How many people remember when an "excused absence" meant that you had a note signed by your mother...and the school secretary knew what your mother's handwriting looked like. I was absolutely shocked when a heard parents talking about excused and unexcused absences and discovered that the parents don't decide what is excused. It made me glad that I never put any of my kids in those holding cells.
Before we pulled our kids from public school, we learned about this the hard way. We had three sick children with the flu. They missed three days. They stayed home with me, sick and in bed. On day four, I sent them back to school only to be informed
I had to take them all to the Dr. to get a note just so they could go back to school. And to think I could just write a note myself saying they had been sick and weren't sick anymore. Silly me. It costs us $75 for copay on our insurance.