Permanent Record

My kid was at a dentist appointment this morning. He's in fourth grade. When I brought him in to school to drop him off, they asked if I had a doctor's note to prove he was at the dentist.

"No," I said. "I didn't know he needed one."

"Well, we can't excuse him if he doesn't have a doctor's note," the woman at the front desk said.

"Uh, okay, well, then I guess you don't need to excuse him," I said, "I mean, does it matter anyway?"

"Well," she said, "they count up unexcused absences."

Not sure who *they* are in this context. My guess is some government agency whose purpose is to make life miserable for its citizens...The Parent Punishement Department.

"A parent's word isn't good enough?" I said, it was more of a statement than a question. She just shrugged at that.

So, what the hell is going on? Since when does a parent bring their child back to school and lie about where they were? In what world is a parent's word about a child being at the dentist not enough to excuse them? Isn't the point of unexcused absences to alert a parent to the fact that your kid is cutting class and needs to be set straight? Or is it now for the purpose of catching parents who are doing their best to turn their kids into delinquents?

And I live in Texas, where they're so worried about parents' rights that they tried to ban mask mandates for schools so that parents could be the ones who decide if their kid wears a mask...but they can't even vouch for their kid being at the dentist? You gotta be kidding me.

The woman at the desk told me my son could bring the doctor's not the next day to get his absence excused, as though I'm going to drive all the way back to the dentist and ask for a note just to get the red X off his chart or whatever. No thanks. I've got better things to do with my time, like type this rant up for example.

I guess it's just going to have to go down on his permanent record. Hopefully he'll be able to still get a job when he's in his forties. I bet it will come up on his background check, and his potential employer will say, "I'm sorry, but it says here you had an unexcused absence in fourth grade...let me guess, you were at 'the dentist'. That's what they all say. You and your dad were probably robbing a liquor store and using the money to buy smack, weren't you?"