Lin Taylor was probably the world’s foremost expert on CMS’ student absence policy — all because it tangled up his grandson in needless make-up time for legitimate absences. Taylor passed away last month, and the CMS absence policy still makes little sense.
Veteran CMS teachers will tell you that the system’s “recovery” process — time high school students spend after school or on weekends to “recover” missed class time — is routinely abused to point of meaninglessness. One hour spent goofing off in a classroom full of other goof offs on the weekend can result in the recovery of four or five missed class hours.
The goal is to make sure the students do not trigger the 10 missed classes in a course must-fail policy. The schools even more so than the students have a strong incentive to make sure that dozens of kids do not get held back or, most vital of all, fail to graduate due to the 10-misses policy. As with many CMS policies, appearance is more important than reality.
Lin Taylor didn’t accept that and neither should the rest of us.
