AUBURN — Across Auburn, there’s a new attitude in elementary schools this year about attendance, Assistant Superintendent Michelle McClellan told the Auburn School Committee on Wednesday night.
As an example, Walton Elementary School Principal Mike Davis tweeted how many students came to school on a certain day.
“Wow! 100 percent of staff and 98.5 percent of students were in attendance today!” he tweeted on Oct. 30.
His school and other Auburn elementary schools this year are promoting and celebrating good attendance. Davis shares the day’s attendance numbers during school announcements. He’ll throw in a little competition between teachers and students.
Davis makes a big deal out of good attendance, recently sharing that 49 percent of students had perfect attendance this year, another 35 percent had missed only a day or less.
“That’s huge!” Davis said.
“Students know we’re shooting for 100 percent,” Davis said. “When we hit that they know something big will happen. We’re taking attendance in a whole new way.”
It used to be schools focused on truancy, which only counts unexcused absences. National research shows that when students miss 10 percent of days or more a year, that’s considered chronic absenteeism and it hurts learning.
The new thinking is to pay attention to how many days students miss for any reason, to build relationships between teachers, students and parents on reducing that, and to create a school culture that celebrates good attendance.
Before this year elementary principals noticed higher numbers of absent students and were at a loss of what to do, McClellan said.
They attended “Count ME In” workshops given by a nonprofit group, Attendance Works, that shared strategies. “They came back with renewed energy,” McClellan said.
Historically Auburn has had an average of 95 percent attendance, which sounds good, she said. But digging deeper, that 5 percent of students not in school meant too many were chronically absent.
In kindergarten, between 18 and 30 percent of students missed too much school. Research shows kindergarten students who attend regularly, compared to those chronically absent, were less likely to miss school in subsequent grades, scored higher grades later and were less likely to be held back.
Auburn elementary schools have built new protocols. Now when students are absent, teachers – not the administration – call home. They don’t ask where was the student, but check in and offer help, McClellan said. It’s about building relationships between the teacher, student and family.
When students come to school late, they’re greeted with “I’m glad you’re here” instead of “Where were you?” McClellan said.
The goal “is that every student will be in school every day,” Superintendent Katy Grondin said.
Elementary schools are tracking the number of students absent and will have a report at the end of the year, McClellan said. Meanwhile protocols to encourage better attendance will be built for the middle and high schools, officials said.
Auburn Middle School Principal Selena Ranger said her school is working on changing the culture to encourage daily attendance, to build partnerships between teachers, parents and students to help students.
For instance, if a student is not in school because he or she overslept, they’re being shown there’s an alarm clock on their iPad.
If students don’t come to school because they’re tired, families will be coached to understand how much sleep youths need.
Similar changes will eventually be made at the high school, Grondin said. “We know it’s a secondary issue as well.”
bwashuk@sunjournal.com
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