Attendance incentive
Hartford schools find creative ways to boost attendance.
HARTFORD — The live video began with a spoken disclaimer, punctuated by a camera person’s half-suppressed laugh: The events being broadcast should not be attempted by any student, nor did McDonough Middle School recommend the eating of any bug.
With that out of the way, the show began, a Fear Factor-style competition featuring adults in silly costumes, eating chocolate-covered, food-grade insects all in the name of promoting good attendance.
This is how deeply-challenged Hartford schools are fighting back against chronic absenteeism, an ever-present problem that exploded during the pandemic as COVID-19 protocols, hybrid schedules and distance learning rendered school unrecognizable. Technological supports, outreach and resources to meet basic needs have helped, but so too has a strategy of flooding schools with attendance incentives and celebrating even small improvements.
As a result, chronic absenteeism has dropped to 44% — its lowest point since October and 4 percentage points lower than its high of 48% in January, according to district data.
“Nothing unifies a school more than building an attendance culture,” said Marjorie E. Rice, McDonough’s acting principal. “Students, families, every stakeholder is enraptured in this and very positive about this, and it’s helped us build a very joyful environment where students want to be.”
In February and March alone, staff across the district took pies and Jell-O molds to the face, got duct-taped to gym walls and doused with icy water. Students earned raffle tickets for donated bicycles and gaming systems while others helped staff record TikTokstyle dance videos hyping attendance.
Some of these things had been done in the past, but often as part
of year-end celebrations. Now that schools are loading their calendars with activities, they’re seeing results.
McDonough Middle School has reduced its chronic absenteeism rate from 89% in December — the highest of any district school — to 60%. In one recent week, the school saw an average daily attendance of 89%.
The incentives will go through the end of the year. The district hopes to bring chronic absenteeism down to 42% in April, and school leaders say they’re optimistic they’ll beat that, according to district spokesman John Fergus.
Thousands of phone calls
Rice, who has spent 23 years with the district, credits her teachers, staff and community partners, who have made 6,700 calls to families about attendance. They’ve also formed a mentoring system for students at risk of chronic absenteeism and organized the incentives that have brought so many back to class.
“Whenyoucomeinto our school every day, I feel full of hope because of the way everyone bands together for kids,” she said.
Her team says there’s a tangible excitement in the classes and halls, and the virtual events like Fear Factor, which was livestreamed exclusively to students who earned tickets through attendance.
The kids also voted on which staff members had to compete. They chose multiple members of the attendance team, including Michelle Martinez, a family and community support service provider, and Patrick Williams, a community partner from Catholic Charities.
And as they prepared to throw back some hefty-looking ant wafers in the contest’s second round, a sixth grader watching online said something that made the chore a little easier: “I love this school so much.”
The chocolate melted away quickly, Williams said later, but the student’s words stuck with them.
McDonough Middle’s turning point came earlier in the winter with a movie night organized by its student government. Denysha Nieves, a seventh grader who was elected communications director, said it was a good way to bring together remote learners like herself.
“The whole idea is to make students be very interested in coming to school so they can get their education,” said Denysha, 12, during a break in her social studies class.
Since then, the student government has worked to involve as many of their peers as they can. One of the most successful ideas came from a student who was struggling with attendance herself: Llisa Rodriguez, 12, told teachers that more kids would would come to school on Wednesdays, which are half days, if they could wear street clothes instead of uniforms.
She was right.
Getting creative
A recent week brought an ice bucket challenge and a quest to free McDonough’s mascot, Grizzly the bear — played by assistant principal William Conroy — from an equipment closet repurposed as an “escape room.”
All month, classes and schools are competing against each other in a March Madness-style bracket for the best average daily attendance, ensuring no school is at a disadvantage due to past struggles.
At Noah Webster MicroSociety Magnet School, Principal Gus Jacobsen has already pledged to let staff chop his pandemic ponytail if they win.
And a few students will also make off with hover boards donated by Catholic Charities, a prize students wished for in a recent survey.
Corrine Barney, the district’s attendance strategy lead since November and an executive director of school leadership, thinks this shift, borne of the pandemic and an urgent need to re-engage students, is here to stay.
“I think we’re just taking what schools were doing before and doing it on a grander scale,” Barney said. “And sharing ideas.”
Li ke McDonough Middle’s attendance team members, she thinks the pandemic presented both challenges and opportunities in the way it’s forced Hartford, and all school systems, to get creative in socially-distanced and virtual environments.
Fergus says Barney has also brought a lot more fun to Hartford’s familiar, constant work on attendance.
A former principal at Betances Learning Lab, Barney’s own resume includes being duct-taped to a wall and dislocating her shoulder navigating an inflatable obstacle course during field day.
“Done it all,” Barney said with a laugh. “If you’re willing to get in it and do it, the kids are so much more motivated. They see you as a caring person and individual who wants to be involved.”