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Terminally Sick Boy Given Truancy Warning
A school has apologized for sending a truancy letter to the mother of a boy suffering from leukemia after she asked to take him out of classes to meet the Pope before he died. Louise Yates asked for permission from St Botolph's School to take her her six-year-old son Travis on a two-day trip to the Vatican in June for a blessing with the Pope. In response she got a letter about truancy and a copy of his attendance record. The school has since apologized and released a statement saying, "We are aware of Travis' illness and have given permission for him to travel to Rome during term-time. Government guidance suggests sending attendance information out with permission letters, but we appreciate in this instance it may not have been appropriate and we would like to apologise if this has caused the family any offence."
The pope is gonna have some fun tonight.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
An unfortunately worded form letter is routinely sent out by a secretary who had no reason to know - and no right to know - that the kid was dying.
The kid is terminally ill and still has to go to school? Was he Hitler in a previous life or why else would anyone be so heartless as to make him attend such a behaviour correction centre when he clearly does not have a future for which he has to prepare?
One of the famous comparative studies of how American kids start out on par and decline relative to the performance of other countries was done comparing Japan, Taiwan and the U.S. They concluded, for instance, that Japanese cramming was more of a myth than thought. While the American kids might be occupied with sports after school, the Japanese kids might be occupied with something like calligraphy that was also non-academic.
The most striking difference between countries was the percentage of kids who were "missing" in American schools. They may have been in the building but the administration just couldn't tell the researcher where they were at any given time.
School is meant to prepare kids for adult life, but this kid is dying and won't reach adulthood, so is there really any point in him attending school? Why not just let him enjoy what time he has rather than trying to force him to learn stuff he will never use?
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We are aware of Travis' illness and have given permission for him to travel
In England, schools have to give permission for their students to travel? WTF? If they consider themselves legal guardians, perhaps they'd like to take a share of all the other responsibilities of parenting, too?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.