ATTENDANCE AWARENESS MONTH highlights community participation

S justeptember is Attendance Awareness Month and it’s something all cities, not school districts, need to participate in.

According to attendanceworks.org, research shows that missing 10 percent of the school, or about 18 days in most school districts, negatively affects a student’s academic performance. That’s just two days a month and that’s known as chronic absence.

An estimated 5 million to 7.5 million US students miss nearly a month of school each year and by sixth grade, chronic absence becomes a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school.

In 2011, the California Dropout Research Project completed by the University of California Santa Barbara stated that one year’s crop of dropouts will go on to commit 113,954 violent crimes.

The research showed that, at that time, of the 2.5 million people in prison in America, 70 percent of them are high school dropouts.

Last year, voters in the state passed Proposition 57 which drastically changed what the justice system now classifies as “violent crime.”

Because of the proposition, crimes like domestic violence, terrorist threats, assault with a deadly weapon, residential burglary, rape of an unconscious person, human trafficking, battery with serious bodily injury, involuntary or vehicular manslaughter, exploding of a destructive device with an intent to injure and active participation in a street gang are now considered nonviolent under the new law according to the county District Attorney Gilbert G. Otero previously.

Those previously convicted of the above mentioned crimes, are now petitioning for an early release back into our communities because of that new law.

We’re not saying all those being released will go back to a life of crime, there are many programs to avoid recidivism and while some will succeed at getting their life together, some will not.

According to a state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation report in 2014, 61 percent of adult felons returned to prison in 2009 after being released in the previous three years.

We’re not saying all dropouts will turn into felons, but for students, the facts are not in their favor.

The Central Union High School District recently started its attendance awareness campaign. The district noticed a .88 percent increase in the attendance rate district wide.

That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s equivalent to a few hundred students that now have a stronger chance at a successful future.

That’s something all cities and school districts should consider investing in. Our community is invested in their success.