KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va.—– Kanawha County Schools Deputy Superintendent Paula Potter says that schools in the county are finding ways to keep kids coming to school as they battle low attendance.
Paula Potter
She says they are trying to get the percentage of students who are absent below 20%. Anything above 20% means that they are not meeting standards, 10%-20% means they partially meet standards, five percent to 10% means they meet standards and anything below five percent exceeds standards.
She says right now they have calculated a rate of attendance from the first day of school until November, which is sitting above 20%, and compared it to last year at the same time.
She believes that the attendance dropped because of the school threats in early September but thinks attendance will go back up after students are in school for more days.
“Our administration feels that this will even out as we calculate more days into the formula,” Potter said at the Board of Education meeting Monday evening.
One thing that they have started, is including how many times a student has been absent on their report card, especially for elementary school and middle school students because they rely on their parents to get them to school on time.
“Attendance is one of our accountability measures on our balanced report card, and it is based on if you’re in school or not, it doesn’t matter if you’re excused or unexcused, it’s whether you’re in school,” Potter said. “So that’s been a big shift in how we communicate with parents.”
And while they are battling low attendance, they have also implemented a three-tiered system to help students in general and the students who are approaching an absent rate of 18% because they want students to be under that.
“The first tier of intervention is for all students, were just working with everybody to remind them of attendance, being there every day and how important it is,” Potter said. “Tier two is a more targeted approach, for those kids who are reaching those higher attendance numbers.”
The third tier is a more intense intervention for the kids that have approached 18% or higher mark.
And for discipline to continue to combat student absences, Potter says schools are trying to implement punishments that keeps students in schools but will look at out of school suspension if necessary.
“Our schools have also done a tremendous job at trying to implement strategies to keep students in schools,” she said. “Many schools have implemented in-school suspension, doing things before school, at lunch, after school for those behaviors that don’t require an out-of-school suspension. However, we know that there just some things that students do or certain levels of behavior that do require out-of-school suspension.”
And their main thing that they have tried to do across all grade levels in give them an incentive to want to come to school.
“Really at all levels we try to make sure those activities first thing in the morning are things kids want to be there for, to try to encourage them to help encourage their parents to get them there to school,” Potter said.