Back to School, Back to School

By Margaret Lyons in News on Sep 7, 2004 2:48PM

It’s the first day of school for Chicago Public School students, so sharpen your pencils and put on a new pair of shoes. We love the first day of school: everyone’s so enthusiastic and well rested, and you haven’t seen everyone all summer, and it’s so exciting to get back to school to start learning stuff, plus who doesn’t love writing on the first page of a new notebook? Yay! Learning! Aw, balls, we just got pelted with a spitball.

CPS officials have made an especially large effort this year to get butts in seats on the first day of school. Last year, 89 percent of CPS students made it to school the first day—an all-time high—and this year, schools are trying to better that mark. Truancy doesn’t affect just the student who misses school; some absenteeism results in a loss of state aid to schools. According to the Trib, “a 1 percent increase above the district's average attendance rate of 92 percent nets the system almost $20 million,” and perfect attendance would result in $94 million. Cripes.

Chronic truancy is defined as missing 18 days of school, and the board of ed is trying to lay the smack down on parents of students missing that many or more days of school. Last year, 556 parents were called in for disciplinary action, and 5 of those parents are in the middle of legal proceedings. Officials stressed that efforts to combat truancy are less about getting parents and students in trouble and more about helping kids get to school.

Yeah, we’re not totally sure what that raccoon has to do with school either, but he’s so funny and he holds his pencil wrong. If there’s anything we need on a pseudo-Monday, it’s a cheerful raccoon with penmanship issues.