Improving student attendance has been a major focus at San
Benito High School this year. The effort has a two-pronged purpose:
Educational and financial. Both are important.
Improving student attendance has been a major focus at San Benito High School this year. The effort has a two-pronged purpose: Educational and financial. Both are important.
Research shows that kids who skip school regularly are more likely to fall behind in their work, score poorly on exams and even get involved in antisocial behavior. Schools with higher average attendance typically fare better in state and federal assessments of school success. The common-sense bottom line is summed up neatly by that sage Woody Allen, who famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
Speaking of bottom lines, kids who cut class also make a mess of the school’s budget. A one percent drop in attendance – such as San Benito High experienced during the 2005-2006 school year – costs the school about $200,000 in state funding.
This past summer, school officials developed a 30-point plan to improve student attendance this year. The plan involves parent education, outreach to families with students in the migrant education and special education programs, and more. The goal is to get average attendance up to 95 percent – 2 percent better than last year.
It’s an ambitious goal and one we wholeheartedly support, both for its potential benefit to student achievement and because it will help maximize the return on taxpayers’ investment in San Benito High.
Soon the school may acquire another weapon for its war on absenteeism. Trustees are expected to decide next month whether to buy a new auto-dial telephone system that would call parents at home, at work and on their cell phones to immediately alert them when their child is absent from class.
The school already has a call system, but it’s outdated and plagued with problems. The Ed-Connect system under consideration promises better technology, a wider range of uses and more effective results in dealing with absenteeism problems. It would cost the school about $10,000.
That’s not small change by any means. But administrators are confident that it will play a big part in helping them reach their attendance improvement goal. They point out that some schools credit the Ed-Connect system alone with bumping attendance by one percent. That kind of improvement would bring $200,000 in additional revenue to San Benito High and would also improve student learning by putting more kids in the classroom every day.
If this new phone system can really do what administrators say, it’s a good investment.
