Mom Calls School Attendance Policies ‘Trash’ — ‘I Have To Take Time Off Work To Take Them To The Doctor?’
Is it really necessary for a student to go to the doctor every time they need to stay home from school because of illness?
Prostock-studio | Shutterstock Most schools have pretty strict attendance policies. If a student is sick, they want proof. This requires parents to take their kids to the doctor when they’re ill to get a note so the absence is excused. But what happens when a student just has the sniffles or a headache? That doesn’t really warrant taking them to the doctor, but they still might not feel up to going to school.
It puts parents in an awkward position, as one mom named Chel McDow addressed on TikTok. They’re forced to take their kids to the doctor for every minor issue that arises so their absence can be excused, which means missing work. It also means feeling uncomfortable taking their kids to the doctor for a simple stomachache that could easily be treated at home.
A mom argued that attendance policies are ‘trash’ because they're so unrealistic.
“Today I wanna complain about attendance policies,” she bluntly began her video. “I think they’re dumb. As a mother, when my children are sick, if I don’t take them to the doctor, their absence is unexcused.”
McDow simply didn’t understand the logistics of this. “Excuse me?” she continued. “So I have to take time off of work to take them to the doctor, for the doctor to look at me like I’m some overreacting lunatic for bringing a child in when all they have is, like, a fever and a stomachache?”
She shared that she once took her daughter to the emergency room at 3:00 a.m. because she thought her appendix was bursting when all she really had was a bit of painful gas. “But I’m not that mom anymore, okay?” she clarified. “I can manage the symptoms at home. I don’t have to take her to the doctor to get a note, but the school says I do.”
It’s understandable that schools are taking a hard line given the rates of chronic absenteeism.
While these policies are hard on parents and students, it’s easier to understand why schools would take such a stance when rates of absenteeism have been up since the pandemic. According to the U.S. Department of Education, chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 10% of the school year. For the 2021 to 2022 school year, chronic absenteeism rates stood at 31%. For 2022 to 2023, the rate was a slightly lower 28%.
Naturally, schools want to do all they can to combat these concerning rates of chronic absenteeism. One way to do this is to make it harder for students to have excused absences and require a medical professional to weigh in when students are sick. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really work for students and their families.
As a side note, do you know how hard it is to even get a doctor's appointment the same day, anymore? Yeah, it's next to impossible. Also, what about when kids just need a day off? Mental health days and rest days are important and definitely don't require a doctor's note.
It just doesn’t make sense to take children to the doctor every time they need a sick day.
The Mayo Clinic stated, “Most often, you don’t need medical care for a common cold.” If this is conventional medical advice, how can a school expect a student to see a doctor when they’re sick with something basic?
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According to a poll from C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, a third of parents worried about either losing pay when taking time off from work because their kid is sick, or even losing their job altogether. Expecting parents to take time off from their jobs to get their kids to a doctor when all they have is a stomachache seems unreasonable.
Furthermore, there’s a good chance that a child will be exposed to much worse germs by going to the doctor. And, in many cases, they would probably be better served by getting rest at home than having to rush over to the doctor’s office.
McDow is right. It’s just not logical to take children to the doctor every single time they need to stay home from school because they’re sick. Instead, maybe schools should also accept a note from the parent explaining what was wrong.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
