Why have policies if you won't enforce them?

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Community Health, School Health.

Anyone work in schools where there are "policies", yet when it comes down to it, they don;t get enforced?

I am in a charter school and it really emphasizes time and attendance. Three tardies become an unexcused absence. Seven absences you get a letter home, 15 total in a school year and the child is supposed to be seriously considered for retention if the child is behind.

We started classes on 8/10. One of our "policies" is that it is MANDATORY that every student be present for the first three weeks of school. There are two reasons they say. The first is that our students are given priority in the lottery (our admission is by lottery) if they have a sibling currently attending. It is to prevent students from getting admitted but then in the Fall, their sibling has already moved to a new school so technically there is no sibling there anymore. It is also to make sure families are committed to the rigorous academics of our school. We start three weeks earlier than the other district schools, and we also have a much longer school day (7:45-4:15 vs. 8:00-2). They say the student will lose their spot if they do not abide by this policy.

There are already about 30 students (out of 366) who have not been back from last year yet. A handful came the first couple days but now are out. Obviously kids who are legit sick are excused, but these are families who are, for example in their home countries for the Summer and say they "had no idea" school started so early, etc. This is my third year here and not one single student has lost their spot. Only two students have been retained a grade level due to missing so many days of school.

I guess I am just wondering why bother making policies?!

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.

Administrators are afraid of their own shadow. They can tout the policy but don't have the spine to enforce it and deal with the angry parent.

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Specializes in NCSN.
Administrators are afraid of their own shadow. They can tout the policy but don't have the spine to enforce it and deal with the angry parent.

^^ This

I think attendance and food policies are the hardest to enforce only because there is no support from the people who took the time to write them.

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I ask myself the same question about the place where I live. Not only does management ignore their own "daily living together nicely" rules, they allow anyone and everyone to violate the terms of their leases that are covered by local law and ordinance, such as how many can you cram into a small space. And I can't think of one previous employer who has never had that one 'golden' employee who could do no wrong, especially when they were doing wrong. I guess rules are just made for show and to be conspicuously broken.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Community Health, School Health.
I ask myself the same question about the place where I live. Not only does management ignore their own "daily living together nicely" rules, they allow anyone and everyone to violate the terms of their leases that are covered by local law and ordinance, such as how many can you cram into a small space. And I can't think of one previous employer who has never had that one 'golden' employee who could do no wrong, especially when they were doing wrong. I guess rules are just made for show and to be conspicuously broken.

Totally! And I remember the old clinic where I used to work and there was this one extremely difficult family who would come in. The parents were always hostile, angry, accusatory from the time they stepped into the clinic. Our clinic director would bend over backwards to be nice to them , make them happy, etc. Would drive me crazy b/c every other patient had to follow the rules, but not this family. They were rewarded for being awful to staff.

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Specializes in School nurse.

Who is the attendance officer? We have compulsory education laws, as I'm sure most states do. If your not the officer just document the illnesses and forget about it. If you are the officer document that you gave the info to admin to enforce, then forget about it.

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Specializes in OMFS, Dentistry.

I ask this question on a daily basis!!!!!

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Same in my district. Mandatory immunization law? Yes, unless parent complains. 24 hour fever free rule? Yes, unless the parent decides to send the kid. Dress code? Yes, unless you are thin and pretty. There are things we can control and things we can't. I choose carefully which mountains I am willing to die on.

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Specializes in School Nursing.
Totally! And I remember the old clinic where I used to work and there was this one extremely difficult family who would come in. The parents were always hostile, angry, accusatory from the time they stepped into the clinic. Our clinic director would bend over backwards to be nice to them , make them happy, etc. Would drive me crazy b/c every other patient had to follow the rules, but not this family. They were rewarded for being awful to staff.

We had a very difficult, hostile family when I worked in the NICU who was rewarded for that behavior with gift cards to Target, Starbucks, etc. Our manager let those families walk all over us because they were just terrified that we'd get bad customer service reviews. Of course I'm sure that family gave us bad reviews anyway. And then 2 years later they were back with another NICU baby. :(

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Specializes in NCSN.
We had a very difficult, hostile family when I worked in the NICU who was rewarded for that behavior with gift cards to Target, Starbucks, etc. Our manager let those families walk all over us because they were just terrified that we'd get bad customer service reviews. Of course I'm sure that family gave us bad reviews anyway. And then 2 years later they were back with another NICU baby. :(

^^This is one of the many reasons I left the hospital. When customer service reviews become more important than pt outcomes, no one wins.

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
We had a very difficult, hostile family when I worked in the NICU who was rewarded for that behavior with gift cards to Target, Starbucks, etc. Our manager let those families walk all over us because they were just terrified that we'd get bad customer service reviews. Of course I'm sure that family gave us bad reviews anyway. And then 2 years later they were back with another NICU baby. :(

This is mind blowing. All this time I've been wasting being nice to people.

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