School officials target absenteeism

Offcials brainstorm ways to combat costly problem

Local school officials are trying to devise a way to keep frequently absent students in the classroom.

Hedy Chang, the director of the national organization Attendance Works, talked with officials this week about the biggest barriers to kids coming to school and what can be done.

While most kids are regularly attending school, a significant number are chronically absent. This is particularly an issue in kindergarten and first grade.

On Friday, Chang and the educators came up with some ideas to combat absenteeism in Del Norte, including offering incentives a monthly or weekly basis, having school nurses call to check on students who are out sick,  and providing students with mentors to encourage them to attend school.

The Del Norte County Unified School District wants to finalize an attendance plan in January.

Attendance Works will soon be debuting software that will make it easy to track student attendance and provide reports to each school that the district will be using.

“This was really helpful,” Olson said about Friday’s meeting. “It will have an impact in multiple ways.”

 The district wants to improve attendance to help raise student achievement and bring in more revenue from the state — its funding is based on how many students attend school.

Chang presented some findings to the School Board on Thursday night about how regularly missing school, especially starting in the younger grades, can affect children’s learning and even whether they will graduate.

“When kids miss 10 percent or more, they actually start to do worse academically,” Chang said. “If its 20 percent you’re really in deep trouble.”

Last school year, 17 percent or 525 students were chronically absent from school.

Children from low-income families are four times more likely to have attendance problems in kindergarten, according to a national survey. This is because low-income families more likely to have limited access to health care, unstable housing, poor transportation, inadequate food and clothing and  lack safe paths to school, Chang said.

During the Friday meeting, staff, parents and health officials talked about why kids are missing school.

They identified barriers to students’ attending school, such as transportation, parents not considering school important, parents having problems getting their kids out of bed, and kids getting discouraged.

One issue brought up was possible confusion about when to allow children to stay home for health reasons. For example, if a child has a runny nose, but it’s clear mucus, they can go to school, Chang said.

Another concern is that kids may not want to go to school because they aren’t engaged or are  being bullied. They might fake being sick to avoid school.

If school nurses call parents when children are out sick, they can try to surmise if the child is really sick or if there’s another issue, Chang said.

She also suggested the district review its policy on suspending and expelling students. Zero tolerance policies in some schools are unnecessarily pushing kids out of school, she said.

The school district could also partner with other government agencies to help those families facing serious issues that affect whether children go to school.

The school district already has mentors through United Way and Americorps working with students. High-schoolers in the Interact club that perform community service could also be mentors to younger students.

Chang stressed to the group  Friday that the problem is fixable, but any solutions are “not inoculation,” she said. “You’ve got to keep doing it.”

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