Northland schools take steps to tackle attendance problems

At a school in the Elizabeth Métis settlement in eastern Alberta, principal Mark Burke hopes several small changes will encourage his students to come to school more frequently.

Staff have reinstated a fiddling program this year and are planning more lessons outdoors. Instead of teachers calling home when a student’s absence is unexplained, Burke or the office administrative assistant will follow up, he said Thursday.

All of Northland School Division’s 20 schools, including Elizabeth School, will have a new attendance improvement committee this year — a group of staff, parents, community members and possibly students who will brainstorm strategies to keep kids coming to classes.

The committees are part of a new plan adopted by Northland’s school board last February that aims to improve some of the schools’ problematically low attendance.

Burke, who’s in his first year as principal at the school about 35 kilometres south of Cold Lake, said there is no quick or easy solution, and that pulling up attendance will take patience.

What he tells students is, you might not think that a couple of missed days is much, but it really adds up over time. Alberta’s auditor general has flagged Northland’s low attendance as a concern, and noted a lack of progress in a February followup report.

In June, 29 per cent of Northland students across the sprawling northern division attended 90 per cent of the time or more, but more than half of students attended less than four out of every five days, according to an August report to the school board. Seventeen per cent of students were missing more than half of the time.

‘AGGRESSIVE’ GOAL

Northland’s new attendance plan went into action this fall.

Although attendance overall is at about 80 per cent, the district’s goal is to see two per cent improvement per year, which superintendent Gord Atkinson said is “aggressive.”

“With some serious concentration on this, we might be able to get there,” he said Wednesday.

Last year, when Atkinson asked all principals for lists of reasons why chronically absent students were missing school, medical appointments or illness were cited 36 per cent of the time.

It’s a unique challenge for remote northern communities, he said. A trip to a dentist or a doctor can result in a student — and sometimes their siblings — missing three days of school because of the travel time required.

Another 30 per cent of absences were “family related issues,” which could include a death in the family, an unstable housing situation, or a family crisis, he said.

It was this result that prompted Northland to hire 10 family wellness workers — social workers who can help students and their families work through problems that might stand in the way of kids coming to school.

The schools are also up against fear and distrust of government-run schools that stems from the residential school system.

Stacy Bellerose, a parent of five children and member of the Hillview School council on the East Prairie Métis settlement near High Prairie, said she grew up feeling distrustful of school staff. She had difficulty getting her oldest son extra help he needed at Hillview, and he would often be sent home, she said.

At a small school like Hillview, where just 17 students were enrolled last spring, students should be able to get the extra attention they deserve, she said.

A new principal who has taken proactive steps to include more Indigenous culture at the school is “the answer to our prayers,” she said.

Providing incentives such as door prizes, a meal and child care would make it more manageable for parents to get involved with school councils, Bellerose said.

CATCHING KIDS’ INTEREST

Of course, there are also students who skip school because they’re not interested, particularly in junior and senior high, Atkinson said.

To help improve engagement, schools are offering more options to motivate kids to show up. In Anzac, near Fort McMurray, Bill Woodward School is offering a new program focused on the trades, and introduced a flexible time slot where students can work on whichever subject or project they need more time with.

In Wabasca, 330 kilometres north of Edmonton, school staff are developing a new career and life management program that can be done mostly outdoors within a couple of weeks, rather than over several months in a classroom, Atkinson said.

At Elizabeth School, Burke uses small random incentives to cultivate good feelings about coming to school. In addition to individual awards for stellar attendees, he’ll unexpectedly reward a class with bestattendance treats or extra gym time, Burke said.

He’ll also spend more time collecting and examining data on student absenteeism. A parent on Elizabeth School’s attendance improvement committee suggested looking at what days and dates students tend to miss, which Burke thought was a great idea. The school could potentially organize professional development days to fall on dates with historically low attendance. The school division wants more ideas from locals, which is why it’s recruiting school council members and attendance improvement committee members at all 20 schools. It’s a chance for people to share their expectations and improve their local school, Atkinson said.