For this year's annual Cactus League Spring Training trip, I had to get Ez out of school a total of three days: Thursday, Friday and Monday. This is quite a bit of time to be out of school, but since it's Kindergarten, I figured he wouldn't miss too much, and he's a darn-good reader, writer and arithmetic-er already, so no biggy. I checked in with the office, asked for and filled out the excused absence form, submitted it and began to assemble my road-trip arsenal of snacks (see a previous post for details.)
The trip was a blast, as usual. However, a strange thing happened while on the road to PHX: Ez's school district, the LAUSD, robo-called my phone. I ignored this one as I've learned to ignore them all. It called again several hours later. Then Friday morning and afternoon, guess what? Robo-calls from the LAUSD. I ignored these too, but glancing at my email, I had a message from the LAUSD from each of the last two days. The messages said, "you have a son or daughter at FRANZ SCHUBERT ELEMENTARY who was not present for roll call on BLA BLA BLA DAY, etc., etc." This prompted me to listen to the voicemail from the robot. It too ratted out Ez for not being in class. So much for the excused absence form, eh?
Monday was no different: Two robo-calls and an email. LAUS-suck.
After dropping off Ez in class Tuesday, I went to the office and asked, "excuse me, what the fuck?" They said, "oh, no, you're all good. That's just the District."
"Doesn't my excused absence form get submitted up to the district level?"
"Yes," the office stooge said, "It does, but the system still does its robo-calling and emailing."
"You've got to be kidding. No one can fix that?" I said.
"It seems not. I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads-up."
"No prob." I said.
I told this story the other day at my "new job" and co-workers much younger than me said the schools they were in had various forms of electronic roll-call when they were in school. Not me, I said, we had paper. And we could hack the system. I told of one kid in my Bio II class. He waited until our doddering, old teacher turned his back on him and he darted out the always-open front door of the classroom. Everyone but the teacher knew he was going to do it and we barely contained ourselves as his backpack shoulder strap got closer and closer to his shoulder as he readied his flight. I crack up now just thinking about it.
oh ... I just remembered that the kid mentioned above got FUCKING EXPELLED two days before graduation ... for excessive unexcused absences.
Tonight - Mr. Bing's.
A North Beach / Chinatown favorite!
I'm doin' the Monkey Boy.
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
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