Jackson Falconer
BRADENTON – A presentation on analyzing chronic absenteeism at the
Manatee District's Title I schools was given at Tuesday's school board meeting. The presentation focused on data from the 2015-16 year's first 30 days, and how the district would continue to study the issue of truancy in Title I schools and work on preventing it.
Elena Garcia, the district's director of Title 1 funds and federal grant programs, and Bridgette Stockner, the district's coordinator for its new Graduation Enhancement Technicians, gave the
presentation (see page 984 of agenda) at the meeting. Garcia mentioned the district's recent agreement to participate in the Grade Level Reading Campaign, which has the stated goal of getting students to read by grade 3, widely considered crucial for the maturation and mental development of a child.
"The Grade Level Reading Campaign recognizes there are barriers (to that goal)," said Garcia. One of those barriers, she continued, is absenteeism, and advised that the district's newly hired Graduation Enhancement Technicians are focused on reducing the issue at its Title I schools, which have a high number of low-income and at-risk students.
Along with the truancy data compiled by those Grad Enhancement Techs on the first 30 days, the presentation also focused on efforts to explain why students were missing class, and what the GET program is doing to address the issue.
Garcia noted that the data shows that average daily attendance for Title I schools is "up a tick"–about half a point–for the first 30 days, but that better tools for collection data are needed until BrightBytes' Clarity analysis software is implemented.
"The average daily attendance that I've shared with you is really not a
great way to measure chronic absenteeism," Garcia told the board, adding
that she would have more data for her next presentation.
When asked by board member John Colon if a particular reason was found for the uptick, Garcia said that she thought the GET program–whose "technicians" work with high-absentee students and their families on reducing truancy–was beginning to have a positive impact.
The new data found that the majority of those consistently absent students, she said, are in Pre-K, Kindergarten and grade 1, "which kind of spun our heads around." The most common reason for those absences, she said, was ill health.
Garcia advised that while a health-related absence was usually related to the child being sick, she also said it was found that sometimes the family "would keep the whole clan home if a sibling is sick." She said that other found reasons for a student's absenteeism include a personal aversion to school, a poor climate at school, and academic struggles.
When asked by Colon if there was a statistical definition of what chronically absent is, Garcia said that different organizations measure it differently; one organization they looked at, for example, defines it as 10 percent of missed school time. She added that they would soon come to a final decision on exactly how the district wants to define chronic absenteeism.
As far as combating the issue, Stockner said that the GET program has teamed up with social workers to assist families in reducing absenteeism, and the Grade Level Reading Campaign has helped worked on messaging, including starting an "Every Day Counts" campaign. She explained that a GET would call a family if a child has an absence that wasn't called in, but that they were careful to go about their tasks "in a positive way, not punitive."
"They're not attendance cops," Stockner added when mentioning that GETs sometimes go out to homes to work with families. "We have a whole ground engagement component." She also said that children are not taken to truancy court unless it's used as a last resort.
Things that the district needs to work on, Garcia said, include working with community health organizations so that students can get better access to immunizations before school starts; working on possible transportation issues for some students, and rethinking out-of-school suspensions for chronic absenteeism. "We're suspending students who are truant ... is that the best policy?" she asked.
Comments
No comments on this item
Only paid subscribers can comment
Please log in to comment by clicking here.