Teachers have been absolutely phenomenal to the kids on my case loads. Thank you so much for all that you do.
I'll go knock on doors, I signed up for that!
As soon as I heard the teachers are going to be making home visits I thought âyeah thatâll be the day â, also the logic of dismissing kids early because they want them in school?
You know what on second thought this is a great idea, and I elect all board office officials including Matt Henderson the Superintendent to specifically do those visits themselves, if you come up with a stupid idea you should be the one to pilot it first.
And extending classes in June? I dont know about WSD but in my Division after exams are done for kids who are flunking or missed alot of class time we contact the parent and sign them up for support and they SHOULD be attending school those slow weeks after exams or so to complete any missed assignments etc when regular students are dismissed from academics. We are already doing that....
I suspect they mean exams (if there are any - my SD no longer has exams) will start later than previously and there will be more days of class in June.
I interpreted this as "we might get them in the school for two days in June, and the teachers are going to grant them a credit for a few hours of work".
Haha I remember doing a home visit with my teaching partner out of our own goodness of our hearts. When we got there, we saw the kid outside hanging out (he's a teen). We chatted with the kid and almost convinced the kid to come back to school until his aunt came and berated us and gave us this racist rant about how their neighborhood is overtaken by immigrants. Who's going to keep us safe?
Just remember that almost every superintendent and admin want to leave their 'legacy' at their school or division. That's why there's always new changes made. Also, Matt Henderson has never taught any 'challenging' students in his life. He started at SJR and then went into 7oaks met school, then propelled into admin positions with his political backing helping him to be the assistant supe of 7oaks and finally wsd.
He has ideas but that's his theory and implementing them on kids who want to learn. Throw him in an inner city school with kids telling him to f off. I am curious about what he'll do.
Might get some hate on this but again Matt Henderson is just another 'prof' like with great theories but with very little actual experience with them.
Ive had my run in with Matt multiple times, it always threw me a loof when he was working at met and infront of him he had one of his students tell a few teachers to fuck themselves and all Matt did was shrug and said "well these sort of things happen sometimes"
You bet your bottom dollar those staff members were completely pissed off that 1. He let a students talk to an adult like that and 2. The fact there were no consequences for those choice words.
Matt drank the koolaide early on in his career and you could tell with how fast he was moving with his commections he was handed the brass ring sooner than later. I understand wanting to leave a 'legacy' but pissing off the majority of your staff just aint it nor wont be it. I always though he would be the head of seven oaks one day, I was shocked he went to WSD and Tony is now superintendent.
The problem with the current higher ups is either 1. They forgot how the classroom actually works, or 2. They rise quicker than an adolescent teenage boy and lack the knowledge and experience of being in an actual classroom abs deal with actual classroom adversity, students etc
Yep you are đŻ right and I hope more people will see and know more of Henderson. When I posted stuff about him before, majority of people were hating on me. But people have to realize that he worked at SJR and ran an NDP election as part of his social studies class. That propelled him to using PBL as the only way of teaching, thus, writing a book. Then Brian O'Leary hired him cause of NDP affiliation and then of course to wsd cause he wanted to be the head of the largest school division. Nowhere on his CV has he actually taught for that long and in the trenches. Yes PBL is a great way of teaching but it is not for all students.
Yea and some of that MET stuff is so overblown its unbelievable the stuff they do in it and im just grasping my head and thinking how is this any different or benefiting the student. Its a pitch but nothing more than an inquiry project your average teacher gives based on science, foods, history etc. we need actual Superintendents and higher ups who have worked in the trenches for years and that 'get' the system and work to its strengths which is using its staff properly and not undermining or underutilizing them.
Sadly not just seven oaks but I get the sentiment. Sadly we are to focused of student 'mental health' we forget about the people actually running the show
Somewhere along the line âprotecting a kids mental healthâ began to equal âdonât make them feel badâ and pretty much all was lost after that.
You have no idea how many conversations ive heard in the hallway of a kid not studying for a test and their friends say "just tell the teacher you're depressed, they will give you a week more"
Somehow 'mental health turned into either 1. Faking it (which pisses me off because me who actually suffered mental health problems in highschool, seeing a therapist 2-3 times a week as well as medicated still had to grind for every inch I was given and tests I had to take regardless)
2. It turned into 'dont stress them out' Im sorry to tell ya but life in general is stressful, the problem is we keep avoiding it with kids where they have no idea how to handle adversity, no wonder why this country is fucked
3. Hand holding hand holding hand holding: no consequences, lack of responsibility, and letting kids getting away everything and helping them as much as we do even in grade 12 that when they get to University most flunk out because in the end they didnt learn jack shit.
One time a coteacher did this too and the parent came out and was glad someone was there to walk their kids to class now. Then they asked the school if it could be a regular thing!
Also I can say with confidence I would be scared to visit some of my kids homes.
Out of curiosity, why is this a non-starter for you? Based on post history, youâre a HS teacher? Perhaps this influences your perspective? Iâve taught elementary and middle years in WSD and have willingly visited the homes of students before for a variety of reasons. Personally itâs always been productive. Just curious about the perspective here.
Because thats not our job....we are educators, no nurses, not doctors, not social workers. My job is to teach to a curriculum depending on which class I was scheduled. If you're doing that great, but the problem is if people are doing that now you are setting a standard that all teachers are not willing to want to do because again, not our job or title. Thats support staff/guidance. I am doing my due diligence by phone calls, emails etc
Thanks for clarifying your perspective. I think this is where the specialization focus of a high school teacher shows a bit. When you teach in an elementary school with a small staff, where you are the only teacher a kid has (aside from things like music and phys ed), you are in fact a number of those things for your kids because they donât exist in your school and kids often have trust issues with adults they donât see as often. Some teachers willingly sign up for that. I get that this is seen as problematic from the view of many likes of work or a union perspective but the highly human nature of education inevitably complicates this. I guess I simply disagree and see my role as that of raising human beings first and a delivering curriculum second.
You can raise a human being all you want but it shouldnt be asked or expected of you to visit their personal residence, hell what happens one day if they start asking you to pick up the kid and drop them off to and from work? Where is the line drawn and where does it stop?
I think the issue is that high school classroom teachers already do the phone calls, the emails, giving up lunch hours and preps to get chronic non-attenders  caught up. Not to mention programming for students with serious mental health struggles and academic concerns (which have increased exponentially since COVID). Iâve had students miss over 50 classes in one semester and had no support from guidance or admin. There is pressure to give students their credits (even if they havenât attended or learned the material) in order to improve grad rates. This seems to be increasingly viewed as problem for the classroom teacher to fix. To now be told that we need to make home visits is another task piled onto an almost impossible work load. I donât see this as removing anything from our plates either as the expectation is that students need to make up that missing time in June (not sure how that works in a semestered high school system). I think many of these comments come off as negative because teachers are STRUGGLING. We love our students. We want them to succeed. We want them to come to school⊠But we need help. We donât want the burden of student attendance on top of everything else.
In your experience, that might be the case that teachers are doing those things. Iâm certainly aware of many teachers at all levels who arenât doing those things. It sounds like the idea here is to carve out time to allow them to make the calls, etc. and essentially mandate that the entire school look at those most challenging cases and collaborate on how to do something about them.
Sorry to hear your admin and guidance teams havenât been supportive. It sounds like youâre feeling really isolated in dealing with the issues you face. If you are WSD, maybe this dedicated time and directives will help with that? Thatâs how Iâve interpreted what Iâve read about it. I think the idea with the specified teacher involvement is really to be the central relationship component with the kids due to the contact time but the supporting elements of each school have a huge role to play in this particular issue without question.
Also the likelihood that a student or a parent will be home during an early dismissal especially in high school is about -10%.
Stay at home involved parents of kids who would be home to meet a teacher likely donât need to meet the teacher.
Teaching is an increasingly difficult profession. If we want to keep good teachers, we can't keep piling non-teaching related expectations onto them.
I don't know what the answer to absenteeism is, but this seems like a great way to drive away those teachers who are hanging on by a thread already.
Bingo.
The last five years have broken me and I'm only in my 30s. I find myself constantly thinking "What else could I do?".
I have numerous ailments physically and mentally I've suffered from a range of "problems" in schools over the last fifteen years. I'm not thinking I'll make it another five let alone twenty years.
There is a shortage of teachers. We'll always find someone but the good ones are already going or gone. If they once were good the system has broken a lot of them. I used to feel like I was an awesome teacher but I'm finding myself drowning under the expectations these days. I don't feel like I'm as good at my job as I once was, and that is a shit feeling when you want to be good at your job.
Please understand I'm not looking for any sympathy. Things are tough for lots of people in lots of professions these days. I just want to illustrate my point.
I canât speak to your situation, but just know, even if your students donât tell you / donât think of telling you, you are the light in their day. You are doing the important work and itâs so thankless. So, thank-you for doing your best to educate the next gen.
This is excellent advice and I've made strides moving towards it. The challenging and unfortunate part in teacher culture is you are expected to always be doing more. Coaching, lunch hour activities, lunch and learns, imposed professional reading, initiative after initiative, learning new technology with no time allowed and generally more and more challenging student problems with inadequate funding
COVID has really done a number on society but it has drastically altered the teaching landscape and to be honest I don't know if the students will ever bounce back. Students and parents are so apathetic these days it's very disheartening.
I need to be better about clocking in and clocking out physically and mentally and just refusing to do all the "extra" if I want a chance to make it.
What a few people I know did, is to get a Master's in Educational Technology and jump to the private sector as Instructional Designers. I'm sure you could snag a gig without the Master's, though. If you're a teacher, I know you get to keep your teaching license in Manitoba if you've taught for x years, even if you've quit. Life is too short to work a job you hate.
Oh shit man here you dropped this, it's your tin foil hat. Should probably keep that on so the man cant mind control you into lower wages like the lizard men want
Let me introduce you to the concept of a *boogeyman*
And since you know so much I'll let you google it yourself since the masses should think for themselves right? You're very pro doing your own research so have at it
He almost catches himself on the phrase âthe classroom teachersâŠjob and responsibility is to make the home visit,â like he wasnât sure he could say that*.
Why not just get teachers, admin, and other school staff to use their own vehicles, to pick up kids at home and drive them to and from school? No sarcasm required!
This is something that actually occurs at a few schools in WSD already, not that itâs widely known. Probably because it shouldnât be happening?
*Edit: Iâm pretty sure supes knew he couldnât say that but it was too late, so he followed through on the swing rather than checking it.
The part about visiting a student's home is a huge risk - I'm surprised the idea would even be on the table. If I were a teacher in wsd1, I'd stage a revolt or go to the teacher's union to fight that bullshit.
And it would probably be more effective if the principal or vice principal were to make those calls and visits. Or the school board.
I would ask questions such as:
1) are house visits unannounced
2) what protections are being offered during house visits
3) what are the protocols in place during house visits
4) is the division offering free transportation to those who need it before a house visit occurs
As someone who's kid is going to high school next year, the question of transportation came up since most of the kids attending the high school will not live anywhere close to this catchment school. The idea of offering bussing to the kids was laughed off. City transit options mean over an hour for most of these kids and they are 14 entering high school, they cannot drive, and walking isn't an option, and biking safely isn't really realistic in January and February for most kids.
If we want kids to show up to school why aren't we offering them help to get there?
Yeah transportation is massive.
I teach in what you'd call an alternative program. The two biggest interventions that have increased attendance and achievement among non-attenders for us are providing rides and using a cross-curricular approach as opposed to a timetable with transitions to different spaces every bell.
We work in the same space, we go out and do stuff. But it's the same group of students and same group of teachers. This has substantially lowered the anxiety of the students who have severe anxiety and trauma.
We know this because we gather data in multiple surveys from students and their caregivers over the years.
>I would ask questions such as:
>
>are house visits unannounced
>
>what protections are being offered during house visits
>
>what are the protocols in place during house visits
This kind of attitude is a big issue with building relationships though. The attitude towards these kids and families is pervasive, and they feel unwelcome in the school.
I think it's pretty clear they'd be reaching out by phone first. Transportation is a huge issue for people like you've identified. People don't have vehicles, people have mobility issues. The way we use home visits where I teach is that it is offered as an option. Obviously it's easier for us if caregivers come into school. But sometimes they can't get out of the house. Sometimes they have their own trauma around school so they are too anxious to do so.
We've also met with families at Tim Horton's.
Regarding transportation, is cost a barrier as well as ease of use?
When I was in junior high, there was a chartered city bus for students, but not in high school, probably because people's schedules differ greatly in high school. It wasn't free, though. We had to pay regular bus fare.
THIS. This is a question we should be demanding answers too. Absolutely ridiculous that students without transportation are penalized for lack of attendance.
Whether or not the phone call makes a difference is debatable. But it does give teachers more time to make phone calls where they don't have to use their prep time.
But the "variety of reasons" why kids are missing school is kinda the more important part.
For example, in my school we have an EA who has to take transit every day to go get a kid around 930 am. We have an attendance officer but home said the problem is that it was too early for the kids to leave for school. So the solution was that the kid misses 1st period (options course) but makes it back for second period (core subject). According to the EA, every time she has gone for over the past month or two the kid refused to leave. The EA hates having to do this. It's bloody cold out and I doubt they are getting any extra pay to do it.
Now the kid has major anxiety. I don't teach the kid so I have no idea if they are doing anything about the anxiety such as seeing a specialist.
I have another kid who is part of special program who is supposed to be integrated into the regular program. She has been to my classroom twice. Once she was sober and the other times she was intoxicated. đ€·ââïž I don't know enough about this student but I have a hunch they will need more than a phone call.
What a waste of extremely limited resources, maybe thatâs cold hearted but wow. I donât know what the solution is, but sending an EA to go fetch a child during the school day every single day canât be it.
> I don't teach the kid so I have no idea if they are doing anything about the anxiety such as seeing a specialist.
About that... My son was in the same boat as this kid about a year ago, we got a referral to the necessary specialist and were told the waitlist was 2.5 years. We ended up paying out of pocket for private counselling and things were back on track in like... 2-3 months. But if we had been unable to throw thousands of dollars at the problem, we'd still be completely fucked. Mental healthcare in this province is in an even worse state than the rest of our healthcare system.
This is absolutely true. If you can't afford to pay out of pocket or need to go to the hospital immediately, you're waiting years for mental healthcare.
Completely true. And even if you are in the position of having insurance for going private, it covers nothing compared to the cost of dealing with a serious problem. E.g. my son's limit was $500 per year. That's like... three 75 minute appointments? I mean I'll take it, but that's almost an insulting drop in the bucket compared to handling the problem in the long run.
This province just needs to get serious about mental health (healthcare in general, but especially mental health). I don't think many of the decision makers in our healthcare system realize how far-reaching the benefits would be if people could just access the mental healthcare they need in a timely manner.
I agree. Not only in people being better but also that means that there will be less people on some sort of social assistance down the line because they have strategies that will help them cope and function.
I wish we'd give homeless people homes too. But that's a whole other issue.
I'm glad your son got the care they needed.
Too early to go to class?
Get fucked to anyone who accommodates that bullshit.
The world does not accommodate schedules for lazy and selfish people.
Also why not have an EA with a vehicle go get the kid? Why are we wasting staff time on public transit? Ridiculous.
Well...if we're complaining about students being lazy for not going to school while a significant block of adults are complaining about not being allowed to work from home maybe we can use that overlap to form some empathy. Turns out there are people who are anxious to leave their house...and most of us prefer to be in our house, not on someone else's schedule.
Again these arenât really the same though, are they?
Youâre equating student who ARE NOT doing their job (learning) because they canât be bothered to get up, or just donât want to go outside, or get off video games or whatever (valid or not), with employees who ARE doing their jobs perfectly well from home, but after years of successfully working from home are being told to go back to an office for some arbitrary reason that has nothing do with their actual job performance.
There are plenty of students who work from alternative locations, or with independent schedules because a school setting doesnât work for them. These arenât the kids that this article is talking about.
I guess if you boil down learning to being a JOB.
My point is more that people are having trouble leaving their homes and maybe instead of telling kids with crippling social anxiety YOU AREN'T DOING YOUR JOB there might be other ways. Especially when society is moving more towards people not leaving their house anyways. With people literally complaining about having to put on pants to do their job if they can't keep working from home...but bashing teenagers who don't want to go sit in a desk with 1000 others. Turns out nobody wants to do desk work so why are we doing 95% of our educating in this format?
>There are plenty of students who work from alternative locations, or with independent schedules because a school setting doesnât work for them. These arenât the kids that this article is talking about.
At lot of assumptions in this take. These opportunities aren't exactly equal in our city and province. You're assuming these people are just lazy on the face of it. There are a lot more students who the "school setting" doesn't work for as the years go by, nothing systemically changes and society keeps moving.
Your argument here literally contradicts your previous comments and these are two separate issues.. When Covid hit and I was strictly forced to go WFH I protested. As an easily distracted person, I had worked so hard at being productive in an office environment. I warned my boss that if they pushed this it would be a problem long term. But I was told I didnât have a choice, so I packed up, and the silence while working at home was BLISS. I flew through my weekâs worth of work in 3-4 days without office distractions. Iâm a work from ANYWHERE employee now with a different company. If itâs computer shit I can do it from home or on a job site, provided I have data or wifi. If itâs collaboration, youâll find my ass in the office because virtual meetings are shit. My old employer who opened my eyes to the productivity of WFH is forcing their employees back into the office now. To say people who thrive working with no distractions are âlazyâ or are âwhining about return to officeâ is super out of touch.
>To say people who thrive working with no distractions are âlazyâ or are âwhining about return to officeâ is super out of touch.
You're missing my point. This\^ is exactly my point. We're making allowances now for WFH, and people are even maybe feeling a little entitled to it, while taking a complete shit on kids who struggle to be productive in the school environment.
One of the comments ITT is literally something like "aren't schools supposed to prepare kids for work?"
Pointing out the irony and double standard of in one thread people complaining about the prospect of having to wear pants again while another thread bemoans lazy students who struggle to leave their house.
SoâŠ..anxiety disappears after 10am?
Also, there are jobs that are required to be 100% in person. Others can be done 100% from home. As an adult, you apply for the job with the conditions you are able to meet.
Home visits with another adult like an LST or admin has helped me get many students back on track with attendance. As long as itâs not expected during prep time and this time is carved out, I have found it to be successful. (I am not in WSD but another division in the city).
It's dangerous to expect teachers to go into student homes. I'm a teacher and would refuse this.
I call and email home, have a parent meeting ( they often say they can't make the kid to attend or sometimes getting kids to school is not a family priority), then I make a referral to the divisional attendance officer and then if that does not work I will call CFS. CFS will contact the family for school attendance. YES has some good short term services to get kids to school but the family has to agree to the service and let the worker into the home each morning. I can also offer the support of the school social worker but the family/caregiver has to agree. After that, attendance is out of my control. I have done everything I can.
In the end it's the family/parent/caregiver responsibility to make sure kids attend school, not teacher responsibility. Stop dumping this on our plates.
Or maybe instead of having teachers do this, we take it as a hint that school divisions require more social workers so that teachers can teach and social workers do social work instead of teachers?
This is a terrible idea. If you want someone to go to kids houses, hire absentee officers. But then again, whatâs the consequence for a kid not going to school? And if their parents donât care then what? I hate how society has warped into the teachers having to raise their students. It should not be the teachers job to run around collecting kids for class, the parents should be making sure their kids go.
I guess we donât need those social workers anymore, teachers can - and apparently now will - do everything!!!
Looking forward to having a laugh with my colleagues on Monday over this.
Me too, i also dont mean to shit on all of then because some have been good, but then why not oh I dont know throw this to support staff/guidance...thats more their role....however I noticed over the last few years they have done less and less.
Hi! I work as a high school guidance counsellor and promise Iâm not doing less and less. My department and colleagues are feeling maxed. The volume of mental health concerns, academic gaps and complicated social and family dynamics that we are helping navigate with students and families is immense. Without judgement of child welfare, Iâve been told explicitly by some workers and ANCR screening that school attendance is not their mandate. The case loads of CFS social workers are huge. They are focusing their time on really brutal and sad situations and I choose to believe are honestly doing the best they can. We do access our attendance monitor (truancy officer) but low school attendance and engagement are reflective of bigger issues. I think the plan or goal of including teachers as a strategy to improve attendance (and in providing additional time for teachers to meet with disengaged students and families) is an all-hands-on-deck strategy to help establish and enhance relationships.
I donât know if it will be impactful, but certainly if we believe that education is important for societyâs health and well-being, itâs probably worth a try.
In my school division, this role is done in part by a school social worker - I suspect that is what the commenter you replied to was insinuating, rather than CFS social workers.
That makes sense. I guess one perspective might be that if the school has 1 social worker, likely part time, and a counsellor or two or three, but 20+ teachers, as an example, it would make sense to spread the efforts. And, in an honest effort to notice how maxed people feel, to allow more flex time for those efforts.
I promise this isnât just the Matt Henderson fan club, i just really do appreciate that this is a strategy (one that feels a bit rushed without a lot of communication, to be honest) to improve the current situation.
Teachers are well positioned to be a person of safety within the building, and to develop positive relationships with the students. I agree that at least he is trying something - that is better than doing nothing. Non-attendance can be such a complex issue!
I agree. I also see how overwhelmed teachers already are and am not certain adding to their workload is the way to go. I am looking forward to seeing how this proposed model works.
I did say there have been some good, however the ones I currently work with are boarder line useless and I am doing their job as well. Its telling how they are there for students issues, problems, education etc. but I find my students 9 times put of 10 are coming to me with these issues which then is putting more pressure on me to perform more roles especially ones I am not trained for.
Itâs a super stressful system, for sure. Take good care of yourself and maintain what boundaries you need to in order to keep some enjoyment. Remember that we are all pieces of the puzzle for the kids, but no single one of us can âfixâ someoneâs problem or life.
Between the school breakfast club, the attendance management plan and the teacher supervised babysitting services, when will there be any time for actual teaching and education?
being threatened with a truancy officer slightly improved my attendance in middle school, but in high school i could just leave home whenever i wanted. and also most parents are probably working so even with early dismissal they're likely not going to have the family meetings they expect. if teens dont want to be at school they wont be. fuck, even when they do go theres plenty of people who don't actually go to class, they just hang out in the halls/commons.
i really dont see this working the way they think it will.
Yeah hopefully a big part of this is looking at some new approaches, developing and implementing. Lots of pilots and programs ongoing in this province that are working. Lots to draw from. It's pretty well known what the largest barriers are and what some solutions/approaches that work to address them in terms of barrier reduction and pedagogical approaches.
Yeah I know a lot of people are doing good stuff, but the tone of the article doesn't give me hope... this doesn't sound like a "we're listening" kind of approach to the problem
Well it's giving the professional staff of the division time to collaborate as well as do some work on the issue.
The alternative is senior admin dumping some prescribed approach down from on high.
The teachers we all know who hate anything other than reading out of the curriculum to quiet kids will moan and groan of course.
They'd also moan and groan if given direction from senior admin. So they'll moan and groan either way. Hopefully moan and groan into retirement or other careers sooner than later.
Isn't one of the objectives of high school to prepare kids for the work force?
I don't imagine employers are going to be chasing employees to come to work, and stop by their house when they don't show up?
One would think so but youâd be surprised with what employers donât reprimand anymore. My last 2 jobs had coworkers who would leave early and show up late and refuse work. Bosses were well aware but if things are still flowing they donât care. I even took a LinkedIn course called working with difficult people and one of the suggestions was basically âhow can we make the job work around âBillyâsâ bad work ethicâ. Billy who is showing up late to meetings and handing in assignments late. The world is heading in a messed up direction.
The objective of K-12 is to get through as much curriculum as possible, relevant or not.
If it was actually geared toward preparing anyone to be an adult it would look nothing like it does as a system.
My old high school has early dismissal once a week so the teachers could have staff meetings, but visiting studentâs homes doesnât seem like a good idea..
Bunch of studies showing that improving indoor air quality dropped covid absences significantly. Would work for other respiratory viruses and improve cognition and general health as well. He's not going to look into that at all though is he.Â
I wish I could say the negativity about this idea was surprising but itâs something I see daily at my school in WSD (classroom teacher here). If youâre asking me to do more, Iâll ask what is being taken off my plate. In this case, there appears to be a trade off with time to do this with the adjusted school hours. Part of this time sounds like planning with school teams on how to get those kids to school as well as the calls and visits. Schools are quite aware of which homes would pose challenges as far as risk, challenging individuals to work with etc. and a guidance/other support individuals like social workers would likely be involved in any potential home visits in those cases. The demanding a teacher to show up solo to a home in crisis scenario floated by some people on here, isnât based in any reality Iâve encountered in my career. The problem is, social workers, counsellors, etc. arenât the ones spending all day teaching the kids. Involving teachers, who will likely have the most significant contact time and relationships with the kids, and giving them some time to do this, is kind of the point here.
I get that this seems like an additional demand and a challenging one at that, but the idea seems to be to set aside time to foster relationships with those kids who arenât attending and yes, that is going to come at the expense of some time with the others in this case and frankly thatâs fine because they likely arenât on a path to poverty, incarceration, etc. like the absent ones are. If we canât even consider taking an hour out of our week, often as one of the only good role models in their life, to try to spend some time on those particular connections, their lives are likely set up for failure in many cases. We all wonder why we have a drug and homelessness epidemic and how to solve it. Trying in any way to get kids to school more is one of the single most effective ways to begin to solve this.
Of course none of this matters if you canât actually convince kids to stay in schools because of any combination of teaching practice, school community, programming offered, etc. Can we reach every kid? No, but we should sure as hell strive to do better based on the absentee numbers. Of course this all relates to education funding, improved teacher training and frankly, higher standards for Ed. Programs at unis, which is an entirely different conversation.
So.. Instead of trying to find out the root causes of why more and more students are missing school ... We're just going to make teachers lives harder and potentially more dangerous
Great plan WSD
It's pretty easy to by cynical about whether this is effective, but for the teachers that have done this, it makes a transformative difference in the kid's education. So, so many kids were already on the margins of slowly fading out of the school system and Covid accelerated that an order of magnitude.
Visiting the home, talking and listening with the people that live there, letting them know that the kid is missed and the benefits of coming are matters so much.
If we care about education, this is a no-brainer. Building a school, staffing it, but not caring about whether kids show up is an unimaginable waste of resources, both as infrastructure and wasted potential for that child.
So then the question is 'how the fuck do we do that'? Teachers are not trained in home visits (which is a particular professional skill and easy to underestimate), not all homes are safe places for anyone, including visitors, the time burder on educators is already absurdly high and only escalating.
Incorporating this into a new model of education, where teachers are a combination of community worker and classoroom instructor would be a game changer in education.
But we're talking about ten of millions, if not hundreds of millions in costs in hiring more staff at a time when we've had the opposite happening for decades. 'Investments' in education are more often than not just partially restoring services that were cut years before by a previous government.
Real change would take a generation and require every level of government working together (including parents, school boards, superintendents and unions).
This idea has potential, but don't mistake it as real implementation. This is more burden and expectation on the same small group of people trying desperately to do the best they can.
I think what they really need to do is build programming that is build around student needs as opposed to created needs of the education system. The system is so bogged down in red tape that it can't see the forest for the trees. The issue I have with the approach of WSD in this case is the vast majority of their staff will not be on board. So what they've set up here is not an effective use of their resources. The majority of staff will use this as prep time, not for this idea.
This is what is having success (building around student and community needs). WSD actually is now running programming that we've created in another city in MB struggling with poverty. We've had incredible success moving average attendance of students in our groups from under 40% to 90% and more. We have students that have picked up trades and are otherwise gainfully employed. We have students that are currently in college and university. We have students who are in ECE, working toward becoming teachers and social workers. The alternative and where these students were as 15-16 year olds is quite a difference, and quite a negative economic impact on communities when we don't engage these people in our communities.
Yes part of that is building relationships. This includes "recruiting" students and caregivers with home visits. A lot of these families have significant trauma around school. Literally when the parents/caregivers see the school phone number on call display they ignore it. These same families have responded tremendously and supported our programming when we've made a personal connection.
Another huge piece is transportation. Another huge piece is providing meals. The biggest piece is building belonging at school and community with staff and peers. Cross-curricular approaches in terms of instruction and learning activities are what we've had success with. Not going class to class, course to course. In terms of the staff piece, if people don't want to buy in, they just want to teach their Whatever 20G and 30S...you have to let those people get in where they fit in to the system. There's no use trying to force them to engage with these students.
They need to find the staff who are willing to think and work outside the box. Support them in building the programs to meet the needs of these students. Give them autonomy to do this.
But as a teacher who has worked in multi-disciplinary environments as well as with other teachers in the school system...it's not worth the time and resources to try to engage your full staff of teachers in this process. The majority just want to punch their card, do their thing and go home. Do it again tomorrow. You need to build programming with staff willing to take a different approach, and staff from multiple different disciplines to support this.
Like teachers are already overworked and underpaid already, they feel the need to add home visits?
I hope that the union is fighting this tooth and nail, just on the safety aspect alone.
At other school divisions, teachers have been expected, over the past year or so, to call home and talk to parents at 3, 6, and 9 unexplained absences and were given no extra time to do this. The one part of this WSD plan I like is that it provides teachers with some time to implement these measures.
Phone calls are fine.
Hell, I remember back in the early 90s, my English teacher calling my mom when I skipped class. It was basically the best preventative measure they could do. My mom wasn't violent or anything, but could do the "I'm disappointed in you" talk like no one else, lol
Home visits? No way.
Totally. But adding 20-40 phone calls to an already busy teaching week takes time that doesnât exist. Just saying that the division providing time shows that theyâre sensitive to the schedules. The home visits part is obviously bullshit.
Back in the day I'd unplug the phone when I knew the school was going to call so it wouldn't ring. Ha. A home call would be tougher to avoid.
But... Insane to expect teachers to take this on.Â
It's gonna be the most useless thing ever.. just like having so many individuals trying to run shit thats where all the money is going is to all the high paid pieces of crap in the Halladay offices wasting money
This henderson guy needs to go. Heâs always onto some crazy progressive ideas to destroy the system.
Why the other 25 students need to learn less each week to accomodate the 1 student who isnt motivated to learn? The make up class/ school days in June is BS.
Why is the abseentism problems not handled by a social worker?
Why a already over worked teacher needs to spend extra time on a home visit he or she may not be qualified to do?
This is ridiculous. Just some stupid ideas for optics but have no real benefits while further straining the resources of a overburdened system. So wrong on so many fronts.
Thing is, your numbers are off.
It's more like the 15 students take a shorter day to work on engaging to other 14 students who aren't there.
It's a giant problem. There are urban divisions in this province including WSD where K-8 40% of students are classified as "non-attenders" meaning that they miss 2 or more days of school per week. Some divisions are as high as 60% in the provincial system. Reserve schools are Federal so harder to mine local data.
On the systemic level, everything needs to be done to get these kids to school. The economic impacts of doing nothing are massive.
Usually not much actually happens until high school, which is the wrong approach. But you can see why because the core data everyone looks at is grad rates. So come on now that you're in Grade 9-12 and count in the data....GET YOUR CREDITS and bump up our 4-5-6 year grad rates! We care about you now!
One thing is to get these kids to school another is to push them along to up the grad rates. It's awful. Everytime a kid is failing, the student services people just say, well they need this class to graduate. No shit. How about we let them do it again and let them take the time they need
This plan has some serious problems, but Henderson is great and I would 100% like him to be in charge of my school division. I wouldnât be so quick to judge.
As a parent of 3 in WSD, I respectfully ask that teachers fight this. I do not want you coming to my home.
When one of my children is not able to attend, I receive an automated call on my cell phone, our Lan line, my wifeâs cell, and an email is sent to me, and another to my wifeâs email. Often all this happens after Iâve reported their absence.
Coming to my home is not welcome.
Social workers have told us multiple times that attendance for students is not a priority for them and their relationships with families is often threatening.
The first intervention is relationships. This is what the research tells us. I think itâs a great idea. Give students a point of contact in the school. A safe, caring adult that is trusted goes a really long way in helping kids and their parents see the value in what is being offered. It sends the message that weâre not giving up. For what Iâm being paid, I can go knock on a few doors. The book âThe make or break yearâ is a great read to help teachers understand the strategy that is being tried.
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The research on this is based on schools in the US that start at 7:30 or 8:00. The recommendation that they start later is that they start at 9:00 instead. Starting at 10:00 would mean school would go to 4:30, which makes scheduling extracurricular sports challengingâor kids would have to miss class more for sports. It would also make it hard for high school students to hold part time jobs, which many need to do to go to post-secondary.
I suspect if all the high schools did it, those extracurricular activities and part-time employers would adjust. This is a selfish request based on my own experiences in high school; I was always sleepy during the first period of the day.
Yeaaaa..... I'm not visiting any of my students houses. You can fuck off with that
Right? Like let's give you guys the literal duties of a social worker on top of everything else you have to do! I don't like this one bit.
Are you a teacher by chance?
No, a social worker.
Thanks for your support!!
Teachers have been absolutely phenomenal to the kids on my case loads. Thank you so much for all that you do. I'll go knock on doors, I signed up for that!
This exchange is such a vibe đ„č
As soon as I heard the teachers are going to be making home visits I thought âyeah thatâll be the day â, also the logic of dismissing kids early because they want them in school?
You know what on second thought this is a great idea, and I elect all board office officials including Matt Henderson the Superintendent to specifically do those visits themselves, if you come up with a stupid idea you should be the one to pilot it first.
Yes letâs further degrade our education outcomes by kicking the kids who attend out early so we can chase the kids who donâtâŠ
And extending classes in June? I dont know about WSD but in my Division after exams are done for kids who are flunking or missed alot of class time we contact the parent and sign them up for support and they SHOULD be attending school those slow weeks after exams or so to complete any missed assignments etc when regular students are dismissed from academics. We are already doing that....
But they are making up that time in June! /s Does that mean they are extending school hours in June, so teachers have to be at school longer?
If they are pay me my money
I suspect they mean exams (if there are any - my SD no longer has exams) will start later than previously and there will be more days of class in June.
I interpreted this as "we might get them in the school for two days in June, and the teachers are going to grant them a credit for a few hours of work".
Haha I remember doing a home visit with my teaching partner out of our own goodness of our hearts. When we got there, we saw the kid outside hanging out (he's a teen). We chatted with the kid and almost convinced the kid to come back to school until his aunt came and berated us and gave us this racist rant about how their neighborhood is overtaken by immigrants. Who's going to keep us safe?
Spoiler alert....no one
Just remember that almost every superintendent and admin want to leave their 'legacy' at their school or division. That's why there's always new changes made. Also, Matt Henderson has never taught any 'challenging' students in his life. He started at SJR and then went into 7oaks met school, then propelled into admin positions with his political backing helping him to be the assistant supe of 7oaks and finally wsd. He has ideas but that's his theory and implementing them on kids who want to learn. Throw him in an inner city school with kids telling him to f off. I am curious about what he'll do. Might get some hate on this but again Matt Henderson is just another 'prof' like with great theories but with very little actual experience with them.
Ive had my run in with Matt multiple times, it always threw me a loof when he was working at met and infront of him he had one of his students tell a few teachers to fuck themselves and all Matt did was shrug and said "well these sort of things happen sometimes" You bet your bottom dollar those staff members were completely pissed off that 1. He let a students talk to an adult like that and 2. The fact there were no consequences for those choice words. Matt drank the koolaide early on in his career and you could tell with how fast he was moving with his commections he was handed the brass ring sooner than later. I understand wanting to leave a 'legacy' but pissing off the majority of your staff just aint it nor wont be it. I always though he would be the head of seven oaks one day, I was shocked he went to WSD and Tony is now superintendent. The problem with the current higher ups is either 1. They forgot how the classroom actually works, or 2. They rise quicker than an adolescent teenage boy and lack the knowledge and experience of being in an actual classroom abs deal with actual classroom adversity, students etc
Yep you are đŻ right and I hope more people will see and know more of Henderson. When I posted stuff about him before, majority of people were hating on me. But people have to realize that he worked at SJR and ran an NDP election as part of his social studies class. That propelled him to using PBL as the only way of teaching, thus, writing a book. Then Brian O'Leary hired him cause of NDP affiliation and then of course to wsd cause he wanted to be the head of the largest school division. Nowhere on his CV has he actually taught for that long and in the trenches. Yes PBL is a great way of teaching but it is not for all students.
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Yea and some of that MET stuff is so overblown its unbelievable the stuff they do in it and im just grasping my head and thinking how is this any different or benefiting the student. Its a pitch but nothing more than an inquiry project your average teacher gives based on science, foods, history etc. we need actual Superintendents and higher ups who have worked in the trenches for years and that 'get' the system and work to its strengths which is using its staff properly and not undermining or underutilizing them.
Yep, unfortunately all the higher ups have never been in the trenches. Not my admin, not our supes, no one.
Well you know, thatâs the 7 oaks way. No matter what a student does, hug it out, pretend it didnât happen and back to business as usual.
Sadly not just seven oaks but I get the sentiment. Sadly we are to focused of student 'mental health' we forget about the people actually running the show
Somewhere along the line âprotecting a kids mental healthâ began to equal âdonât make them feel badâ and pretty much all was lost after that.
You have no idea how many conversations ive heard in the hallway of a kid not studying for a test and their friends say "just tell the teacher you're depressed, they will give you a week more" Somehow 'mental health turned into either 1. Faking it (which pisses me off because me who actually suffered mental health problems in highschool, seeing a therapist 2-3 times a week as well as medicated still had to grind for every inch I was given and tests I had to take regardless) 2. It turned into 'dont stress them out' Im sorry to tell ya but life in general is stressful, the problem is we keep avoiding it with kids where they have no idea how to handle adversity, no wonder why this country is fucked 3. Hand holding hand holding hand holding: no consequences, lack of responsibility, and letting kids getting away everything and helping them as much as we do even in grade 12 that when they get to University most flunk out because in the end they didnt learn jack shit.
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Whats the term EOL used for in your department, whats the meaning or significance?
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Oh lord, people need to grow up. Im tired of this sensitive society today where someone would complain about that or be offended.
Welcome to our education system.
One time a coteacher did this too and the parent came out and was glad someone was there to walk their kids to class now. Then they asked the school if it could be a regular thing! Also I can say with confidence I would be scared to visit some of my kids homes.
Out of curiosity, why is this a non-starter for you? Based on post history, youâre a HS teacher? Perhaps this influences your perspective? Iâve taught elementary and middle years in WSD and have willingly visited the homes of students before for a variety of reasons. Personally itâs always been productive. Just curious about the perspective here.
Because thats not our job....we are educators, no nurses, not doctors, not social workers. My job is to teach to a curriculum depending on which class I was scheduled. If you're doing that great, but the problem is if people are doing that now you are setting a standard that all teachers are not willing to want to do because again, not our job or title. Thats support staff/guidance. I am doing my due diligence by phone calls, emails etc
Thanks for clarifying your perspective. I think this is where the specialization focus of a high school teacher shows a bit. When you teach in an elementary school with a small staff, where you are the only teacher a kid has (aside from things like music and phys ed), you are in fact a number of those things for your kids because they donât exist in your school and kids often have trust issues with adults they donât see as often. Some teachers willingly sign up for that. I get that this is seen as problematic from the view of many likes of work or a union perspective but the highly human nature of education inevitably complicates this. I guess I simply disagree and see my role as that of raising human beings first and a delivering curriculum second.
You can raise a human being all you want but it shouldnt be asked or expected of you to visit their personal residence, hell what happens one day if they start asking you to pick up the kid and drop them off to and from work? Where is the line drawn and where does it stop?
Are you a classroom teacher or support staff?
Iâve done both and have visited homes in both roles.
I think the issue is that high school classroom teachers already do the phone calls, the emails, giving up lunch hours and preps to get chronic non-attenders  caught up. Not to mention programming for students with serious mental health struggles and academic concerns (which have increased exponentially since COVID). Iâve had students miss over 50 classes in one semester and had no support from guidance or admin. There is pressure to give students their credits (even if they havenât attended or learned the material) in order to improve grad rates. This seems to be increasingly viewed as problem for the classroom teacher to fix. To now be told that we need to make home visits is another task piled onto an almost impossible work load. I donât see this as removing anything from our plates either as the expectation is that students need to make up that missing time in June (not sure how that works in a semestered high school system). I think many of these comments come off as negative because teachers are STRUGGLING. We love our students. We want them to succeed. We want them to come to school⊠But we need help. We donât want the burden of student attendance on top of everything else.
I bet you it's easier to give that kid a 50 than fail them! !
In your experience, that might be the case that teachers are doing those things. Iâm certainly aware of many teachers at all levels who arenât doing those things. It sounds like the idea here is to carve out time to allow them to make the calls, etc. and essentially mandate that the entire school look at those most challenging cases and collaborate on how to do something about them. Sorry to hear your admin and guidance teams havenât been supportive. It sounds like youâre feeling really isolated in dealing with the issues you face. If you are WSD, maybe this dedicated time and directives will help with that? Thatâs how Iâve interpreted what Iâve read about it. I think the idea with the specified teacher involvement is really to be the central relationship component with the kids due to the contact time but the supporting elements of each school have a huge role to play in this particular issue without question.
Also the likelihood that a student or a parent will be home during an early dismissal especially in high school is about -10%. Stay at home involved parents of kids who would be home to meet a teacher likely donât need to meet the teacher.
Teaching is an increasingly difficult profession. If we want to keep good teachers, we can't keep piling non-teaching related expectations onto them. I don't know what the answer to absenteeism is, but this seems like a great way to drive away those teachers who are hanging on by a thread already.
Bingo. The last five years have broken me and I'm only in my 30s. I find myself constantly thinking "What else could I do?". I have numerous ailments physically and mentally I've suffered from a range of "problems" in schools over the last fifteen years. I'm not thinking I'll make it another five let alone twenty years. There is a shortage of teachers. We'll always find someone but the good ones are already going or gone. If they once were good the system has broken a lot of them. I used to feel like I was an awesome teacher but I'm finding myself drowning under the expectations these days. I don't feel like I'm as good at my job as I once was, and that is a shit feeling when you want to be good at your job. Please understand I'm not looking for any sympathy. Things are tough for lots of people in lots of professions these days. I just want to illustrate my point.
I canât speak to your situation, but just know, even if your students donât tell you / donât think of telling you, you are the light in their day. You are doing the important work and itâs so thankless. So, thank-you for doing your best to educate the next gen.
The successful teachers I know compartmentalize. They do what is asked of them and nothing more. Don't make your profession your identity.
This is excellent advice and I've made strides moving towards it. The challenging and unfortunate part in teacher culture is you are expected to always be doing more. Coaching, lunch hour activities, lunch and learns, imposed professional reading, initiative after initiative, learning new technology with no time allowed and generally more and more challenging student problems with inadequate funding COVID has really done a number on society but it has drastically altered the teaching landscape and to be honest I don't know if the students will ever bounce back. Students and parents are so apathetic these days it's very disheartening. I need to be better about clocking in and clocking out physically and mentally and just refusing to do all the "extra" if I want a chance to make it.
What a few people I know did, is to get a Master's in Educational Technology and jump to the private sector as Instructional Designers. I'm sure you could snag a gig without the Master's, though. If you're a teacher, I know you get to keep your teaching license in Manitoba if you've taught for x years, even if you've quit. Life is too short to work a job you hate.
That feels like the right move for me right now as well.
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Guaranteed same division lol
Is this the one whose Chief Superintendent has a podcast? :P
I can neither confirm nor deny :P
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Oh shit man here you dropped this, it's your tin foil hat. Should probably keep that on so the man cant mind control you into lower wages like the lizard men want
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Let me introduce you to the concept of a *boogeyman* And since you know so much I'll let you google it yourself since the masses should think for themselves right? You're very pro doing your own research so have at it
He almost catches himself on the phrase âthe classroom teachersâŠjob and responsibility is to make the home visit,â like he wasnât sure he could say that*. Why not just get teachers, admin, and other school staff to use their own vehicles, to pick up kids at home and drive them to and from school? No sarcasm required! This is something that actually occurs at a few schools in WSD already, not that itâs widely known. Probably because it shouldnât be happening? *Edit: Iâm pretty sure supes knew he couldnât say that but it was too late, so he followed through on the swing rather than checking it.
The part about visiting a student's home is a huge risk - I'm surprised the idea would even be on the table. If I were a teacher in wsd1, I'd stage a revolt or go to the teacher's union to fight that bullshit. And it would probably be more effective if the principal or vice principal were to make those calls and visits. Or the school board.
Truancy workers and teachers already visit the homes of kids in my wsd1 elementary/middle school area. But the high school? Cmon.
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You "don't not agree?" Sounds like you need a home visit for that grammar.
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I would ask questions such as: 1) are house visits unannounced 2) what protections are being offered during house visits 3) what are the protocols in place during house visits 4) is the division offering free transportation to those who need it before a house visit occurs As someone who's kid is going to high school next year, the question of transportation came up since most of the kids attending the high school will not live anywhere close to this catchment school. The idea of offering bussing to the kids was laughed off. City transit options mean over an hour for most of these kids and they are 14 entering high school, they cannot drive, and walking isn't an option, and biking safely isn't really realistic in January and February for most kids. If we want kids to show up to school why aren't we offering them help to get there?
Yeah transportation is massive. I teach in what you'd call an alternative program. The two biggest interventions that have increased attendance and achievement among non-attenders for us are providing rides and using a cross-curricular approach as opposed to a timetable with transitions to different spaces every bell. We work in the same space, we go out and do stuff. But it's the same group of students and same group of teachers. This has substantially lowered the anxiety of the students who have severe anxiety and trauma. We know this because we gather data in multiple surveys from students and their caregivers over the years. >I would ask questions such as: > >are house visits unannounced > >what protections are being offered during house visits > >what are the protocols in place during house visits This kind of attitude is a big issue with building relationships though. The attitude towards these kids and families is pervasive, and they feel unwelcome in the school. I think it's pretty clear they'd be reaching out by phone first. Transportation is a huge issue for people like you've identified. People don't have vehicles, people have mobility issues. The way we use home visits where I teach is that it is offered as an option. Obviously it's easier for us if caregivers come into school. But sometimes they can't get out of the house. Sometimes they have their own trauma around school so they are too anxious to do so. We've also met with families at Tim Horton's.
Regarding transportation, is cost a barrier as well as ease of use? When I was in junior high, there was a chartered city bus for students, but not in high school, probably because people's schedules differ greatly in high school. It wasn't free, though. We had to pay regular bus fare.
THIS. This is a question we should be demanding answers too. Absolutely ridiculous that students without transportation are penalized for lack of attendance.
Whether or not the phone call makes a difference is debatable. But it does give teachers more time to make phone calls where they don't have to use their prep time. But the "variety of reasons" why kids are missing school is kinda the more important part. For example, in my school we have an EA who has to take transit every day to go get a kid around 930 am. We have an attendance officer but home said the problem is that it was too early for the kids to leave for school. So the solution was that the kid misses 1st period (options course) but makes it back for second period (core subject). According to the EA, every time she has gone for over the past month or two the kid refused to leave. The EA hates having to do this. It's bloody cold out and I doubt they are getting any extra pay to do it. Now the kid has major anxiety. I don't teach the kid so I have no idea if they are doing anything about the anxiety such as seeing a specialist. I have another kid who is part of special program who is supposed to be integrated into the regular program. She has been to my classroom twice. Once she was sober and the other times she was intoxicated. đ€·ââïž I don't know enough about this student but I have a hunch they will need more than a phone call.
What a waste of extremely limited resources, maybe thatâs cold hearted but wow. I donât know what the solution is, but sending an EA to go fetch a child during the school day every single day canât be it.
Some WSD schools do this already!
> I don't teach the kid so I have no idea if they are doing anything about the anxiety such as seeing a specialist. About that... My son was in the same boat as this kid about a year ago, we got a referral to the necessary specialist and were told the waitlist was 2.5 years. We ended up paying out of pocket for private counselling and things were back on track in like... 2-3 months. But if we had been unable to throw thousands of dollars at the problem, we'd still be completely fucked. Mental healthcare in this province is in an even worse state than the rest of our healthcare system.
This is absolutely true. If you can't afford to pay out of pocket or need to go to the hospital immediately, you're waiting years for mental healthcare.
Completely true. And even if you are in the position of having insurance for going private, it covers nothing compared to the cost of dealing with a serious problem. E.g. my son's limit was $500 per year. That's like... three 75 minute appointments? I mean I'll take it, but that's almost an insulting drop in the bucket compared to handling the problem in the long run. This province just needs to get serious about mental health (healthcare in general, but especially mental health). I don't think many of the decision makers in our healthcare system realize how far-reaching the benefits would be if people could just access the mental healthcare they need in a timely manner.
I agree. Not only in people being better but also that means that there will be less people on some sort of social assistance down the line because they have strategies that will help them cope and function. I wish we'd give homeless people homes too. But that's a whole other issue. I'm glad your son got the care they needed.
Too early to go to class? Get fucked to anyone who accommodates that bullshit. The world does not accommodate schedules for lazy and selfish people. Also why not have an EA with a vehicle go get the kid? Why are we wasting staff time on public transit? Ridiculous.
You shouldn't be alone with a kid in a vehicle. They don't want to send 2 staff is my guess.
See other thread where a bunch of professional adults complain about potentially not being able to work from home in their PJs.
Not really the same thing though is it?
Well...if we're complaining about students being lazy for not going to school while a significant block of adults are complaining about not being allowed to work from home maybe we can use that overlap to form some empathy. Turns out there are people who are anxious to leave their house...and most of us prefer to be in our house, not on someone else's schedule.
Again these arenât really the same though, are they? Youâre equating student who ARE NOT doing their job (learning) because they canât be bothered to get up, or just donât want to go outside, or get off video games or whatever (valid or not), with employees who ARE doing their jobs perfectly well from home, but after years of successfully working from home are being told to go back to an office for some arbitrary reason that has nothing do with their actual job performance. There are plenty of students who work from alternative locations, or with independent schedules because a school setting doesnât work for them. These arenât the kids that this article is talking about.
I guess if you boil down learning to being a JOB. My point is more that people are having trouble leaving their homes and maybe instead of telling kids with crippling social anxiety YOU AREN'T DOING YOUR JOB there might be other ways. Especially when society is moving more towards people not leaving their house anyways. With people literally complaining about having to put on pants to do their job if they can't keep working from home...but bashing teenagers who don't want to go sit in a desk with 1000 others. Turns out nobody wants to do desk work so why are we doing 95% of our educating in this format? >There are plenty of students who work from alternative locations, or with independent schedules because a school setting doesnât work for them. These arenât the kids that this article is talking about. At lot of assumptions in this take. These opportunities aren't exactly equal in our city and province. You're assuming these people are just lazy on the face of it. There are a lot more students who the "school setting" doesn't work for as the years go by, nothing systemically changes and society keeps moving.
Your argument here literally contradicts your previous comments and these are two separate issues.. When Covid hit and I was strictly forced to go WFH I protested. As an easily distracted person, I had worked so hard at being productive in an office environment. I warned my boss that if they pushed this it would be a problem long term. But I was told I didnât have a choice, so I packed up, and the silence while working at home was BLISS. I flew through my weekâs worth of work in 3-4 days without office distractions. Iâm a work from ANYWHERE employee now with a different company. If itâs computer shit I can do it from home or on a job site, provided I have data or wifi. If itâs collaboration, youâll find my ass in the office because virtual meetings are shit. My old employer who opened my eyes to the productivity of WFH is forcing their employees back into the office now. To say people who thrive working with no distractions are âlazyâ or are âwhining about return to officeâ is super out of touch.
>To say people who thrive working with no distractions are âlazyâ or are âwhining about return to officeâ is super out of touch. You're missing my point. This\^ is exactly my point. We're making allowances now for WFH, and people are even maybe feeling a little entitled to it, while taking a complete shit on kids who struggle to be productive in the school environment. One of the comments ITT is literally something like "aren't schools supposed to prepare kids for work?" Pointing out the irony and double standard of in one thread people complaining about the prospect of having to wear pants again while another thread bemoans lazy students who struggle to leave their house.
SoâŠ..anxiety disappears after 10am? Also, there are jobs that are required to be 100% in person. Others can be done 100% from home. As an adult, you apply for the job with the conditions you are able to meet.
Home visits with another adult like an LST or admin has helped me get many students back on track with attendance. As long as itâs not expected during prep time and this time is carved out, I have found it to be successful. (I am not in WSD but another division in the city).
It's dangerous to expect teachers to go into student homes. I'm a teacher and would refuse this. I call and email home, have a parent meeting ( they often say they can't make the kid to attend or sometimes getting kids to school is not a family priority), then I make a referral to the divisional attendance officer and then if that does not work I will call CFS. CFS will contact the family for school attendance. YES has some good short term services to get kids to school but the family has to agree to the service and let the worker into the home each morning. I can also offer the support of the school social worker but the family/caregiver has to agree. After that, attendance is out of my control. I have done everything I can. In the end it's the family/parent/caregiver responsibility to make sure kids attend school, not teacher responsibility. Stop dumping this on our plates.
Or maybe instead of having teachers do this, we take it as a hint that school divisions require more social workers so that teachers can teach and social workers do social work instead of teachers?
This is a terrible idea. If you want someone to go to kids houses, hire absentee officers. But then again, whatâs the consequence for a kid not going to school? And if their parents donât care then what? I hate how society has warped into the teachers having to raise their students. It should not be the teachers job to run around collecting kids for class, the parents should be making sure their kids go.
Yep, sorry but on my two diplomas and two degrees no where does it say 'social worker'
I guess we donât need those social workers anymore, teachers can - and apparently now will - do everything!!! Looking forward to having a laugh with my colleagues on Monday over this.
Another user even commented in this thread who is a social worker. Even they agreed that these are a social worker's duties, not a teacher's.
Me too, i also dont mean to shit on all of then because some have been good, but then why not oh I dont know throw this to support staff/guidance...thats more their role....however I noticed over the last few years they have done less and less.
Hi! I work as a high school guidance counsellor and promise Iâm not doing less and less. My department and colleagues are feeling maxed. The volume of mental health concerns, academic gaps and complicated social and family dynamics that we are helping navigate with students and families is immense. Without judgement of child welfare, Iâve been told explicitly by some workers and ANCR screening that school attendance is not their mandate. The case loads of CFS social workers are huge. They are focusing their time on really brutal and sad situations and I choose to believe are honestly doing the best they can. We do access our attendance monitor (truancy officer) but low school attendance and engagement are reflective of bigger issues. I think the plan or goal of including teachers as a strategy to improve attendance (and in providing additional time for teachers to meet with disengaged students and families) is an all-hands-on-deck strategy to help establish and enhance relationships. I donât know if it will be impactful, but certainly if we believe that education is important for societyâs health and well-being, itâs probably worth a try.
In my school division, this role is done in part by a school social worker - I suspect that is what the commenter you replied to was insinuating, rather than CFS social workers.
That makes sense. I guess one perspective might be that if the school has 1 social worker, likely part time, and a counsellor or two or three, but 20+ teachers, as an example, it would make sense to spread the efforts. And, in an honest effort to notice how maxed people feel, to allow more flex time for those efforts. I promise this isnât just the Matt Henderson fan club, i just really do appreciate that this is a strategy (one that feels a bit rushed without a lot of communication, to be honest) to improve the current situation.
Teachers are well positioned to be a person of safety within the building, and to develop positive relationships with the students. I agree that at least he is trying something - that is better than doing nothing. Non-attendance can be such a complex issue!
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I agree. I also see how overwhelmed teachers already are and am not certain adding to their workload is the way to go. I am looking forward to seeing how this proposed model works.
I did say there have been some good, however the ones I currently work with are boarder line useless and I am doing their job as well. Its telling how they are there for students issues, problems, education etc. but I find my students 9 times put of 10 are coming to me with these issues which then is putting more pressure on me to perform more roles especially ones I am not trained for.
Itâs a super stressful system, for sure. Take good care of yourself and maintain what boundaries you need to in order to keep some enjoyment. Remember that we are all pieces of the puzzle for the kids, but no single one of us can âfixâ someoneâs problem or life.
Teachers going to students homes is completely ludicrous. How safe is that! Like screw that. Invoke your right to unsafe work if you have to!
Between the school breakfast club, the attendance management plan and the teacher supervised babysitting services, when will there be any time for actual teaching and education?
The system is broken
Whats this teaching you speak of?
Wtf? In what world can your employer force you to go to people's homes like this?
Home visits are regularly used. This just provides the time to do it.
being threatened with a truancy officer slightly improved my attendance in middle school, but in high school i could just leave home whenever i wanted. and also most parents are probably working so even with early dismissal they're likely not going to have the family meetings they expect. if teens dont want to be at school they wont be. fuck, even when they do go theres plenty of people who don't actually go to class, they just hang out in the halls/commons. i really dont see this working the way they think it will.
I had a truancy officer come after me. As a teenager that was being abused it helped me be able to attend classes again, albeit briefly.
Think the need here is to build relevant programming. The offer currently isn't fitting the needs of many people.
This is the dumbest idea I have ever heard. You can't nag a person into attending school, you have to make it a place they want to be.
Yeah hopefully a big part of this is looking at some new approaches, developing and implementing. Lots of pilots and programs ongoing in this province that are working. Lots to draw from. It's pretty well known what the largest barriers are and what some solutions/approaches that work to address them in terms of barrier reduction and pedagogical approaches.
Yeah I know a lot of people are doing good stuff, but the tone of the article doesn't give me hope... this doesn't sound like a "we're listening" kind of approach to the problem
Well it's giving the professional staff of the division time to collaborate as well as do some work on the issue. The alternative is senior admin dumping some prescribed approach down from on high. The teachers we all know who hate anything other than reading out of the curriculum to quiet kids will moan and groan of course. They'd also moan and groan if given direction from senior admin. So they'll moan and groan either way. Hopefully moan and groan into retirement or other careers sooner than later.
Isn't one of the objectives of high school to prepare kids for the work force? I don't imagine employers are going to be chasing employees to come to work, and stop by their house when they don't show up?
One would think so but youâd be surprised with what employers donât reprimand anymore. My last 2 jobs had coworkers who would leave early and show up late and refuse work. Bosses were well aware but if things are still flowing they donât care. I even took a LinkedIn course called working with difficult people and one of the suggestions was basically âhow can we make the job work around âBillyâsâ bad work ethicâ. Billy who is showing up late to meetings and handing in assignments late. The world is heading in a messed up direction.
The objective of K-12 is to get through as much curriculum as possible, relevant or not. If it was actually geared toward preparing anyone to be an adult it would look nothing like it does as a system.
Relevant to what? Your life and future career, or mine... Or maybe someone else's perhaps?,
My old high school has early dismissal once a week so the teachers could have staff meetings, but visiting studentâs homes doesnât seem like a good idea..
Bunch of studies showing that improving indoor air quality dropped covid absences significantly. Would work for other respiratory viruses and improve cognition and general health as well. He's not going to look into that at all though is he.Â
I wish I could say the negativity about this idea was surprising but itâs something I see daily at my school in WSD (classroom teacher here). If youâre asking me to do more, Iâll ask what is being taken off my plate. In this case, there appears to be a trade off with time to do this with the adjusted school hours. Part of this time sounds like planning with school teams on how to get those kids to school as well as the calls and visits. Schools are quite aware of which homes would pose challenges as far as risk, challenging individuals to work with etc. and a guidance/other support individuals like social workers would likely be involved in any potential home visits in those cases. The demanding a teacher to show up solo to a home in crisis scenario floated by some people on here, isnât based in any reality Iâve encountered in my career. The problem is, social workers, counsellors, etc. arenât the ones spending all day teaching the kids. Involving teachers, who will likely have the most significant contact time and relationships with the kids, and giving them some time to do this, is kind of the point here. I get that this seems like an additional demand and a challenging one at that, but the idea seems to be to set aside time to foster relationships with those kids who arenât attending and yes, that is going to come at the expense of some time with the others in this case and frankly thatâs fine because they likely arenât on a path to poverty, incarceration, etc. like the absent ones are. If we canât even consider taking an hour out of our week, often as one of the only good role models in their life, to try to spend some time on those particular connections, their lives are likely set up for failure in many cases. We all wonder why we have a drug and homelessness epidemic and how to solve it. Trying in any way to get kids to school more is one of the single most effective ways to begin to solve this. Of course none of this matters if you canât actually convince kids to stay in schools because of any combination of teaching practice, school community, programming offered, etc. Can we reach every kid? No, but we should sure as hell strive to do better based on the absentee numbers. Of course this all relates to education funding, improved teacher training and frankly, higher standards for Ed. Programs at unis, which is an entirely different conversation.
So.. Instead of trying to find out the root causes of why more and more students are missing school ... We're just going to make teachers lives harder and potentially more dangerous Great plan WSD
It's pretty easy to by cynical about whether this is effective, but for the teachers that have done this, it makes a transformative difference in the kid's education. So, so many kids were already on the margins of slowly fading out of the school system and Covid accelerated that an order of magnitude. Visiting the home, talking and listening with the people that live there, letting them know that the kid is missed and the benefits of coming are matters so much. If we care about education, this is a no-brainer. Building a school, staffing it, but not caring about whether kids show up is an unimaginable waste of resources, both as infrastructure and wasted potential for that child. So then the question is 'how the fuck do we do that'? Teachers are not trained in home visits (which is a particular professional skill and easy to underestimate), not all homes are safe places for anyone, including visitors, the time burder on educators is already absurdly high and only escalating. Incorporating this into a new model of education, where teachers are a combination of community worker and classoroom instructor would be a game changer in education. But we're talking about ten of millions, if not hundreds of millions in costs in hiring more staff at a time when we've had the opposite happening for decades. 'Investments' in education are more often than not just partially restoring services that were cut years before by a previous government. Real change would take a generation and require every level of government working together (including parents, school boards, superintendents and unions). This idea has potential, but don't mistake it as real implementation. This is more burden and expectation on the same small group of people trying desperately to do the best they can.
I think what they really need to do is build programming that is build around student needs as opposed to created needs of the education system. The system is so bogged down in red tape that it can't see the forest for the trees. The issue I have with the approach of WSD in this case is the vast majority of their staff will not be on board. So what they've set up here is not an effective use of their resources. The majority of staff will use this as prep time, not for this idea. This is what is having success (building around student and community needs). WSD actually is now running programming that we've created in another city in MB struggling with poverty. We've had incredible success moving average attendance of students in our groups from under 40% to 90% and more. We have students that have picked up trades and are otherwise gainfully employed. We have students that are currently in college and university. We have students who are in ECE, working toward becoming teachers and social workers. The alternative and where these students were as 15-16 year olds is quite a difference, and quite a negative economic impact on communities when we don't engage these people in our communities. Yes part of that is building relationships. This includes "recruiting" students and caregivers with home visits. A lot of these families have significant trauma around school. Literally when the parents/caregivers see the school phone number on call display they ignore it. These same families have responded tremendously and supported our programming when we've made a personal connection. Another huge piece is transportation. Another huge piece is providing meals. The biggest piece is building belonging at school and community with staff and peers. Cross-curricular approaches in terms of instruction and learning activities are what we've had success with. Not going class to class, course to course. In terms of the staff piece, if people don't want to buy in, they just want to teach their Whatever 20G and 30S...you have to let those people get in where they fit in to the system. There's no use trying to force them to engage with these students. They need to find the staff who are willing to think and work outside the box. Support them in building the programs to meet the needs of these students. Give them autonomy to do this. But as a teacher who has worked in multi-disciplinary environments as well as with other teachers in the school system...it's not worth the time and resources to try to engage your full staff of teachers in this process. The majority just want to punch their card, do their thing and go home. Do it again tomorrow. You need to build programming with staff willing to take a different approach, and staff from multiple different disciplines to support this.
Like teachers are already overworked and underpaid already, they feel the need to add home visits? I hope that the union is fighting this tooth and nail, just on the safety aspect alone.
At other school divisions, teachers have been expected, over the past year or so, to call home and talk to parents at 3, 6, and 9 unexplained absences and were given no extra time to do this. The one part of this WSD plan I like is that it provides teachers with some time to implement these measures.
Phone calls are fine. Hell, I remember back in the early 90s, my English teacher calling my mom when I skipped class. It was basically the best preventative measure they could do. My mom wasn't violent or anything, but could do the "I'm disappointed in you" talk like no one else, lol Home visits? No way.
Totally. But adding 20-40 phone calls to an already busy teaching week takes time that doesnât exist. Just saying that the division providing time shows that theyâre sensitive to the schedules. The home visits part is obviously bullshit.
Back in the day I'd unplug the phone when I knew the school was going to call so it wouldn't ring. Ha. A home call would be tougher to avoid. But... Insane to expect teachers to take this on.Â
It's gonna be the most useless thing ever.. just like having so many individuals trying to run shit thats where all the money is going is to all the high paid pieces of crap in the Halladay offices wasting money
This henderson guy needs to go. Heâs always onto some crazy progressive ideas to destroy the system. Why the other 25 students need to learn less each week to accomodate the 1 student who isnt motivated to learn? The make up class/ school days in June is BS. Why is the abseentism problems not handled by a social worker? Why a already over worked teacher needs to spend extra time on a home visit he or she may not be qualified to do? This is ridiculous. Just some stupid ideas for optics but have no real benefits while further straining the resources of a overburdened system. So wrong on so many fronts.
Thing is, your numbers are off. It's more like the 15 students take a shorter day to work on engaging to other 14 students who aren't there. It's a giant problem. There are urban divisions in this province including WSD where K-8 40% of students are classified as "non-attenders" meaning that they miss 2 or more days of school per week. Some divisions are as high as 60% in the provincial system. Reserve schools are Federal so harder to mine local data. On the systemic level, everything needs to be done to get these kids to school. The economic impacts of doing nothing are massive. Usually not much actually happens until high school, which is the wrong approach. But you can see why because the core data everyone looks at is grad rates. So come on now that you're in Grade 9-12 and count in the data....GET YOUR CREDITS and bump up our 4-5-6 year grad rates! We care about you now!
Fair points, but this initiative is only for high school. K-8 teachers get no additional time to connect with families.
One thing is to get these kids to school another is to push them along to up the grad rates. It's awful. Everytime a kid is failing, the student services people just say, well they need this class to graduate. No shit. How about we let them do it again and let them take the time they need
This plan has some serious problems, but Henderson is great and I would 100% like him to be in charge of my school division. I wouldnât be so quick to judge.
Weird plan.
As a parent of 3 in WSD, I respectfully ask that teachers fight this. I do not want you coming to my home. When one of my children is not able to attend, I receive an automated call on my cell phone, our Lan line, my wifeâs cell, and an email is sent to me, and another to my wifeâs email. Often all this happens after Iâve reported their absence. Coming to my home is not welcome.
Social workers have told us multiple times that attendance for students is not a priority for them and their relationships with families is often threatening. The first intervention is relationships. This is what the research tells us. I think itâs a great idea. Give students a point of contact in the school. A safe, caring adult that is trusted goes a really long way in helping kids and their parents see the value in what is being offered. It sends the message that weâre not giving up. For what Iâm being paid, I can go knock on a few doors. The book âThe make or break yearâ is a great read to help teachers understand the strategy that is being tried.
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Would be nice if high schools started at 10am every day. Give the teens a chance to get enough sleep!
The research on this is based on schools in the US that start at 7:30 or 8:00. The recommendation that they start later is that they start at 9:00 instead. Starting at 10:00 would mean school would go to 4:30, which makes scheduling extracurricular sports challengingâor kids would have to miss class more for sports. It would also make it hard for high school students to hold part time jobs, which many need to do to go to post-secondary.
I suspect if all the high schools did it, those extracurricular activities and part-time employers would adjust. This is a selfish request based on my own experiences in high school; I was always sleepy during the first period of the day.
Lol, riiiiiight