Can My Child Go to School?
There might be days when your child is sick, and unable to participate in learning. Minimizing your student’s absences from learning is important to everyone.
Resources and Supports to Encourage Regular Attendance
Resources that can help prepare students for long-term success by making sure they are in school every day.
The connection between student health and chronic absenteeism is clear and direct. Both chronic and acute health conditions can prevent students from attending school. Research indicates that common health conditions resulting in missed school include asthma, influenza, diabetes, obesity and related illness, seizure disorders, mental health, anxiety, headaches, and vision problems. Ultimately, instruction should take place in the school setting to the fullest extent possible. All school-based interventions should be considered prior to referral for additional services.
- Return to Learn provides support to students returning to school following an extended absence as they integrate back into classes and the social environment of school. School-based professionals, consisting of school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers, are available to support the transition process as your child returns to their learning environment following a chronic illness, short-term illness, mental health challenge, concussion, childbirth, or other medical condition.
- Homebound Instruction provides continuity between the classroom and home or healthcare facility for those students whose medical needs do not allow for school attendance. These services are considered temporary and are based on the premise that instruction should take place in the school setting to the fullest extent possible. All school-based interventions should be considered prior to referral for homebound.
- School Health Services
- Fairfax County Health Department serves the residents of Fairfax County, the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, and the towns of Herndon, Vienna and Clifton. The Health Department works towards the prevention of epidemics and the spread of disease, protects the public against environmental hazards, promotes and encourages healthy behaviors, assures the quality and accessibility of health services, and responds to disasters and assisting communities in recovery. The Health Department Information Line: 703-246-2411 (TTY 711).
- Addressing the Health-Related Causes of Chronic Absenteeism: A Toolkit for Action from Attendance Works
- The Importance of School Attendance (Video) from the U.S. Department of Education
- Managing Asthma from the School Environmental Health and Asthma Collaborative - Descriptions of the most common asthma triggers in the home and information on how to reduce or eliminate them.
Are you planning a family trip or vacation? As you think about your arrangements, we want to stress the importance of sending your child to school every day possible. Every year, absences spike in the weeks before and after holidays as families squeeze in a few more vacation days. We recognize that it is important to reconnect with families far away, but keep in mind the costs to your childs education if they miss too much school— and the message you will be sending about the importance of attendance.
- View the FCPS School Calendar
Develop a back-up plan for getting to school if something comes up or if your child misses the bus. Call on a family member, a neighbor, or another parent for support.
- Free Student Public Transportation Bus Pass Program from Fairfax County Government
Students can now sign up for the Free Student Bus Pass Pilot Program at all Fairfax County public high schools and middle schools, and ride the Fairfax Connector for free! Find more information at your school’s administration office. You need to have your parent’s or guardian’s approval for signing up.
Students may miss school because they don’t understand the work, or feel successful, or feel that they have gotten so far behind that they will never catch up, or don’t see that school is helping them to meet their goals. Once they start to miss school, these problems become even worse, as they feel disconnected from their teachers and other students, and the missed work feels overwhelming. FCPS provides many options to support learning and to help the student feel more hopeful about graduating and earning a diploma. If you feel that your child seems disinterested in school and is skipping classes or beginning to miss more than 5 days in a semester, please contact your school counselor, who can discuss options for support in the current program, and provide information about non-traditional programs that offer individualization, support and flexible schedules to help your child graduate.
Crippling anxiety before speaking in front of a class. Embarrassment about a learning disability. Post-traumatic stress from witnessing neighborhood violence. Depression that results in extreme fatigue. A wide range of mental health issues can keep students out of school and limit their engagement during class.
- Managing Mental Health to Improve Attendance from Attendance Works
- Mental Health Resources and Emergency Services Information
- Peer Conflict - Students need to know that school is a safe place to be! Misunderstandings and conflicts between students are a common part of interacting with many people every day, but repeated threats or physical assaults are unacceptable. If you are concerned that your child may be being bullied, contact your school counselor.
- Information on School Refusal from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America
- Fairfax County Community Services Board
- Fairfax County Community Services Board (Spanish)
Research shows that there is a definite link between teen substance abuse and school performance. Teens who abuse drugs have lower grades, a higher rate of absence from school and other activities, and an increased potential for dropping out of school.
- Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Programs - High school students who have violated the alcohol or other drug regulations in the Student Rights and Responsibilities (SR&R) and those students who volunteer for the class may be eligible to attend our three-day seminar. FCPS works with the students to bring them the most accurate, up-to-date information on alcohol and drugs.
- Fairfax County Community Services Board provides substance use/substance dependency outpatient services for middle and high school-aged youth and their families. The goal is to reduce and then stop the youth’s use of alcohol and/or drugs. Contact CSB Entry and Referral Services (available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) – 703-383-8500, TTY 711. This is the starting point for accessing mental health or substance abuse services through the CSB. Staff can take calls in English and Spanish and can access other languages when needed.
- Fairfax County Community Services Board (Spanish)
- Return to Learn provides support to students returning to school following an extended absence as they integrate back into classes and the social environment of school. School-based professionals, consisting of school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers, are available to support the transition process as your child returns to their learning environment following a chronic illness, short-term illness, mental health challenge, concussion, childbirth, or other medical condition.
- School Counseling Services
- School Social Work Services
- School Psychology Services
When a teen wakes up feeling exhausted, the thought of going to school might send him or her right back under the covers. If sleep deprivation is a chronic problem, adolescents may start missing one day of school every week or even missing several days at a time in an attempt to “catch up” on missed sleep.
- The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on School Attendance and Dropout Rates from Sleeping Resources
- View information on Sleep and Teens from UCLA Health
- Electronic devices, kids and sleep: How screen time keeps them awake from the University of Chicago Medicine & Biological Sciences
