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Chronic absenteeism can derail your future

3/12/20

Persaud

BY ARVINDRA PERSAUD
SNN Staff Writer

Tests, work and teachers that you just don’t like. With these components, it’s understandable that students don’t want to come to school, but they need to.

“Chronic absences keep kids from getting the consistent instruction they need to build on basic skills,” said author Kate Kelley in her article on chronic absenteeism on Understood.org.

We, as young adults of the future, need to learn as much as possible before walking out those doors to true adulthood - but staying absent will get in the way of that. If children are constantly absent at an early age, it can cause them to read and write poorly, which in turn can make them get held back.

Basically, kids as young as 7 start life off with a damaged record, something that can restrict them from certain jobs that they dream of. According to the U.S Board of Education, 21.1% of high school students were absent during the 2015-2016 school year across the nation. That’s nearly 3,000,000 students. Just imagine if that keeps climbing. Remember we need to make a path to the future and the key to that is our youth, but without nurtured youth, there will be no future.

People say it’s okay to miss a couple of days of school, but what happens when a “couple of days” turn into weeks or months? You miss whole units, topics, chapters and experiences that can be so useful for the real world, especially in high school.

Being absent puts a toll on if you can get your high school diploma, and you need that for most jobs. Without it, you’d pretty much be out on the street. As said before, it’s understandable why kids don’t want to go to school, but what wasn’t said was that some kids don’t come to school because they are getting bullied. But if that’s a problem, talk to an adult that you can be open with. Try the guidance counselor, do whatever it takes for you to be able to be comfortable at school. Just do the right thing and come to school; it’s for your own good. It will allow you to solve problems that may concern you in life - and might even allow you to make some nice memories.