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Superintendent's
Scoop |
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Attendance vital to student performance |
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January 17, 2017 |
By Superintendent Gary Pflueger
Are you looking for a New Year’s Resolution that
will help your children succeed? I have an easy
plan. The business of education is to help
people make informed decisions. The only way to
do this is to teach the facts, increase
communication and share knowledge. Such is the
nature of this edition of the “Superintendent's
Scoop.”
Over the years, the Boundary County School Board
of Trustees have struggled with financing our
school program. Our community generously stepped
up two years ago by supporting a $2.4 million
supplemental Maintenance and Operations Levy.
In March of this year we will ask for the same
support; you will learn more about this in the
months to come. This article will explain
something the schools have little control over:
student attendance.
Recently I contacted Tim Hill, the Deputy
Superintendent of Public School Finance for the
State Department of Education.
He explains, “State funding is based on groups
of students’ average daily attendance (ADA).
These groups are called support units. Using the
midterm reporting period, we take the aggregate
attendance from this time period and divide it
by days in the session. This ADA is used to
determine salary apportionment which is
approximately 85% of our state funding. Anything
that brings down the average daily attendance in
this time frame will affect the biggest piece of
funding for the district.”
Children miss school for a variety of reasons:
illness, family emergencies, celebrations,
sports, etc. Many absences can be considered
excused if parents let us know where the student
is, but the district is not funded for those
days.
I hate to bring up this next note as I value
family loyalty, but even when younger siblings
travel to watch their older brother or sister
represent BFHS, we not reimbursed.
More than 14 absences per year for a student
surpasses the district policy (#3051) requiring
90% attendance. Excessive absence affects skill
development and student achievement, credit
retention, participation in extra-curricular
events, and possible promotion to the next grade
level.
The financing of public education is a
complicated process. Student support units are
different for elementary and secondary school
students. Statewide average per unit is $94,100
in the fiscal year 2017.
An elementary school support unit for grades 1-3
is 20 students. $94,100 divided into 20 equals
$4,705 per year. Divided into 141 school days,
this equals $33.37 per day per student. When a
student is absent, even if excused, we lose this
money.
Another factor which plays into the importance
of attendance is our four day school week. Our
school days are longer to accommodate for this.
It becomes a simple math problem. When a BCSD
student misses one day per week, they miss 25%
of instructional time for the week. In a
traditional five day school district missing one
day accounts for 20% of the instructional time.
I know there are some who will say, “The schools
just want kids to attend for funding.”
Get to know our staff and you will learn this is
not true. We want students at school so we can
do our jobs! School attendance is much more
important than money.
The biggest toll is paid in the student’s
educational development. The research that
compares “testing to attendance” has shown those
students with higher attendance rates do better
on standardized testing and better in school
overall.
Many of our students cannot master concepts
without the benefits of the instruction given in
the classroom. Many parents voice concerns they
are unable to help their kids with homework in
classes like math and science. Being in class is
vital for these students.
Of course, we do not want students to attend
school if they are ill and/or contagious. In
addition, we will continue to send students home
if they have head lice; we have a no-nit policy.
I just ask parents to carefully consider the
reason to keep your child home from school.
We will continue to offer incentives for perfect
or faithful attendance. We will continue to work
on ways to improve our program and increase our
graduation rates. We will continue to proudly
serve the children of Boundary County! |
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