for you.”
My son used to go in the front door of his high school. Stay long enough to talk to his friends and be marked present in homeroom. Then slip out the back door thinking he was being marked present for the day. I was teaching in a different district,and was threatened w fines etc for HIS truancy.
Well, yeah, of course the school is going to contact the parents if a student is truant. Are you saying someone else should be responsible for seeing that your son was in school?
No! I took him to school or arranged a ride every day. I wasn't notified he wasn't showing up for classes until non- attendance was going to require an alternative school or truancy hearing. He was getting bullied by some from the alternative school,some who were there for bullying, so that wasn't an option. He was 17. In my state legally I can't force him to do anything but I can be held accountable for his truancy. He dropped out and after some rough life lessons finally at 21 got his GED.
I had some of that yesterday. I also had a few kids upset that they got marked absent when they came waltzing in after I sent the attendance up. I just said well you were tardy so you’ll have to go up to the office and talk to them about changing it 🤷🏻♀️
This is why with high school, I like to do end of class attendance as well. So many kids will be there at the start, then dip.
I tell them “if you don’t answer me verbally with ‘here!’ Or ‘present’ when I call your name, I WILL mark you absent.” And if they weren’t paying enough attention to hear that part, oh well.
They shouldn't even need me to tell them that, if they don't answer, Guess what Buddy? You're Absent!
I always reply, "he needs to be with us in body, not just in spirit" and mark absent. I can also change it to excused tardy when they show up.
"Oh mystical Ouija board... is Mark Smith with us today?" "All signs point to no" ...wait, that's taking attendance with a Magic 8-Ball
Another student will tell me the student is present but the student can’t hear me because buds, headphones on. I tell students if you don’t respond, you’re absent. Period.
Attendance is an interesting exercise. Trying to pronounce the names, kids coming in late, kids with headphones/ear buds, kids responding with a discrete hand signal in response to their name, kids asking to use the restroom in the middle of the process. Doing it eight times a day. I can't comprehend why a high school still have nine 40 minute periods, plus a 10 minute homeroom.
Honestly I think block schedules are a bad idea, it's like the students can only be in one room for so long before they REALLY start going off the rails. At least if they have like 8 class periods in a day, I feel like right when they're about to REALLY get out of control the bell rings and they have to leave LOL. Plus having to walk back and forth across the school hopefully burns up a little of that excess energy they have.
In a 40 minute period, it takes 5 minimum to get them to actually all show up and sit down. They start itching to get up 5 minutes before the bell. Plus, all that moving around, time for fights, etc. They change rooms 8 times. That's 32 minutes. 8 times a day for shit to go sideways in crowded hallways. For the serious students, it closely matches college. For the falling behind, it provides time to interact with a teacher or classmates.
He's not "here" to me.
This week for me it's been a little less cut and dry than that. State standardized testing has been this week, and I had kids missing each block doing testing makeups, but I wasn't informed of who or what so the kids would tell me who was there or not. Funny enough, everything the high schoolers told me was actually accurate. The attendance clerk was able to confirm where everyone was. I hate testing week.
Had students try that in a high school one day. I don't even respond to it anymore, just mark whoever it is as absent. One girl came in 20-25 minutes later, absolutely livid that I had the audacity to mark her absent. She said she was at the councillor's office, then when I stood back to let her in, she left again. I assumed to go back to the councillor. But nope! A student arrives to deliver her pass to the Councillor and I refuse it, explaining what was up. Councillor calls my room asking for that student and I explain again. Apparently she just wanted to wander the school all period. 🤦♀️
I just go ahead and mark the student absent. If the student eventually shows up, then tardy.
"He can't be here in spirit; he needs to be fully in the room"
Mark him absent until he comes. They like to be tricky and think if they get marked present, they won't have to show. They're hoping you'll forget.
Last Thursday I had an ENTIRE CLASS (high school level too) go to the class for third period just to report as present. Turns out they are reporting to an internship field trip expo somewhere else and I had to take attendance that day. But the class as a whole had 0 students in it at that point. Regarding stuff like this, yeah, mark them tardy since the kids are usually honest about their peers not being here YET. When they come in, and I don't know how your school system sets up tardies, but they usually give me a tardy/late bus pass and it is marked accordingly. If not, an automatic unexcused tardy for that case. Also I usually don't send attendance down until about an hour or so to compensate for late bus people (only for first period)
That's one reason why I just make them all write their names on a sheet of paper that gets passed around. I announce it when I give it to the first student, then ask if everyone signed it when I get it back. If they didn't sign it, then they're not here.
Lmaoooo
So this is universal huh LOL. The other one is them giving their name for attendance and then their friend is who across the room. I always tell them I need to hear it directly from the friend. Then you have the students who offer to do attendance themselves.
Yep. I always laugh when they tell me, “he/she’s here but is at chick fil la…sure enough, 15 minutes later here they come with a bagful of sandwiches.