Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra is urging parents not to pull their kids out of school for sports tournaments next year, when new attendance rules begin.
Starting in the upcoming school year, attendance and participation will make up either 10 or 15 per cent of a final mark, depending on the grade.
In Grades 9 and 10, attendance and participation will be 15 per cent of a final mark, and in Grades 11 and 12 it will be 10 per cent.
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If a student has more than two unexcused absences, they wouldn’t be able to get that full 15 or 10 per cent.
Excused absences normally include illnesses and holy days, and while parents are allowed to excuse their children from school for a weekend hockey tournament that begins on a Friday, for example, Calandra says he doesn’t want that to be the norm.
He says attendance rates in Ontario high schools are among the worst in the country, and something must be done.
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“My advice to parents is, keep them in school,” he said Monday at an unrelated announcement.
“Education should be their priority. We’re going to monitor this over the next year, as I said last week, and if we have to make some additional modifications, we will.”
Calandra said the ministry has heard from the Ontario Hockey League, for example, when it comes to “high-level” athletes.
“High-level athletes in training, obviously, we’ll make some accommodation for that, but I say this again to the sports organizations as well: Education is a priority,” he said.
A lot of it depends on the dedication of the student. I had a girl who was competing at high level gymnastics. She missed one day of school a week for training, trained after school all the other days and often competed on the weekends. Aside from the question as to whether such a rigorous schedule is healthy, she was my top student. Every project and assignment was on time or early. I had kids who were much less productive who spent hours each night playing video games. I find the increase in absence is due to families pulling their children out for casual days here and there much more readily, post pandemic, and from families taking month long vacations to see family that live far away. Yes, children with more absences do, generally, struggle more academically. This was true even during online school.
Honestly, what does it matter? It’s not like child will fail their grade and be held back a year.
A little late to the party, the truancy of staff and students for hockey, dance, and other sports are astonishing and of course has an effect on learning.
Also unrelated to sports, no concern for punctuality , students rolling in when they wake up or not showing up when they don’t want to. This is training for real life to hold a job. It’s everyone’s responsibility.
Holy Days are ok but sports is not ok???
You dont think participation in sports is valuable education? RELIGION VS SPORTS.
That’s not right . Maybe the teachers should stop taking 1 day a month PD days. Maybe sports association can use those days for tournaments.
So what are parents supposed to do when tournaments run Friday to Sunday. Sports are great for the kids too!
So as long as a parent (or a child with the parents login to the online attendance system) calls in or goes logs in to excuse the absence, it will be excused and everything will be fine.
More educational Band-Aids! Covering the issue but missing addressing the causal reasons of why students don’t attend.
I will pull my kids from school for whatever reason I please