Latino students missing school for vacation deserves more scrutiny
CHICAGO — It’s that time. If you’re a teacher in a school with a large concentration of Hispanic students, you’re doing end-of-year reviews and preparing for final exams — and you have kids trickling up to you to let you know they won’t be around for them.
This also happens at the beginning of the school year and during the holidays as parents take their children out of classes for long family trips. But I can tell you from first-hand experience that there’s nothing worse than getting through the post-spring break blahs and pushing hard to end the year strong, only to have students drop like flies before you reach the finish line.
Understand that I’m not talking about children of farmworkers whose families follow the harvest. I turn your attention to students of families who are financially stable enough to travel for pleasure — or at least can afford it when the need arises — and can do so legally.When I last surveyed administrators in the Chicago Public Schools system in 2007, they said that although the Hispanic attendance as students returned from Christmas vacation was still bad, it was improving. An