When Philadelphia area DJ Mike Rossi from 92.5 WXTU and his wife Cindy took their kids to Boston to watch him take part in the marathon, he didn’t expect their absences to count as “unexcused.”
Rossi responded by schooling the school in what real education can be and was. This is his facebook post in response:
I remember when I was growing up. My parents used to take me on trips with them occasionally. They would inform the school and my teachers would gather all my assignments for me to complete while away. There was a little form to fill out and some “red tape” but generally our school had no problem with a parent taking a child out into the world to actually learn about it.
It’s a shame if Rydal’s reaction to this Boston trip is typical among schools these days.
H/T: boredhumor.com
Look at your state ed code-the rules for absences are usually set by the state.
We can’t have parents pick and choose their public school children’s educational curriculum.
Public schools are operated for the benefit of all children enrolled in them. They are chartered institutions and operate under rules promulgated by the communities they serve. This parent is not keeping his part of the bargain with the taxpayers: that in exchange for a free education, he deliver his children to the school each day it is in session.
Still, the pencil-necks miss the point entirely. This system needs a severe shakeup and, yes, a good ol’ fashioned butt-whoopin’ because they’ve traded education for expedience. Good for these parents, who are in fact the ones ultimately responsible for their kids, not The State.
Hey Alex, then let them spring for the cost of educating their kids, or STFU. It’s not their prerogative to take a gift for free and then attempt to dictate the conditions under which it’s accepable.
I faced this at one point, and decided my kids’ future was worth more than could be derived by way of public fiat, so I traded a whole bunch of family luxuries to educate them privately. Thanks to the Fates I could, because they’re on top of the world these days.
There’s something to be said for a little humility when feeding at the public trough, something you have yet to appreciate.
Oh, how it must hurt to be so ignorant… I bet your stupid just burns.
Jesus, You get more education than anyone else after spending enough time web surfing learning about anything you want at home and abroad than being on par with the rest of their peers.. I would say it’s more of a jealousy thing.
No Idea what you’re talking about or what you’re trying to relate to. Why don’t you try again?
Jackass.
If not the taxpayers including said parents, just who do you think does “spring for the cost of educating their kids”? No matter how self satisfied you are with them, your decisions do not give you a license to be vulgar and pretentious. When you coarsely tell others to STFU, who’s the one who needs some humility?
Oh look another f*cking @sshole I’m shocked and amazed.
And what if a child needs to attend a funeral or visit a dying relative one last time. What about home school morons? They don’t deliver their children to school.
Those would be “excused” absences under District policy. Home Schooled “morons” (as you so quaintly put it) do not account for children’s time the way public schools must. They are treated more like private and parochial schools.
So all that is okay but the things this father mentions are not? Riiiiiiight.
Things that are OK are things that are provided for by rules promulgated by people elected or hired with the credentials to do so. Educational policy does not flow from a series of exceptions to established rules. Surely, you must realize that. Look at your own workplace, church, Elks Lodge, or any entity that exists to serve a purpose in your community.
Every job I’ve had has allowed for family gatherings. I don’t waste time on church fairytales and the ridiculousness of fraternal order rules is why they are rapidly dying off.
You and the school are wrong the father is right. Accept it and move along junior.
I am going to get politically incorrect for a minute. Schools have so many rules for the sake of rules that no one understands them. Second, any school district that permits Home Schooling absolutely have parents picking and choosing their children’s educational curriculum. Some make up their own history and science to match their particular prejudices. You speak of the “rules promulgated by the communities they serve.” Let us be perfectly clear on this point. The rules are to serve the furtherance of the child’s educational opportunities and cannot be expected to foresee every circumstance. Blind adherence to rules is a blind alley destined to failure for the society it is lodged in and the child. The rules serve the child. The child does not serve the rules. The part where you state, “This parent is not keeping his part of the bargain with the taxpayers: that in exchange for a free education, he deliver his children to the school each day it is in session.” is the most frightening part of your comment. First, the taxes the parents pay makes the education purchased at a cost and nothing about “free education” is free. Finally I do not “Deliver my children” to anyone or any entity.” I may partner with them but they never were just blindly handed over. On Tuesday of this week I came back from Mexico with my wife, daughter and grandson. My grandson missed two days of school. My grandson is half Mexican. His father (Deceased) was born on a tiny farm in the hills of Oaxaca, Mexico. This is the 3rd trip we have taken to Mexico to insure that my grandson understands his culture, his relatives and his place in the world. Each trip has imparted a tiny bit of education that would have never been available in his school. The school knew of this trip and his Spanish teacher was excited about it and he has explained some little known aspects of our southern neighbor to the class and his friends. That is how a real education is supposed to work. Education is a process and is only crushed by the Rydel Elementary School’s blind adherence to rules that are created to shove every student down the same chute. If this is allowed to continue we will see a future of homogenious mediocrity in every direction
I wish you and I could tell our stories to this principal.
What is not being said is this school district receives funding for the days those children would have been in class, it is about the cash for the administrators.
Kids learn more outside of school studies, comparatively.
One size fits no one.
The tone of your response, sir, leaves one suspecting you were typing with one hand while holding a drink with the other. I’m not qualified to say what keeps you from seeing how venturing out into the real world expands and deepens a person’s perspective. Barely having done so might explain it if one had to guess. It’s sad but abundantly clear you are hostile to the sort of experience that broadens one’s thinking. Could it be you’re also jealous of children whose father has goals, overcomes adversity, and is clearly involved in their lives?
One thing is certain. It is self evident you are poorly qualified to address to the subject of “how mature adults deal with things like this in a proper manner.” You seem neither mature nor dignified nor possessed of the good sense to know the difference between having something to say and having to say something. You may now indulge yourself in another surly, pretentious tirade if you can still see the keyboard through your haze of vanity and alcohol, sir. Get it out of your system… NOW… ALL OF IT.
The school didn’t go on a high-handed rule. But, it was a rule and there are mature ways to handle it and this Father didn’t. His ego was what he was concerned with first, and therefore, he didn’t think it was important to plan very well.
The rest of your post is condescending pablum constructed for your own keyboard practice, I can only assume.
If you’re going to argue or debate, then be in the same conversation, sir. Stop. Focus. Look up “BENDER.” You may recognize something.
Being accustomed to constantly lording it over children, school boards try to lord it over their parents because it has become all they know how to do. They are notoriously unthinking, unquestioning, dysfunctional and rigid. Functionally adult persons see something wrong with that.
Care to clean up YOUR own side of the street? If anyone’s an authority on ego and condescension, it’s the one hiding behind a brittle argument for “just following orders.” Consequently, you are missing the entire point… that the system is broken and dysfunctional. I trust men like that Dad to tackle the problem more than those so self loathing they don’t think they and their kids deserve better. You’re more to be pitied for apparently being unwilling to face the problem.
You did get one thing right. You were for practice. Surly people full of themselves don’t learn, they regurgitate whatever was forced into them. It just amuses me how those so uninterested in life long learning can have so much to say about other people’s education.
If your pretentious ego blocks you from understanding when a person completely dismisses you, then I doubt the accuracy of anything else you say or witness or have ever seen. Clearly you’re too thick, or I am too subtle for your intellect.
Subtlety is hardly one of your strengths, Timbit. Neither is Logic. My pretentiousness is carefully cultivated with both vigor and relish. That, however, is insufficient to make me wrong.
You’re a lot kinder and more polite to this @sshole than I would be.
Incoming! Internet tough Guy! lol
That doesnt mean much coming from the guy threatening to punch people.
You’re a f*cking moron.
Brilliant retort. You must have been home schooled.
You’re the one who can’t spell, @sshole.
At least I use The Grown Up Alphabet not the pre teen one.
Would that be the alphabet for dumb f*cks who can’t spell?
No it’s the Grown Up One, where we say Grown Up Words without replacing the Grown Up Alphabet with little asterisks and such, which apparently somehow shield you from the offending word. Or whatever your babysitter told you, I don’t know. Ask her about it.
I wish I had a babysitter. I would f*ck her silly.
For your education dumb @ss the asterisks have nothing to do with hiding. It’s a courtesy to the list moderators so my posts don’t bog down there emails by being put on hold by the computer.
Not that I would expect you to know what courtesy is.
My Dad used to get me out of school a few days every fall to kill Bambi and his Mom. One year I brought back the head and some of the organs for my science teacher. She used them as teaching aids. Especially the deers brain. Plus I got to gross out the other kids with a box full of dead bloody smelly animal parts. It was a win win for everybody. This principal is a self righteous @sshole to obsessed with the little bit of power he has.
Your upbringing would go a long way toward explaining your coarseness and lack of respect for authority.
This from the @sshole whose telling people to STFU. Go f*ck yourself hypocrite.
Nice. You obviously have no more respect for people than you do for the conventions and rules folks live by to sustain their communities. I feel sorry for your children, I really do. I can just imagine your driving record, work record, and family court history. You’re probably a real piece of work.
I’m smart enough not to have children because I’m still at a time in my life where I couldn’t give them the attention they need. My driving record consists of two speeding tickets in twenty years. My work record is exemplary including my 9 years in the US NAVY. And I have no family court history.
Would you like to be wrong and stupid about anything else?
Somehow the alternate reality you’ve invented for yourself doesn’t really square with the online personna you’ve adopted here. The nine years in the Navy fits though. You must have been a damned fine prat boy. I’m thinking maybe a submariner? You impress me as a budding sociopath. I’m sure your spousal unit, were s(he) still in the picture, would agree.
Your ability to be so utterly stupid and completely wrong is actually rather impressive. Any time you would like to stop making an @ss of yourself feel free.
You’re like a broken record; an angry, one question deep broken record.
Right back at ya junior.
Back at me with what? Remember, originality counts.
Just to help me complete my file on you, did your long-suffering, sainted mother manage to have any children that lived?
Originality, you want to talk me about originality. That’s funny. My Mother is not a Saint but at least she didn’t raise a f*cking moron your mom did. I mean come on dude “any children that lived” really. I haven’t heard that one since around 89. Hardly original.
Your specialty is ad hominem attacks on total strangers. Mine is tossing about innocent sub-vintage nuggets to very shallow individuals in hopes of developing within them a sense of humor and an appreciation for others.
As long as you can remain anonymous, you Tea Party types treat everyone with the same disrespect you treat our president. It’s always all about you.
I don’t know what gave your dumb @ss the impression I was in the tea party @sshole. I’m a loud and proud liberal. You couldn’t respond to what I actually wrote because you know it’s true. I think Obama is the best President we’ve had since Carter. So why haven’t you killed yourself already?
Well, if you’re a Liberal and voted Democratic. I guess you’re forgiven for coming off as an arrogant, self-interested tool. FWIW, I agree with you about President Obama.
Blow it out your @ss you piece of sh*t.
You seem rather obsessed with me. I am flattered, but taken.
I just enjoy pointing out stupid @ssholes to the world.
I agree, you have no life.
You agree with something I never said. You’re a special kind of stupid aren’t you.
You don’t have to say it, it extrudes from your posts like home made pasta, poor guy.
Yep special kind of stupid.
And you’re the type of person who needs to be doused in gasoline and lit on fire.
Does your Home Room teacher know what you do on the the school’s computers?
Sorry but I finished school a long time ago. You should consider going back or is that “impossinle” for your dumb @ss.
Yes, pointing out spelling errors or typos is the first sign a person doesn’t have anything to say, anything important to say. Good job, shitbird.
That’s exactly the response I would expect. Thanks for living up to my low expectations.
Now you know how your family feels.
It’s funny that you think you know anything about me or my family. I’m sure your family is proud as can be having a stupid f*cking c*nt like you hanging from the tree. My family is proud of me. I’m 3rd generation Navy. What have you done?
Don’t get mad at me if you’re hurt that your family has low expectations for you.
So serving ones country is low expectations to you. That explains a lot. On behalf of the entire United States Military you just insulted go f*ck yourself.