Even when kids are in school, they’re not always in class, reports Bronx science teacher Ms. Rubin:
Nothing too out of the ordinary today, except reading this article made me realize that I need to do a better job of keeping up with absent students. Also, several students constantly get pulled from my class for ESL, reading, or counseling services (since they aren’t allowed to get pulled from math or English, science and social studies are the two classes they usually miss), so even if they are “here” every day, they may have only sat through one or two entire classes for the whole week. Then there are the three students I have who haven’t been in school for over a week because they can’t come back until they get caught up on their vaccinations, and the new student who just joined my class last Friday, and the student who is in school every day but spends most of her time in the AP’s office instead of class because of behavior issues… I feel like I am constantly working with kids during lunch and after school to try and catch them up on what they missed, and I am still not doing an adequate job.
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