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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!