Children Can't Take a Week Off: HB886

If enacted, Virginia House Bill #886 would require schools to start calling parents at home any time a child didn't report to school. Then, if the parent "is aware of and supports the child's absence" for four days, the child might be classified as "in need of services," i,e, foster care. Full text here:

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+ful+HB886

While this law seems intended to keep teenagers off the streets, and does not pertain to homeschoolers, it would certainly make the public school environment more unhealthy than it already is. Little children's colds can last longer than a week. So can adults' illnesses with which older children eagerly volunteer to stay home and help. So can the teen relationship problems that are best resolved by a week, or two or three, for all the teenagers involved to find other things to think about.

The worst part of HB886 is that it only aggravates the harm done by existing legislation, which puts children at risk on the sixth day they're allowed to stay home. Such intrusive laws may protect a few children who really are "in need of services" from being kept home because, e.g., they don't have clean clothes...but they do at least an equal amount of harm to children whose social and emotional development is best served by protecting their interpersonal space, e.g. not forcing them to spend time with someone with whom they've quarrelled.

Ah yes...but the schools still receive funding based on a head count! That's the real priority behind this legislation. Never mind whether teenagers are stressing each other out to the point of violence, never mind whether tots' colds are developing into bronchitis or pneumonia, never mind whether the child sitting beside yours has head lice--the important thing is to keep school funding up! Do we really want to place children in the custody of people who display that kind of motivation?