Attendance policies

As a concerned parent, I ask the question, "Who has control over the truancy officer for our schools?" I ask this question because of the recent criminal charges filed against a parent whose child missed more than the allotted ten days.

At first I agreed with this ruling. However, my 9-year-old son, while under doctor's care, recently missed several days of school due to a stomach virus. Even though he missed school per his doctor's instructions, I was treated very rudely by the principal and was visited by the truancy officer the day before Thanksgiving.

When did I give up the right to decide when my child is sick? I can remember missing a month's worth of school when I was a child due to the chicken pox, and I managed to graduate with honors, my mother running homework assignments to the teacher and helping me stay on top of the course work.

Are our local schools becoming so obsessed with test scores, attendance policies and control that the family structure is now what is being left behind? Not in my family, how about yours?

JODY LANE, Cape Girardeau