News and Announcements

IMPORTANT - The X-Country meet scheduled for today in Ellsworth has been cancelled due to weather. Our X-country students will be going home on the bus today. At this time, we do not have a make-up date.

September 12
Principal Cliff Hong knew that too many students missed class at his Oakland, Calif., middle school, but it was not until he analyzed the data that he saw the picture clearly. Every day, 50 to 60 Roosevelt Middle School students were absent and as many as 15% of students were missing nearly a month of school every year. Within a year, however, Hong cut his absentee rate in half and saw his school’s standardized test scores climb by 30 scale points.

How did he do it? Find out here: http://www.nassp.org/tabid/3788/default.aspx?topic=A_Focus_on_Attendance_Is_Key_to_Success

September 11
Chronic absence is a new way of looking at attendance data. Most schools rely on average attendance rates to tell them how many students typically show up each day. By contrast, chronic absence examines how many students are missing so much school they are at risk. Even a school with 95 percent average attendance rate could have as many as 20 percent of its students chronically absent.

Learn more in this report: http://www.attendanceworks.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/ChronicAbsence.pdf

September 10
Chronic absence can affect all of our children, not just those missing school. If significant numbers of students in a classroom or school are chronically absent, learning for all students can be adversely affected. The pace of instruction slows down when teachers have to spend time reviewing material for those who missed the lessons in the first place.

September 7
Too often chronic absence remains a hidden problem because schools track only average daily attendance and truancy (unexcused absences.) The research shows that chronic absence predicts lower 3rd grade reading proficiency, course failure and eventual dropout.



Learn more at the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading!

September 6
Principals in middle and high schools can provide the leadership needed to address chronic absenteeism by pursuing the three Rs: Reach down. Reach out. Reach up. Click on the title above to locate the link to find out more!

September 5

Fact: Chronic absence in kindergarten is associated with lower academic performance in 1st grade, especially in reading for Latino students. For poor children, unable to make up for time on task, the poor performance extended through 5th grade. By 6th grade chronic absence is a clear predictor of drop-out.

Learn more about reducing chronic absence at the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading!

September 4

It’s Attendance Awareness Month!

Fact: Every 26 seconds, a student drops out of school.

By 9th grade, missing 20 percent of the school year is a better predictor of dropping out than test scores.

Ending the high school dropout crisis is an urgent priority!

September 3
If you think one day out of school is just one day out of school, think again! The days add up quickly. Our friends at the Get Schooled website have developed an “Attendance Count Calender,” which you can use to see the effect of missing school based on the number of days you are out. The results just might surprise you!

Give it a try at https://getschooled.com/attendance-counts

September 2
FACT: Nationally, as many as 7.5 million students nationwide miss 10 percent of the school year in excused and unexcused absences every year. That’s 135 million days of school.

Learn more about reducing chronic absence in your school by going to http://www.attendanceworks.org/