Monfredo: Attendance Critical to Success in School - Improvements Seen This Year

Saturday, June 15, 2019

John Monfredo, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER

As the school year comes to a close the unofficial chronic absenteeism rates for the Worcester Public Schools appears to have improved. Overall, the grade 1 to 12 percentage has moved down to 12.3% which is the best of all Gateway Cities but still plenty of room for improvement.

Overall twenty-nine schools were below 10% and of that list nineteen schools were below six percent on chronic absenteeism. Congratulations to the following schools… Flagg Street, Jacob Hiatt, Belmont Community School, Worcester Arts Magnet, Lake View, May Street, Thorndyke Road, Heard Street, West Tatnuck, Tatnuck, Midland Street, Nelson Place, Goddard Elementary, Norrback Elementary, Lincoln Street, Canterbury Street, McGrath, Chandler Magnet, and Union Hill. Compared to a year ago, that’s close to doubling the number of schools that fell below 6% for it was ten schools last year and nineteen this year.

Several years ago, with the passage of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Congress has maintained the focus on advancing equity and excellence for all students, particularly disadvantaged and high need students. Guided by ESSA, in Massachusetts, the current accountability system identifies how a district or school is doing through the following measures:

Achievement
Student progress or growth
High school completion
Progress towards English proficiency for English learners
Chronic absenteeism
Advanced coursework completion

With the addition of Chronic Absenteeism as an accountability measure it is helpful to understand what it is and why it is important. Massachusetts defines Chronically Absent as missing at least 10% of days enrolled (e.g., 18 days absent if enrolled for 180) regardless of whether the absences are considered excused, unexcused and/or for disciplinary reasons. Being chronically absent can have a significant impact on a student's ability to read at grade level, perform academically, and graduate on time.

According to research across the nation, attending school regularly is important to ensuring children develop a strong foundation for subsequent learning. During the early elementary years, children are gaining basic social and academic skills critical to ongoing academic success. Unless students attain these essential skills by third grade, they often require extra help to catch up and are at grave risk of eventually dropping out of school. Moreover, when chronic absence occurs (missing 10% – nearly a month – or more of school over the course of a year counting both excused and unexcused absences), everyone pays. The educational experiences of children who attend school regularly can be diminished when teachers must divert their attention to meet the learning and social needs of children who miss substantial amounts of school.

I have been passionate about this topic since my days as a principal and in the past few years, thanks to Superintendent Maureen Binienda, I have been part of a team over-seeing absenteeism in the Worcester Public Schools. The group has focused on poor attendance and has attempted to support those schools with high attendance rates.

Superintendent Maureen Binienda stated, “We have taken this problem very seriously and it will continue to be one of our top priorities for research continues to point out that students are more likely to succeed in academics when they attend school consistently.”

One of the many strategies used by the district has been to send out an attendance report every five weeks which emphasizes the importance of attendance with a statement that says, “ missing 10 percent of school time puts students at risk of academic failure.” The attendance report shows how many days of school the student has missed versus how many they missed last year and the year before. It also shows the average number of absences and the student’s overall attendance rate. Teachers do review the attendance report with their students every five weeks. In addition, families are informed sometimes by home visits or by telephone calls of this situation. Each school does have an attendance team that monitors attendance.

As one of many ways of motivating the students, many of the schools publicly announce those students with great attendance either over the school intercom or by placing their names in the school newsletter. As a former principal, I used to have a pancake breakfast cooked by me to honor the students. Let me tell you that incentives do work.

Other incentives within the district have been working with the Worcester Railers hockey team for they provide fourth graders with ice skating lessons for those students with good attendance. In addition, in some schools, with the assistance of UMASS Medical School laundry machines have been installed for lack of clean clothes is one reason for students not coming to school.

As we move forward we need to continue to address this all important issue and here are a few more ideas for everyone to consider:

Have September declared to be Attendance Awareness Month with each school highlighting the importance of attendance and offering incentives for the month. Have telephone calls made to all parents in the district about the topic of Attendance Awareness Month through the connect ed.
In September continue our work with public and community agencies, inner –faith groups and have them address this issue with our parents and students and ask them how they can assist us.
Continue to educate our parents about the importance of attendance especially those parents in prek to grade two. During kindergarten screening parents should receive information regarding “Attendance Matters.”
Each school will continue to review the data of those students with high absenteeism and assign a mentor. Mentors could come from the community, Big Brother / Big Sister organizations, church groups or from the colleges… According to research in the top 25% of schools, students with Success Mentors gained one additional month of school.
All schools should develop a school wide awareness campaign including monthly / quarterly celebrations of perfect attendance and improved attendance…
Guidance should assess attendance patterns of High School students to see what can be accomplished… perhaps additional attendance discounts can be established with the business community as an incentive. One major problem is that chronic absenteeism in most secondary schools is in double digits.
Work with homeless shelters and have them as part of the solution

These are just a few suggestions for we need to continue to move forward on this issue. Let’s continue to move that percentage down again next school year. Our students’ future depends on our success in this critical area. We must continue to create a culture of attendance in all schools and be sure that everyone knows, especially our parents, that this is a priority for our district.

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Monfredo: Attendance Critical to Success in School - Improvements Seen This Year

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