On the opening days of the school year buildings are filled with students who rush past bulletin boards with new welcome messages to greet friends they haven’t seen all summer, before the bell rings and they step into class.
But even in these early days of the new school year, some students already are heading toward academic trouble: They’re missing too many days of school. New data released this June by U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) revealed that more than 6.5 million students missed 15 or more days – almost a full month – of school during the 2013-14 academic year.
The national data confirmed what has long been suspected, schools across the country are dealing with chronic absenteeism, a hidden crisis that is undermining student achievement as early as kindergarten. The data show the unsettling reality that millions of students are missing so much school that they are struggling to read proficiently by third grade and are more likely to drop out of high school.
In our community, more than 289 students missed 15 or more days of school during the 2015-16 school year. Many were medical excuses, but still that’s almost a full month out of the classroom.
With these stark numbers, we can’t afford any longer to think of absenteeism as simply an administrative matter. Good attendance is central to student achievement and our broader efforts to close the achievement gap. Common sense tells us that all of our investments in curriculum and teacher preparation won’t improve academic success if students aren’t showing up to benefit from them.
That’s why Tucker County Schools is joining a nationwide Superintendents Call to Action: Missing School Matters and pledging to make improved attendance a top priority for this school year. By supporting the Call to Action, our district joins a growing national movement of school leaders looking beyond average daily attendance and truancy numbers to identify and address the challenges that keep students from getting to school every day.
Problems with absenteeism start surprisingly early. Research conducted in Chicago shows that preschoolers who miss 10 percent or more of the school year, in excused or unexcused absences – arrive at kindergarten with lower levels of school readiness skills. Especially, if young children are chronically absent for more than one year, they are less likely to read proficiently by the end of third grade, and more likely to be retained in elementary school. They are also more likely to be chronically absent in later years, since they never developed good attendance habits.
So how do we turn this around? Tucker County School’s first step will be letting families know about the critical role they play in getting children to school on time every day. Surveys about parental attitudes show they want the best for their children, including success in school and a college education. But many simply don’t understand how missing just two days a month can put a child academically at risk, starting in the early grades. Teachers will reinforce these messages and, when they can, offer fun incentives to encourage students to show up every day on time to class.
We are going to take a closer look at our attendance numbers to see how many students are missing 10 percent or more of school days and who those students are. We’ll set attendance goals for our principals and schools, particularly those schools we’re working to improve. We can’t begin to address chronic absence until we find out where it is a problem. These numbers will be an early warning sign that can be used to trigger action and support before students miss so much school they begin to fall behind.
But schools can’t do this alone. Think about what you can do within your own family and your own neighborhood to help get more kids to school. We are leading the charge to stamp out chronic absence in Tucker County Schools. Please join us in our effort to make every day count!
