Attendance essential to school success
The fall marks a new season, a time for a fresh start and for many young people it is the beginning of the school year and September is the ideal time to designate as Attendance Awareness Month.
Now in its fifth year, Attendance Awareness Month is an appropriate time to remember engagement equals attendance, noted Todd Evangelist, director of development and community relations for Imperial County Office of Education.
By emphasizing the role everyone in the community has to play in creating an engaging and welcoming school ambience, it results in motivated students who come to school every day.
“In September, Attendance Works, reminds us attendance is essential to school success, but too often students, schools and parents do not realize how quickly absences add up and spell academic trouble,” said Evangelist.
Chronic absence equals missing two to three days a month or 10 percent of the year and that can mushroom into ninth graders dropping out of high school.
Addressing chronic absence is key to improving graduation rates, academic achievement and attaining the best chance to succeed in life.
Craig Lyon, Central Union High School principal remarked that obviously, the more students are in class, the more they learn, so it is extremely important students are in class on a daily basis.
“For us, a lot of it comes down to students getting involved with after-school activities: athletics, band, student government or other extracurricular endeavors,” said Lyon. “Those are important aspects to get college and career ready. By being involved in those activities, you are better informed of what’s going on (in the wider world). And the bottom line is, students have to maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA to be eligible for those activities.”
Students are merely in school 180 days a year and six hours a day, so school administrators always remind them the importance of attendance, said Craig Casey, principal of Oakley School in Brawley.
“We tell the kids if they need a doctor’s appointment to schedule it in late afternoon so they don’t miss school,” said Casey. “To maximize learning they must be in class. They have to establish that routine from the first day of school.”
Chloe Casey, the principal’s daughter, just entered Brawley Union High School and has not missed a day of school in nine years.
Principal Casey is not certain she will maintain that standard through high school, but he and his wife Mary Lu, a Witter School kindergarten teacher, stress the importance of attendance to sustain high academic achievement.
Attendance has real life implications noted Evangelist.
He and his wife recently endured a tediously long wait in a McDonald’s drive through line because their server informed them, three employees failed to arrive for their scheduled shift that morning.
“Our thought, tardiness really starts in kindergarten,” said Evangelist. “Whoever those missing employees were didn’t just suddenly become tardy at twenty something. They cultivate those habits when they began school. There is a connection between school attendance and academic achievement. And that translates into career success.”