Attendance

So last year there was no attendance requirement for Des and Amelia because they were 5 and NYS doesn't require children to be in school until age 6. I bet you 75% of parents don't know this.

This year they have to be in school for a minimum of 5 hours a day and can only have 10 absences for the year.

However, if we want to go to the city for the day or if they want to visit their grandmother they can make a motion for the activity to count towards their attendance. This is because Sudbury recognizes that life is a learning experience and that learning often takes place outside of school.

Students age 16 or over can make a motion to be excused from the attendance requirement? Huh? How can that be? They don't just make a motion I think they have to go through a committee or something and explain why. The reason why they can do this is because this is seen as a transition period where they learn to become responsible for themselves and their time and presumably their activities start taking them more and more into the outside world. It's quite brilliant.

Compare this to the typical high school experience where they go from the control of school and parents often to the total freedom of college. No more bells, no more asking permission to go to the bathroom, specific times for meals, no more parents. No wonder so many kids (myself included) go bananas at college.

The kids will also be taking a school bus (the holy grail for homeschooled children. One mom I know when asked what she couldn't provide for her kids said "They all want to take the bus").
This will pose a challenge for us in the morning. One of the attractions of sudbury is the flexibility in when you spend those five hours there. We could take our time and get in a little later if need be. Now they are going to have to be at the bus stop at a certain time and that's that. It sort of goes against the philosophy but the district doesn't have to support the quirks of my family, it just has to provide transportation.