Parent concerned with sick absence letters from APS

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – If you’re sick stay home. Maybe you’ve heard that at work, and as the “tripledemic” continues to hit the state – you may have to take a sick day. 

But, a mother of four says she’s been receiving a letter about missed days after keeping her children home from school while they recover.

“I have two children in kindergarten, so we are new to APS, and everything has, for the most part been really great,” said Amanda Crawley. 

Crawley says the school year has been pretty smooth for her and her children, until she started to feel stressed.  

“I have found myself getting very, what I feel like is overly stressed about their absences when it pertains to them being sick,” said Crawley. 

She says her children have been repeatedly getting sick with the flu and having to stay home for weeks at a time. Now, she says Albuquerque Public Schools has been “harassing” her with what she calls threatening letters about her children’s absences. 

“So in person, we’re getting that warm, very education response. But at the same time, we are also if you’re if your student misses and they are sick, you get a text message saying you know, your student is out. You get emails that are, they seem like they are one size fits all mass email from superintendent from APS,” Crawley said. 

She says now she feels like she has to chose between keeping her sick child home, or getting a nasty letter from the school district. 

“That’s mostly the topic that all of us seem to be talking about, is the stress that we have over potential absences that our kids may have from being sick,” said Crawley. 

According to the letter Crawley received, students are considered “chronically absent if they miss 10% of school days” that boils down to about 18 days in a 178-day school year. 

APS’ website says you can contact your child’s school for extended excused absences like illness. 

Crawley says she hopes the policy can be made more flexible especially with this “tripledemic” season of flu, RSV, and COVID-19.

“My hope would be that we could take a step back and not have these mass emails being a one size fits all,” she said. 

We’ve reached out to APS about the letters and their absence policy, and they did get back to us, but they said they’re not able to get that information this evening.