Student absenteeism is a serious issue in public education. Concerted efforts have been expended aimed at engaging students and promoting active learning, but schools are still full of “clock-watchers” Many high schoolers regularly skip classes and, according to some inside reports, “the hallways are virtually empty some Friday afternoons.”
A recent report, commissioned by the Nova Scotia Education Department, bravely tackles the chronic issue. The advisory committee, chaired by Howard Windsor, Halifax’s former “one-man school board,” recommends extending compulsory school attendance to age 18/Grade 12 and a series of “staged interventions” for chronic “skippers” and truants. Along with those measures, the committee proposes a range of inducements to keep students in school. In extending schooling to 18, Nova Scotia would be following the lead of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nunavut.
What’s my initial response? When confronted with a growing problem of absenteeism, Nova Scotia Education seems to be considering “compulsory engagement” until age 18. With 7.4% of students missing 20% or more of classes and 45% absent for 10% of their classes, it’s a deeply entrenched problem. First came the carrot ( the elementary level behaviour modification (PEBS) program and high school exam exemptions), now we seem to be resorting to the stick ( compulsory schooling to 18).
What does the education research say? Student engagement is clearly more important than attending and simply occupying classroom seats. Canada’s largest national school survey, Tell Them from Me, provided a clearer sense of the problem and identified the factors contributing to “a sense of belonging at school.” “Improving school and classroom climate” are key to “increasing engagement,” says CRISP Director Douglas Willms (MASS Journal,Fall 2008). Leading American expert, Deborah Meier (2002), sees school size as a critical factor — the smaller the school, the more likely students are to feel a sense of attachment; the larger the school, the greater the potential for standardization, alienation and absenteeism.
A few critical questions need to be asked: Why are so many kids tuning out, skipping or dropping out in Nova Scotia and elsewhere? In legislating compulsory high school attendance, will we be giving up on making school more engaging for kids? And more importantly, will everyone be graduating?
Educhatter 
Good points. I truly believe it comes down to this. We have to meet students where they are. we need to teach them in a way that appeals to them- technologically advanced- speak to them as people and encourage individuality in the programming.
Thats all!
The Halifax Chronicle Herald (February 2, 2010) printed two Letters to the Editor in response to the Student Absenteeism story. Here are the letters, printed in their entirety:
Failure of school system
A Jan. 28 article ( Halifax Chronicle Herald) talks about the problem of student truancy, and a report that calls for action against it. One of the recommendations is to require students to attend school until age 18 or until graduation from Grade 12. Truancy is a failure of the school system that is affecting many students, the most gifted and knowledgeable as well as the disadvantaged.
Equally disturbing are those students who come to class, but just occupy desks like mummies. I imagine that if the recommendation stated above is put into place, teachers will be dealing with many more such “mummies,” and well-intended students will have their educational opportunities interfered with by poorly behaved, unmotivated 18-year-olds.
It is very probable that school truancy is a motivational problem. Teachers must encourage students to work on the edge of their competence. Research (like Danner and Lonky, 1981) has found that students prefer tasks that are just a bit beyond their ability. K.W. Fischer (1980) demonstrated that “moderately difficult tasks are a prerequisite for maximizing intellectual development.” Currently, many educators create an error-proof learning environment where they set minimum criteria and standards in hopes of ensuring success for all students.
If students are encouraged to take risks, and make and correct errors, they will likely experience success and educational satisfaction. Perhaps, then, they will be excited about learning and about attending school.
Richard MacKinnon, Halifax
One size doesn’t fit all
I’m all for educating youngsters to the maximum of their potential. But some young people’s potential is not academic. If kids are already dropping out, skipping school or being disruptive at 15 or 16, can you imagine the jungle senior high schools could become if they were forced to spend another two years at their desks? Many of them are creative, good with their hands or good with people, and would like to have a chance to get into the workforce and develop these skills.
The money that would be needed to provide extra classrooms and teachers might be better spent helping businesses to provide apprenticeships for 16- to 18-year-olds. Where appropriate, they should be given the opportunity to spend part of their time in a formal learning environment like a community college, where they could improve their skills. Some might benefit from early entry into the Armed Forces.
These options could open doors for them to move forward to longer-term employment in Nova Scotia, rather than leaving to seek work elsewhere, or ending up on welfare. Part-time practical education combined with work experience might be more appealing than staying in school to young people who are not academically inclined.
With education, as with so many other areas of life, one size does not fit everybody, and the route to productive citizenship does not necessarily entail staying in school for two more years.
Joan Dawson, Halifax
The Nova Scotia Teachers Union has just called for action to improve student attendance. At the NSTU Convention (May 22) teachers reported that absenteeism is no longer just a high school problem in Nova Scotia. NSTU President Alexis Allen says “Actually, this is happening Primary to Grade 12.”
In response to a Sunday Halifax Herald news report, high school student (Jayyfinn) wrote:
I think it is great that the union is coming together to try and solve the problem with attendance in the schools. However, as a high school student myself, I have witnessed the every day to day ‘skippers’ and evaluated their devotion. The majority of those who skip classes or just hang out at school don’t actually care about their education, and trying to tell teenagers the right thing to do, half the time is like telling the wall to sit. I know-i am a teenager.
Furthermore, I see this as a problem but more of a situation, because you have these kids who skip school and don’t go to class on a regular basis, and then those who skip occasionally. No matter how bad their grades are or how bad they want to try and find a new way to encourage kids to go to school, there is a different root of the problem for every individual, Essentially, I do feel that the ones to blame are your peers, because you rarely see someone missing a class to just hang out with themselves….
The Cape Breton-Victoria School Regional Board has identified student absenteeism as a critical problem. On June 25, 2010, CBC Radio News Cape Breton carried a report. Holiday “jump starters” are a problem in Cape Breton as more families are taking extended holidays during the school year.
Here’s the CBC Radio CB News report:
“The Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board is looking for better ways to track attendance to ultimately keep more students in class.
Charles Sheppard, the board’s co-ordinator of school services, said he hopes to have new software soon so he can have instant attendance information for all 61 schools.
“It will be easier to look at the trends, look at when they are not attending school and what can we do to alleviate the problem or put some intervention in or strategies to deal with the problem,” he said.
Sheppard said he noticed a trend where students miss classes for two-week family vacations in the middle of the school year.
Some students are also getting longer breaks when their parents allow them to skip the day before March Break, Easter Break and Christmas vacation.
“That goes to the whole notion of valuing education. Do they value education more than that good seat sale that they got to Cuba or to Florida?” said Sheppard.
“Parents almost expect that the teachers should be doing up homework packages and stuff like that for that student. We don’t want that student to miss the work, but they should be in school. They should be in class doing that work.”
Sheppard said he hopes a provincial report on absenteeism will lead to better attendance rates.
The report, released in January, recommends linking grades to attendance and raising the current dropout age from 16 to 18.”
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/06/25/ns-cape-breton-school-attendance.html#ixzz0rslfpknE
Comment:
The Cape Breton -Victoria Board is focusing narrowly on holiday “jump starters” and considering “mark penalties” for missing classes. To me, that simply reinforces certain types of student behaviours. Many of today’s students are accustomed to getting marks simply for “showing up to class.” We even award exam exemptions for occupying seat space.
Why not consider some real inducements to being in class? Positive motivation always works better than crude mark deterrents. A few examples: challenging assignments requiring group work, a culminating activity each term for all students. I’ve always favoured “Demonstrations of Learning” at the end of a term. They are risky, but the U.S. Coalition for Essential Schools has made them work in many schools.
Student absenteeism is rife in British schools and the whole issue has sparked a “Truancy Crisis.” The problem is so widespread that a “crackdown” is underway in many U.K. school districts.
Here’s the latest news report from the London Daily Telegraph News Service:
Thousands of five-year-olds ‘playing truant’
More than 4,000 five-year-olds are skipping school every day as truancy rates among young children soar to a record high.
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
London Daily Telegraph
19 Oct 2010
“Figures show the number of primary pupils missing lessons without an acceptable reason has increased by around a third in just three years.
Data from the Department for Education showed an average of almost 23,000 pupils, including 4,190 aged just five or younger, played truant every day over a seven month period.
The figures will raise fresh concerns that parents are taking pupils out of school to take advantage of cheap family holiday deals.
Term time holidays was the most common reason for absence – after illness – despite high-profile threats to fine and even jail parents who fail to send children to school.
Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister, said truancy was still too high but welcomed a drop in overall absence rates in English state schools.
Figures showed some 5.03 per cent of lesson time in primary and secondary schools was lost due to absence – with or without a reason – compared with 5.28 per cent a year earlier.
He said: “It is crucial that children are not missing out on valuable lessons that could leave them vulnerable to falling behind.
“The Government is committed to tackling the underlying causes of absenteeism, raising academic standards and ensuring every child can meet their potential, regardless of their background.”
The latest data relates to absence from school between September 2009 and April 2010 – the autumn and spring terms.
According to figures, 0.68 per cent of half day sessions were lost in primary schools, compared with 0.65 per cent a year earlier and 0.52 per cent in 2006/7.
It was equivalent to 22,741 pupils missing school every day.
Among children aged five or under, some 0.73 cent of lesson time was lost, easily the highest truancy rate among any primary school year group.
Under existing legislation, parents can be handed £50 fines – rising to £100 if they are not paid within 28 days – for allowing children to skip school without permission.
Earlier this year, it emerged that fixed penalties have increased by as much as 50 per cent in some areas as local councils order a crackdown on truancy, it was disclosed.
But the latest figures showed an overall drop in absence.
More than 178,500 primary school pupils – 5.34 per cent – missed school with or without a legitimate reason, falling from 5.46 per cent a year earlier.
In secondary schools, the truancy rate fell from 1.47 to 1.4 per cent over the same period, while overall absence also dropped from 6.84 to 7.28 per cent..
The figures also show tens of thousands of pupils are still being classed as “persistent absentees” after skipping the equivalent of one day a week.
Across the two terms, 190,000 children missed at least 26 days of school. In primary schools 59,380 children were defined as persistent absentees, and in secondaries this figure was 130,930.
The most common reason for absence was illness.”
(Telegraph.uk.com)
Comment:
Student absenteeism in Britain is still called “truancy.” Since changes in Canada’s provincial school acts, Truant Officers have been superceded by “School Attendance Officers.” In some school boards, Student Attendence monitoring and policing is incredibly lax, often because of lack of staff resources. Truancy has almost been redefined as a “school counselling” failure in a system that bends over backwards to keep kids in school.
If Canada’s school systems applied British “Tuancy standards,”would we have a “crisis” on our hands? And if all provinces extend the compulsory school age to 19, will we be creating a problem for ourselves? Just asking.
Today (November 2, 2010) Nova Scotia Education Minister Marilyn More responded to the Student Attendance Problem with an official announcement. The new policy initiative will focus on promoting “student engagement” and rejects Howard Windsor’s key recommendation to extend compulsory schooling to age 18 in Nova Scotia.
The minister accepted 10 of 13 recommendations made by the Working Committee on Absenteeism and Classroom Climate who examined ways to improve student attendance and better motivate students in their learning. The committee, chaired by former deputy minister Howard Windsor, consisted of teachers, students, parents and principals.
“In order to effectively address this complex issue, we must work together to improve attendance and break the cycle of low student engagement,” said
Ms. More.
“I have spent a lot of time considering the advice of the working group, and the thousands of Nova Scotians who participated in the consultation process, and I am confident that the accepted recommendations will work to get more students back in class and interested in what they are learning.”
The Education Minister made it her business to find out why students are missing class. The discussions determined that engaging students more in the learning
process has a positive affect on attendance as opposed to only strengthening policies and regulations.
Key actions in the minister’s response include:
— strengthen lines of communication with parents and students
— establish structures to monitor attendance at the school board level
— speed up the development of the student information system
— develop clear policies for staged interventions on
attendance issues
— strengthen in-school suspension and learning support opportunities
— develop guidelines for students to recover credits for missed courses
— expand alternative programming at all boards
— require attendance as a pre-requisite for receiving credit for a course.
A 2-year trial basis will begin in September where students who miss more than 20 per cent of class time will not be eligible to receive credit for that course.
The minister’s full response can be viewed at http://www.ednet.ns.ca
Comment:
It looks like “a small victory for common sense.” Simply extending compulsory schooling was no answer. Howard Windsor’s approach smacked of old-fashioned deterrence. It is all about finding ways to engage students, not about erecting walls to keep them in the system.
I’m pleased to see that the Minister is listening.
Give credit where credit is due!
Today (Nov. 3), Halifax Herald Education Reporter Pat Lee produced a news story covering reaction to the Nova Scotia Education Minister’s decision to reject compulsory schooling to 18, while cracking down on chronic skippers.
The story came with this rather catchy headline: “Students who skip 20 per cent of classes will flunk.”
Halifax School Board Boss Carole Olsen surprised me by telling CBC Radio News that the HRSB “might not necessarily follow” the Minister’s skipping penalty decree. Since the recent Ken Fells video crisis, she has been remarkably quiet, letting the Chair do the talking. In balking at the Minister’s decree, it’s clear that she still “knows what’s best” for her system.
Here are the initial public reactions to the Minister’s announcement from The Halifax Herald):
“(Education Minister Marilyn) More said there are no easy answers or quick fixes, but it is clear that changes are needed to curb absenteeism.
“There have been surveys done in the last 10 years … that seem to suggest that the problem is getting worse.”
As part of its research, the committee used information from a 2008 survey of 10 Nova Scotia high schools that found that 45 per cent of students missed 10 per cent of class time and more than seven per cent missed classes 20 per cent of the time.
The minister said school boards will decide if schools will take part in the attendance pilot project, but she is confident participation rates will be high enough to gauge the impact on student behaviour.
More did not support extending compulsory schooling to 18. “There is no money available to support such a change, she said.
“If a young person is struggling to finish school, forcing them to stay there without being able to ensure there are additional supports just didn’t seem the way to go,” she said.
Carole Olsen, superintendent of the Halifax regional school board, said while the board will make the ultimate decision on whether to follow the 20 per cent guideline on absenteeism, she added that she thinks school administrators would be in favour of it.
“(Principals) believe recommendations such as this would improve student success,” Olsen said.
Paul Bennett, an education consultant and former private school headmaster, said he is pleased with the Education Department’s initiatives.
“I see it as positive,” Bennett said, adding that the minister “has listened.”
He said he is glad that More scrapped the notion of making kids stay in school until they are 18.
“The biggest problem is monitoring, tracking and counselling, and compulsory schooling is not going to be the answer,” Bennett said.
“The focus should be on engaging students and giving them a reason to attend school.”
Alexis Allen, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, said the recommendations are a “step in the right direction.”
But Allen said absenteeism isn’t just a problem in high schools but something that affects students at every grade level.
“This is Primary to (Grade) 12,” she said, noting that parents need to be on board with ensuring their kids go to school.”
Comment:
The Minister’s decision to reject extending compulsory schooling to 18 was a wise one, indicating that she is beginning to listen. It’s also good news that the “One-Man School Board”, Howard Windsor, is losing his influence. HRSB Superintendent Carole Olsen continues to confound close observers. In balking at the Minister’s skipping penalty decree, she send out unmistakable signals that she knows what’s best for the system, notwithstanding what the Education Department says. While interviewing her for Progress Magazine in January 2010, I got that distinct impression. In Toronto, it’s called “the North York knows best” attitude.
The Halifax Chronicle Herald published two columns in response to Education Minister Marilyn More’s announcement of a crackdown on student absenteeism.
Columnist Marilla Stephenson’s (November 6) column, “Class-skipping crackdown good: Consequences produce results” was rather predictable. After re-hashing the familiar facts, she expressed the rather mundane view that parents know consequences work in dealing with schoolchildren.
Pop culture columnist, Leslie Lowe, proved, once again, how misguided “romantic progressives” can be when it comes to discussing public education. For the full column, see:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1210655.html
Comment:
Schools must become flexible enough to meet each student’s needs, says Lezlie Lowe. On the question of chronic absenteeism, is she kidding? Or just playing with us? If she is serious, then it simply shows that romantic (Hall-Dennis) progressivism is still alive and well in the minds of a few 20 somethings.
Back in the 1970s, many called for schools where students were free to “do their own thing.” Perhaps Ms. Lowe is in a time warp. It also illustrates that even pop culture columnists think they are experts on education.
The Halifax Chronicle Herald speaks common sense when it comes to the problem of chronic absenteeism. Today’s Lead Editorial wisely ignores Lezlie Lowe’s silly ruminations on the subject.
Here’s the Editorial:
Truancy & consequences
Wed, Nov 10, 2010
The Halifax Chronicle Herald
“WHEN faced with feckless teenagers, it’s hard to know what to do. Should you lay down the law or try to engage them? Most parents are torn.
So is Education Minister Marilyn More, although she’s leaning more heavily towards the “engagement” end of the spectrum in her response to a report on school absenteeism. Last week, she rejected a recommendation from a committee looking into the problem — that the legal drop-out age be raised to 18 from 16.
This was the right decision, given that the school system does not have the funding to enforce such a change, which would require more monitoring and counselling. Even fewer resources will be available if the $196 million in anticipated cuts to school boards materializes over the next three years.
We agree that the prime focus should be on motivating potential drop-outs to stay in school and that chaining recalcitrant kids to their desks until they are of legal age could be counterproductive for teachers and classmates.
However, Ms. More did, albeit timidly, embrace another recommendation — that students who skip 20 per cent of a class without a valid excuse should be in danger of failing the course. As of next September, school boards will be permitted, on a two-year trial basis, to withhold credits due to truancy. This “tool of last resort” would only be used after a series of “staged interventions” and appeals.
While due process is important, one wonders how a seldom-used sanction will be effective as a deterrent in the face of a growing problem. According to a 2008 survey which the absenteeism panel relied on, 10 Nova Scotia high schools reported that 45 per cent of students missed 10 per cent of class time and more than seven per cent missed 20 per cent of the time.
Truancy is a complex phenomenon. It’s not simply a high-school problem, but a Primary to Grade 12 plague. Nor should one assume it’s low achievers who play hooky or that cutting classes is always the student’s idea.
Some parents tolerate it as long as their kids get passing grades and sometimes they encourage it because it serves their own purposes — like scheduling family winter vacations to Cuba or getting a headstart on statutory holidays.
Lack of student engagement is one thing; parental enabling of truancy another. Adults know that not showing up for work — no matter how unfulfilling you might find it — has serious downsides. If anything, they should be helping schools send an unequivocal message that truancy is not consequence-free.”
Comment:
Amen.
The Halifax Regional School Board is moving forward with the School Climate report recommendation to enforece attendance by imposing penalties on students, includiong the possibility of lost credits for skipping classes.
TodaY (May 19, 2011) News 95.7 reporter Desiree Finhert filed this news report:
“High school students who skip too many classes may lose their credit under a provincial pilot project being implemented in some schools this September.
Halifax Regional School Board spokesperson Doug Hadley explained under the current system a student can miss a considerable amount of time and still pass if course requirements are met.
“We do have students who miss (class) for legitimate reasons, for illness or for activities they may be participating in, that are able to keep up with their class work when they’re away,” Hadley told News 95.7, Thursday.
“Those aren’t the kids we’re talking about. We’re talking about the kids who are not engaged in their schooling,” he said.
The plan is receiving some opposition from at least one board member.
David Cameron (Halifax Downtown, Northwest Arm-South End, Connaught-Quinpool) said the problem is engagement.
“If students are engaged there isn’t going to be a problem with attendance,” said Cameron. “If you try to address attendance as the problem you’re going to, quite possibly, end up with a bunch of disengaged students.”
He added the attendance system is self regulating.
“If a student doesn’t go to class and still passes all the requirements of the course, which often include attendance, then why should they be penalized if they’ve learned the material?” he questioned.
Eleven of Halifax’s 15 high schools are opting in to the two-year, voluntary project.
The four local schools opting out are Eastern Shore District High, Sackville High, Prince Andrew High and Cole Harbour District High schools.” ( Halifax – News 95.7)
A former British Chief School Inspector, Sir Chris Woodhead, told the London Times (October 3, 2011) that Cutting the School Leaving Age to 14 would be good for most teenagers. The news story ran on BBC Bews and generated 511 posted comments in 6 hours!
Here’s the BBC News headline story:
“The school leaving age should be cut to 14, a former chief inspector of schools in England has said.
Sir Chris Woodhead told the Times that this would give less academic students a better chance of learning a trade.
He said it was a “recipe for disaster” to force teenagers to study English and maths right up to the age of 18.
Sir Chris said it was a mistake to make vocational education “quasi-academic” and added that the government had a “Utopian” view of school standards.
He said: “If a child at 14 has mastered basic literacy and numeracy, I would be very happy for that child to leave school and go into a combination of apprenticeship and further education training and a practical, hands-on, craft-based training that takes them through into a job.”
‘Hope over reality’
Sir Chris added: “Does anybody seriously think these kids who are truanting at 13, 14 are going to stay in school in a purposeful, meaningful way through to 18.
“It just seems to me the triumph of ideological hope over reality.”
Sir Chris backed the government’s plans to improve reading in primary schools using the synthetic phonics teaching method.
He wanted to see the proportion of children who reach the literacy target at the age of 11 rise from just over 80% to 95%.
But Sir Chris, who was chief inspector of the education watchdog Ofsted until 2000 and is now chairman of for-profit schools company Cognita, criticised Prime Minister David Cameron’s call for independent schools to sponsor academies as “morally wrong”.
“The more that the science facilities or the playing fields are used by non fee-paying children, the less they are available for the parents of children who do pay the fees,” he said.
“If the head of science teaches half a day a week at a comprehensive school, it may be good for the comprehensive school, but I don’t think it is good for the children who are in the private school.”
Story posted by BBC News at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15146240
Comment:
Sir Chris Woodward has demonstrated considerable courage. While Nova Scotia considers keeping kids in school until 18, a leading British expert says such a [policy has been a disaster for kids in the U.K. ( “Hope” does often trump reality” with idealistic thinkers and forced attendance also appeals to custodial administrators like Howard Windsor)
With hundreds of thousands of British youth jobless and wandering the streets, his proposal starts making some sense. We could learn from their experience — Why not introduce vocational programs (school to workplace bridge programs) and relax the compulsory schooling regulations?
Raising the school leaving age is back on the public agenda fter President Barak Obama’s recent (24 January 2012) State of the Union Address.
A New York Times story by Tamar Lewin, entitled “Obama Wades Into Issue of Raising Dropout Age,” appeared on January 25, 2012, and provides a nice summary of the policy environment and a round-up of state policies:
“President Obama’s State of the Union call for every state to require students to stay in school until they turn 18 is Washington’s first direct involvement in an issue that many governors and state legislators have found tough to address.
While state legislative efforts to raise the dropout age to 18 have spread in recent years, many have had trouble winning passage. Last year, for example, such legislation was considered in Alaska, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland and Rhode Island — but only Rhode Island actually changed its law.
“Efforts to raise the age usually come up against the argument that requiring students to stay in school when they no longer want to be there is disruptive to other students and not fair to the teacher,” said Sunny Deye, a senior policy analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. “Home-school groups often oppose raising the compulsory attendance age, and especially now, in this budget crunch, there are major concerns about the fiscal impact.”
In Kentucky, where the dropout age of 16 was set in 1934, legislation to move the age to 18 has failed twice. Gov. Steven L. Beshear’s State of the State message this month made another push.
The dropout age, historically set at 16 in most of the nation, has been edging up. Currently, 21 states and the District of Columbia have compulsory attendance until 18, and 11 others require attendance until age 17.”
For the full story, link to: http://nyti.ms/wmxWdw
Comment:
It will be worth tracking to see if President Obama’s declaration will encourage more states to adopt 18 as the school leaving age.
True
One bizarre and unethical way of improving student attendance is to simply destroy electronic records of student absences, before filing the complete results with state authorities. An American state like Ohio sets student attendance targets for each school and principals have been rewarded for cutting the numbers of reported absences.
Senior education officials in Columbus, Ohio, have been caught erasing 2.8 million recorded student absences over the past 5 1/2 years. It led to an investigation which revealed that principals had a real appetite for erasing student absences.
See the incredible news story at http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/07/22/2-8-million-school-absences-erased.html
One case is truly epic: A recently promoted Columbus Superintendent, Michael Dodds, has now been suspended after it was discovered that, as Principal of Independence High (2007-08) he erased 38,851 absent days or 39 days for each of his 917 students. Why — you might ask? To will a gold star for improved school attendance!
Erasing student absences must be catching in the state of Ohio. On Friday July 20, 2012, the Toledo Public Schools became the second board to report what is now known as “attendance scrubbing.”
The Toledo Blade (21 July 2012) carried this amazing report:
“Toledo Public Schools has manipulated some students’ attendance data to improve state report-card scores, the district’s superintendent told The Blade on Friday. Under the practice, schools retroactively withdraw and re-enroll chronically absent students to erase their poor attendance records.
Ohio school districts apparently are allowed to throw out test scores of students who are not continuously enrolled from October through the testing dates in March and May. That would improve a school’s overall performance rating because the withdrawn students’ test scores would no longer count.
TPS Superintendent Jerome Pecko said he ordered a review of the district’s procedures after news reports last month that Columbus City Schools had “scrubbed” habitually truant students’ test scores.
School officials and a lawyer hired to independently investigate the matter have asked state education officials for an opinion on whether the Toledo schools violated state rules.”
An Ohio public watchdog group responded with this response: http://www.plunderbund.com/2012/07/21/a-second-ohio-school-district-reveals-attendance-scrubbing-will-ode-investigate/
If it is not illegal, Plunderbund Blog wonders why The Columbia Dispatch made it into an expose. Clearly the Plunderbunder fingers the state for putting school officials under such pressure that they are virtually compelled to “scrub” student absences out of the records. Boo, hoo!
Interesting read through out. The greatest factor in student attendance is not mandatory attendance age nor % of attendance before being being pulled from a classroom. Instead it is relationship based education.
In RBE, the education of a student is guided by the curriculum however not mandated by the curriculum. After all, the curriculum should be bent around the child and not the child bent around the curriculum. There becomes a greater focus on student interests, both as a large group and as an individual student.
The true knowledge of this sees the teacher have a “real” relationship with a student and the family of the student. This relationship must be beyond the traditional teacher-student relationship and move into a space where the teacher truly begins to know the student. Ask a teacher to describe one of their students and 99% of the time the teacher describes something academic about a student, rather than something that tells that the student is a person.
School absenteeism is one of serious problems among the students in Japan. There are more than 200,000 students who cannot go to school every year. We are investigating and dealing with those school absentees. We pay much attention to the subconciousness of these students. We are analyzing the subconciousness of these students and tryin to know to deal with (the issue) from the knowledge of neuroscience.
We are looking for researchers who want to find out more about school absenteeism in the U.S.
A new report, just released by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, provides, for the first time, hard data on how many students are chronically absent, defined as missing 15 or more days of school.
The numbers are staggering. More than 6.5 million (out of 50 million students) nationwide (13 per cent) missed 15 or more days of school in the 2013-14 academic year. These chronically absent students included 3 million high school students (18 percent) and 3.5 million elementary school students (11 percent). Because the data was collected only by school and not by grade, the report can’t immediately validate the findings of local and state studies, which suggest chronic absence is especially high among kindergarten and first-grade students. But the national data clearly show some populations, especially American-Indian, African-American, Pacific Islander and multiracial children, experience significantly higher levels of chronic absence than white students.
Here’s the full report: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/2013-14-first-look.pdf
My latest Commentary on Student Absenteeism appeared in The Chronicle Herald in August 2016. It brings the whole discussion up-to-date with recent research in Nova Scotia, Oregon and the United States:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1384920-empty-desks-confronting-chronic-student-absenteeism