Contacting Parents Choice 2

My school does not have a formal policy or format to follow regarding contacting parents although sometimes I wish they did. However, we are advised to contact parents whenever the student has missed 3 days consecutively. This is sometimes very confusing to the parents and to us since we are not the “home school” in most cases. The confusion occurs, for the most part, as a result of poor communication from the home school to our Technical Center where the students attend half day sessions. In many cases the “home school” has held the student in homeroom, for test prompting, student activities, senior pictures, senior breakfast, in house suspension and various other reasons too numerous to name. A brief example is as follows: I called this parent to let her know her daughter had missed three days and I had no idea why. The mother screamed in my ear that I was the third teacher to call her and she was astounded that we did not know what was going on at our own schools. I gathered myself and responded that her child was such a good student and I was sincerely worried about her and had not received any information regarding her absences. The mother then told me that we (the school system) had suspended her daughter resulting in a jail term. Her daughter had been sentenced 60 daysand bail was unobtainable for this parent. I understood after the fact, offered my help and support and hung up furious that I did not have this information in advance of this call.