Indiana

Empty Chairs and Empty Tables

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

Indianapolis Public Schools are missing a few thousand students.

According to my friends over at RTV 6,  IPS was scheduled to have between 33,000 and 34,000 students show up in its classrooms, however as of Friday, there were slightly more than 30,000 students in school.

School officials hope to have 2,000 more students in class by September 11, which is the day the District does its official headcount.  But even if the District does reach that goal, there are still 1,000-2,000 students still missing.

Will someone please explain to me how so many kids go missing, and more importantly, how do these parents “forget” to send their kids to school.   The RTV 6 story listed a number of reasons, I call them excuses.   My personal favorite was the parent at the the District Office who didn’t know what school her kid was attending.

However, I’m willing to bet most of these people know when to get their hair and nails done or know when to DVR Oprah and NASCAR or know what day the government check arrives.

There is no excuse for children missing school, particularly for most of these children where education is their only hope for a way to a better life.  But once again, it goes to my belief that if parents don’t put a value of education, you can’t expect that to be passed on to their kids.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on August 18, 2009 (boomark / email).