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Should students have one excused absence per year to use for activism? | The Tylt
Should students have one excused absence per year to use for activism?
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By Jessie Blaeser
According to NPR, Fairfax County in northern Virginia, one of the largest school districts in the country, will allow students to skip school one day per year to protest. Fans of the policy applaud the ability for students to actually engage in civics. Some student activists even believe the policy should be increased to multiple days out of the year. Others say this is a slippery slope, arguing protests are not a valid reason to miss out on their education. What do you think?
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Excused absences should come around more often than doctors' notes. According to NPR's Matthew S. Schwartz, Fairfax County public school students will be the first to fill out a new kind of absence form:
One of the largest school districts in the country is trying something new: Starting next month, students in Fairfax County, Va., can take one day off per school year to engage in political activism.
NPR refers to Fairfax School Board member Ryan McElveen on the uptake in student-led activism over the last few years:
"We saw students wanting to take time out of the school day to lead protests and do things of that nature," says McElveen, who proposed the policy to the school board.
The result is a policy that will allow students to learn about civic engagement first-hand. As NPR's Schwartz puts it, whether students would like to lobby a legislator or participate in a protest, they are welcome to:
Students between 7th and 12th grades will get one excused absence per year for a "civic engagement activity." That might consist of attending a protest, or lobbying legislators in Washington or Richmond — anything that could make the students' voices heard. After submitting the form in advance, and checking in at school on the day of the absence, they can be on their way.
https://www.npr.org/2019/12/27/791889392/fairfax-va-schools-to-give-students-one-day-off-per-year-for-civic-engagement
Per the Washington Post's Hannah Natanson, critics of the policy believe it will accomplish nothing but "coddling" students. When a nearby district in Maryland attempted a similar policy, one school board member received "hundreds of emails, letters and calls from self-identified conservatives throughout the country who argued students belong in school, not in the streets protesting."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/one-of-the-nations-biggest-school-systems-will-let-students-take-time-off-to-protest-the-conservative-backlash-has-begun/2019/12/26/7c2ebaf8-27e3-11ea-9c21-2c2a4d2c2166_story.html
Some feel so energized by the new policy, they'd prefer if it was increased to one excused absence per week. Civic engagement is hardly taught in schools, yet students understand better than most how important it is to participate in your community. As the Atlantic's Yoni Appelbaum explains, democracy rests on the shoulders of those willing to participate, and rather than add civics courses to the never-ending list of requirements for students, they should be allowed to participate in the process themselves:
It means carving out the time, space, and resources for students to govern themselves. One recent study found that, holding all else equal, greater knowledge of civics among high-school seniors correlated with a 2 percent greater likelihood of voting in a presidential election eight years later. Active participation in extracurricular activities, however, correlated with a 141 percent increase.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7Bsh4NFr1B/
Some experts argue that although the policy is bipartisan in nature, its inevitable that it will split along party lines. The Washington Post's Natanson refers to Columbia University lecturer Thai Jones on the topic:
In today's climate, it is all but inevitable that support and opposition for the Fairfax policy would split along ideological lines, he said.
One Harvard University professor, Meira Levinson, agrees:
Skipping school to participate in large-scale protests is not common among students who favor conservative causes, Levinson said. Although there are exceptions — for example, the tea party rallies a decade or so ago — conservative student activists typically prefer less disruptive forms of protest, she said.
If conservative students do not feel the policy is for them too, the idea behind it will ultimately fail. Some are fearful this will be the reality:
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