From Harford County Public Schools:
Harford County Public Schools (HCPS) continues to make the safety and security of students a top priority and invest in new features and measures to support this goal. HCPS is happy to announce that with the use of an automated attendance system, it can now inform parents/guardians much sooner when their child is not in school. They have also hired a security guard for increased vigilance throughout school grounds.
“We have heard from our community members that they want to be notified earlier in the day when their child is absent from school,” said Superintendent of Schools Sean Bulson. “We are listening to your concerns, and we are making every effort possible to address them.”
In the past, attendance was manually entered by an administrative assistant at the school, which was a time-consuming process, especially in the larger schools. With the available software, homeroom teachers input student attendance at the start of the school day and the attendance report is generated automatically and much faster.
Until now, attendance calls were sent at 5:00 p.m. each day, due largely in part to the manual process in place.
Beginning Monday, January 28, attendance calls to parents/guardians will be sent at the following times:
• High schools and North Harford Middle School – 9:30 a.m.
• Middle schools – 10:00 a.m.
• Elementary schools and the Alternative Education Program – 11:00 a.m.
• Afternoon Pre-K – 2:00 p.m.
The school system notified HCPS families of this change via a call on January 23 and has shared the message on its social media pages as well.
Parents/guardians are reminded that while the benefits of an earlier call far outweigh the cons, there may be times when they receive a false call. With attendance submitted electronically at the start of the school day, those students who arrive late will have already been marked absent and may receive a call before it is corrected in the system.
“Please be aware and understanding that if your student is late to school, you may receive a call indicating he or she is absent,” said HCPS Manager of Communications Jillian Lader.
Additionally, parents/guardians are encouraged to verify that the contact information on file with their child’s school or in their Blackboard Connect5 Parent Portal account is up-to-date and accurate.
I really impressed your blog.
I’m really impressed by your lack of proper grammar.
Question: I just want to understand why the times aren’t when the first bell rings and the student/s should be in class in their seats? Could you please provide an explanation of the designated times please. Sooner the better it seems to address the absence? Looking forward to additional information on the time frame. Thank you. *Definitely a 100% improvement over 5pm notifying parents/guardians – excellent!
So if there is a substitute that still has to be manually entered. It used to be all of them had to be manually entered so as you can imagine it was a large task by one person. Not to mention you are only Tardy if you arrive before a certain time it is after that point you are absent
This way they can still cheat the system, and play games with absences so that it doesn’t count against the school with the state. Also, there are no consequences for cutting class or excessive absences anyway. Its a big dog and pony show just like everything else.
How does a phone call make you not absent?
Try not sending your kid to school for a lot of days and see if you don’t end up in court.
It has been years since I had kids in school, could someone tell me why it’s the schools responsibility to tell parent their kids are absent?
So parents can even have less responsibility than they do now for raising their kids. There is almost zero consequences and almost zero accountability for both kids and parents. Taxpayers, government and society are held responsible and accountable for all the consequences and cleaning up the mess.
A safety check …..you put your kid on the bus but they don’t make it into the schoo ( nabbed, skipping or otherwise) l your child won’t be a victim for 8 hours before you are notified the schools safety systems failed. It’s a back up. THANK YOU HCPS. Good call.
Why shouldn’t a working parent expect some help monitoring their children’s school attendance? When you put your child on the bus, you expect him to arrive at the school and stay there. Economic necessity dictates that a parent can’t follow their child to make sure the kid is where it’s supposed to be. Parents pay taxes. Why shouldn’t they expect the school to notify them when the kid doesn’t show.
Since we already have metal detectors and police in the schools, why not just give the kids a magnetic ID and require them to swipe in at the beginning of school, at the beginning and end of recess and lunch, when entering each classroom, gym or library, and when exiting at the end of the day. That way there would be a permanent record of each student’s actual attendance. Reports could be sent to parents on a weekly bases. How about it Mr. Bulson? Or are you too busy looking for ways to cut the number of teachers and increase the number of students per class, and otherwise degrade the quality of HCPS?
Those swipe systems cost millions of dollars. They’ve been piloted in some schools and are highly successful. The only problem…Harford County residents don’t pay enough taxes for the school system they want. When you set high expectations, you need to back them with adequate funding.
I agree, the HCPS doesn’t have enough funding. It would help if Glassman et.al. would keep their hands off the funds appropriated to the school system. They have a penchant for dipping into school funds for unrelated projects. Perhaps this is an issue that should be put up for referendum?
None of what you said makes any sense. He writes a budget that is then approved by the county council. They can’t “dip into school funds”. Please educate yourself on the workings of local government before voting in the next election.
And we could add “facial recognition” so one student couldn’t log in their friends using their cards.
No person under the age of 18 should be subject to governmental regulation. The government has already interfered in the child rearing process way too much. When you stole a parent’s rights to discipline their children under the threat of State implemented imprisonment, the State went too far. Give the parent’s back their God given right to whoop that butt and you may see a change in the behavior of children. Keep moving further to the ultimate goal of controlling the mind, body and soul and you will see children become even more rebellious. Not every child is going to be perfect. Stop trying to make them that way.