District seeks support

Committee formed to help with attendance issues

Lorain City Schools formed a committee to tackle an issue bigger than abilities of all teachers and administrators combined: attendance.

Everything else done in the district flows from students’ showing up on time for class ready to learn, said Superintendent Dr. Jeff Graham.

In October the district hosted training for teachers involving experts such as Dr. Sandy Addis from the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University.

Addis told of a rural high school in Georgia with a great football program and a 50 percent graduation rate in 2002.

With community collaboration, they changed the school mascot from a bulldog to a grad dog and created a motto of “finish what you start,”

Addis said.

The entire community was on board and after time, the graduation rate soared to 95 percent, Addis said.

Graham says the community is ready now to come alongside the school district to work toward real change that makes a difference for youngsters.

For example, when evaluators sent by Ohio Department of Education visited the district, 35 community organizations attended the meeting, which was impressive, Graham said.

And this summer organizations have been calling the district to volunteer more help, he said.

Erin Gadd, director of communications and community engagement at Lorain City Schools, said the committee and administrators are preparing an attendance campaign for presentation to the school board later this summer.

“The exciting piece is getting our entire community involved,” Gadd said. “We aren’t just isolated schools. We’re part of the community. That’s what’s special about this community. People come together to make things happen.

“It’s all a part of the Community Business Schools Partnership piece,” Gadd said. “We’re

moving away from that isolation model and bringing everybody together as a family.”

One of the ideas surfacing is creating a welcoming environment at school, Gadd said, and adding a personal connection.

“Things happen. Every day is a new day to start over,” Gadd said. “So we’re focusing on building relationships, growing and learning. It takes a lot of effort for things that are worth it in life, and they’re worth all that extra effort.”

Graham said an equity audit this year validated the fact that attendance is an issue.

“I’m not going to assume why a child isn’t coming to school,” Graham said. “We’re going to talk about it. There are a lot of reasons why parents don’t sent their children to school. There are a lot of absences in kindergarten and first grade. How do you explain that? That isn’t the child. I hope to fix it.

“You have to get children to school first, then have quality instruction, good curriculum, and wrap around services so they are ready to learn. Then we need parents connected. I think the approach we’ve taken in the past, which most school districts do, by the way, is if a child misses school we send a letter. We take a stern approach. We need to reach out as a partner and ask, ‘How can we

help?’

“Threatening isn’t working,” Graham said. “We need to figure out what the issues are and address them, and talk about the value and importance of education every day.”

The committee worked on ideas such as building positive relationships with everyone from security guards to secretaries in buildings and expanding to neighborhoods, and from child to child, according to information provided by Gadd.

The attendance software at the new high school did not work correctly, administrators say, so the focus shifts to a new program, Bright Bytes, which will provide data, according to Gadd.

Assistant superintendent Mic Becerra and Director of Professional Learning Michael Scott say the changes in attendance policy have “a potential to be a game changer.”

“If kids are in school, they will learn,” Becerra said.

Chronic absenteeism can hide in a 94 percent attendance rate, Scott said.

Also, in the past, absenteeism was counted in days, but the state changed the reporting to numbers of hours this year, Becerra said.

The state characterizes 10 percent, or 18 days, of absences as chronic, but the district may lower the threshold to 10 days or even six days because of

the impact on the student and academics, Scott said.

“I have been in the district my whole life,” Scott said. “I was a student here. I don’t recall a campaign about the importance of attendance. I think this is going to be something new and fresh for us. I think it will show how much teachers and all of our staff care. We’re all invested in having our students come to school.”

The group also looked at chronic absenteeism as missing two days within the first 30 days of school, Becerra said. The student may stay behind because of those missed days.

“We have been talking about how we are going to increase tutoring in our classrooms,” Becerra said.

Part of the committee’s work is to offer incentives and ways to reward positive behavior, Scott said.

When he served as principal of General Johnnie Wilson Middle School, students not only dreaded missing school because they did not want to miss something, they also wanted to be photographed with their principal.

Scott spent very little time in his office. He visited classrooms and walked the halls to speak with teachers and students.

“How do we create that culture and climate so that students feel welcome at school?” Scott said. “It was that team approach: How do we greet students at

the door when they come in whether it’s the building or the classroom? And telephone calls to home need to be three times more in number that are positive than negative. It’s not just calling when things are on rock bottom. It’s calling all along the way, and building those relationships. The biggest piece was getting staff to be proactive and make those positive phone calls.

“Now let’s really ramp up this attendance piece,” Scott said. “It’s not just us. There are going to be greater partnerships.”

Becerra said the district hopes to partner with businesses and groups to provide the incentives for students.

“It’s not about perfect attendance,” Becerra said. “But it’s ‘on track’ attendance. That’s going to be a big part of our campaign.”

About 350 people are involved in the Community Business Schools Partnership, Graham said. Also, about 6,000 people receive email updates every Monday from the district, he said.

“We’re sharing with them what’s going on,” Graham said. “We’re trying to listen the best we can, and react accordingly. People talk about strengths and weaknesses. Test scores is an area we need to grow. People here come together. Our parents want to be engaged. Our community wants to be engaged.”