Poor student attendance on CPS makeup day

Official attendance numbers won't be out until Friday, but Chicago Public School classrooms were mighty roomy Thursday.

Even at the academic elites like Whitney Young High School, the number of absent students was three times higher than normal.

One elementary school on the South Side had only 25% of the 850 students show up.

"Five students were present in this class today. They didn't show up, so did they really make it up? They will lose a lot of instruction in two days because we do have bell to bell instruction so two days could be quite a bit of instruction they'll be missing," says Emika Canty, Assistant Principal at Parker Community Academy.

Cutting winter break short by two days is supposed to make up some of the days lost in the teachers strike this fall, but it appears many people did not want to change holiday travel plans—or were confused by the mid-week start time.

"I don't remember receiving an automated call," says Tsokeyah Dixon, the mother of a Paker Community Academy student. "I think there's been some confusion."

"To each their own...and if they figure they need those two extra days, well hey, then go ahead and take it, but we enjoyed our day today and we got some extra work done," says another mother, Sante Street.

On the bright side, class sizes were small and teachers could give individual attention -- because teacher absences were actually down Thursday.