When a student misses a day of school, they’ve missed out on an entire day of learning. District leaders learned the importance of attendance and how it impacts academic achievement the hard way during the pandemic. However, it continues to be a problem in some of the larger districts in the country. But this school year is going to be different, declare these three superintendents.
As the 2023-24 academic year gets underway, leaders are taking the time to communicate what they want to achieve for their communities. Across the nation, superintendents are set to tackle a variety of issues specific to their districts, including mental health, student discipline and other complexities. At the nation’s second-largest district in the country, Los Angeles Unified, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has made it his personal mission to boost student attendance.
LAUSD
Carvalho took some time last week to stop by the homes of students across the district and encourage them to consistently attend class as part of his annual iAttend campaign in hopes of boosting average daily attendance by 5%.
“We had two days of iAttend this year,” he told ABC 7. “We have about three additional days over the next weeks and months. It’s critically important.
“A year and a half ago when I first arrived here, chronic absenteeism was about 50%,” he added. “That means 50% of our kids were absent from school 10 or more days.”
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The district’s Chief Medical Director Dr. Smita Malhotra also issued a statement on the district’s website directed to students’ families advising them to prioritize their child’s learning over minor illnesses.
“It is not practical for working parents to keep children home from school for every runny nose, nor is it in the best interest of children to continue to miss school after pandemic school closures,” she wrote. “If your child has a mild runny nose or cold symptoms that are not bothering them, and they test negative for COVID-19, send them to school. Your child can wear a mask at school when they have these mild symptoms.”
Fort Worth ISD
Over the years, students at Fort Worth ISD have been struggling to meet expectations academically, particularly in reading, as many students are English learners, NBC 5 Dallas Fort Worth reports. So keeping students in the classroom is essential, according to Superintendent Angélica Ramsey.
“A sense of urgency we have, but we also are going to do it with joy,” she told NBC 5. “We need to make sure that our schools are places where children want to come to increase our attendance rates, right? Not because of dollars, but because if you’re not in your seat, you’re not learning.”
Last year, the district saw a 25% improvement in the number of chronically absent students, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. However, absenteeism rates are still “atrocious”, she told the Star-Telegram earlier this year.
“It’s very difficult to get parents and students to understand you have to come to school five days [a week],” she said.
Howard County
Howard County Public Schools will be opening its doors to its nearly 60,000 students come August 28. As such, Superintendent Michael Martirano hopes to see every seat filled on the first day and beyond.
“I am really focused this year on attendance and making sure all of our students are in school ready to learn, and I need the assistance from our parents,” he told CBS News.
He said leveraging student data has been crucial to helping him understand how serious the issue is and how to solve it.
“I always look at our data to make decisions. I am extremely data-driven; I am a math and science teacher and I look at the evidentiary-based work we are doing and in the last several years we have seen a regression in students showing up to our schools,” he said.
