When students miss school, they miss out. This year, Oneida is focusing on improving attendance across the board, with a special focus on those students who are chronically absent.
Here are some facts on chronic absenteeism from Attendance Works.
- Absenteeism in the first month of school can predict poor attendance throughout the school year. Half the students who miss 2-4 days in September go on to miss nearly a month of school.
- Over 7 million (1 in 7) U.S. students miss nearly a month of school each year.
- Absenteeism and its ill effects start early. One in 10 kindergarten and first grade students are chronically absent.
- Poor attendance can influence whether children read proficiently by the end of third grade or be held back.
- By 6th grade, chronic absence becomes a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school.
- Research shows that missing 10 percent of the school, or about 18 days in most school districts, negatively affects a student’s academic performance. That’s just two days a month and that’s known as chronic absence.
- The academic impact of missing that much school is the same whether the absences are excused or unexcused. Suspensions also add to lost time in the classroom.
- Students who live in communities with high levels of poverty are four times more likely to be chronically absent than others often for reasons beyond their control, such as unstable housing, unreliable transportation and a lack of access to health care.
- When students improve their attendance rates, they improve their academic prospects and chances for graduating.
- Attendance improves when schools engage students and parents in positive ways and when schools provide mentors for chronically absent students.
- Most school districts and states don’t look at all the right data to improve school attendance. They track how many students show up every day and how many are skipping school without an excuse, but not how many are missing so many days in excused and unexcused absence that they are headed off track academically.
We will be focusing on improving attendance for all students, in particular students who are chronically absent (missing 10% of the days that they are enrolled). It is the goal of the district to reduce the percentage of student chronically absent by 3%.
Chronic Attendance rates in OCSD 2017-2018
Attending school regularly is essential to students gaining the academic and social skills they need to succeed. Reducing absenteeism is a simple strategy for us to improve the academic performance of our students. It is our hope to work together with families to monitor data, nurture a habit of regular attendance, and address hurdles that keep children from getting to school every day.
Stay tuned as we increase communication with parents and the community to help our students improve attendance.