CHICAGO — Many U.S. school districts urged parents to keep their kids in class and not take them to work Thursday for an annual event they say disrupts learning at an increasingly critical time of year.
From Arizona to Illinois to Texas, educators alerted parents that between high-stakes standardized testing in some areas and the H1N1 virus that kept thousands of children home earlier in the school year, the timing of “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” doesn’t make sense.
In many districts, some of which sent strongly worded letters or e-mails to parents explaining that taking part was putting their children’s education at risk, officials reported that teachers were not finding rows of empty seats in classrooms Thursday.
“We had only six out today, (and) that’s actually less than usual,” said Darrell Propst, principal of Taylor Road Elementary School in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, one of those that asked parents not to pull their kids out of school for the day. “Our attendance was very, very good today.”
The Associated Press
