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Speaker 1: Now David Seymour is blaming striking teachers for a drop

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Speaker 1: in school attendance. He reckons attendance was on track to

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Speaker 1: be one percent higher than last year, but because of

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Speaker 1: the strikes, it's now down one percent on last year. Now,

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Speaker 1: Kathy Chambers, are charmers right? Rather is the principle of

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Speaker 1: Green Meadows Intermediate and the head of manyere were attendance

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Speaker 1: service and with us Now Hi, Kathy, hi there, how

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Speaker 1: are you? I'm very well? Thank you?

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Speaker 2: As David right, Well, I don't want to challenge whether

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Speaker 2: he's right or wrong, but what I would say is

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Speaker 2: that typically the last week of the term, attendance is

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Speaker 2: historically the patent drops. But also I think we need

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Speaker 2: to remember that parents are the ones who are legally

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Speaker 2: responsible for their child's attendance.

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Speaker 1: And this sounds like he's right, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: No, what I was actually going to say was blaming it.

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Speaker 2: I'm a teacher's participating in a lawful strike is a

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Speaker 2: bit disingenuous because, in my opinion, first off, attendance isn't

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Speaker 2: recorded on those days, so the days themselves would have

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Speaker 2: had no impact on attendance. And the second thing is

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Speaker 2: that if a parent lets their childs stay home for

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Speaker 2: other days. You know, that's a parent parental choice. Not right,

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Speaker 2: but it's a little bit tricky blaming that on teaching.

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Speaker 1: But I so can I take from what you've said

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Speaker 1: that given that we don't count a strike day as

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Speaker 1: an attendance a lack of attendance, we would though, so

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Speaker 1: we wouldn't count that Thursday, but we would count the

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Speaker 1: Friday between the strike and labor weekend, and that Friday,

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Speaker 1: whole bunch of kids didn't turn up.

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Speaker 2: And that Friday, that that day historically, I can speak

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Speaker 2: in our area, I can speak for my school. Historically,

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Speaker 2: that last day before the long weekend, we get a

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Speaker 2: lot of students not turning up to school. Okay, So

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Speaker 2: I just think it's a little bit disingenuous what I

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Speaker 2: do know, And I'm remember it's only secondary schools that

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Speaker 2: were on strike at that time. There were no primary

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Speaker 2: schools on strike in the last week of term. So

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Speaker 2: the data really only reflect that he's referring to is

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Speaker 2: only relevant to the secondary school secondary schools. Primary schools

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Speaker 2: were at school. And the other thing, you know this

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Speaker 2: he has acknowledged the high levels of illness that happened

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Speaker 2: in term three and that would have had a significant

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Speaker 2: impact on data as well.

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Speaker 1: Kathy, Look, it's good to talk to you. I really

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Speaker 1: appreciate your time. There's Kathy Charmers, who is the Green

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Speaker 1: Meadows Intermediate School lead principle of the Manyeare Attendance Service

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Speaker 1: as well. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks the'd be from four pm weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.