What do I do if the school keeps sending absence letters when my child is out sick?

If your child is frequently absent from school for medical reasons, the school may send you automated letters or notifications. It can be frustrating to try to resolve this issue so that you are not notified every time, but each school has its own policies. Talk to the school’s attendance office to see the best way to resolve the issue. You can also check the attendance policy in the school's parent handbook for information about how to resolve attendance issues. For example, you might have to submit a doctor note if your child is out more than 3 days in a row.

Schools have to monitor attendance and send a letter notifying parents when so many days are missed. Often, excused absences are included in the computer system. You can ask for frequent absence due to illness to be noted in the IEP under health. Likely, the school attendance office cannot change past dates that may have been missed, but going forward, you may want to provide a doctor note within 24 hours of a multiple-day absence.

Non-attorney education advocate Karen Ford Cull says, "In my experience, if it is noted in their IEP, the school will not move forward to the School Attendance Review Board (SARB), and if they do, usually the SARB would end as soon as they realize that the child has a disability and there are doctor notes. So while the letters look bad, there really aren't bad consequences, unless you are on a permit or at an NPS. Just put the auto-generated letters in the trash."

If your child has many absences to anxiety, for example, rather than physical illness, check out the tips in our article School Refusal 101.