Omaha high school implements attendance requirement for homecoming dance | Education

One Omaha highschool is utilizing a distinct tactic to enhance pupil attendance this fall.

Burke Excessive College introduced a brand new coverage earlier this month that prohibits college students who’ve greater than three unexcused absences from attending its homecoming dance on Oct. 8.

“The only most essential issue contributing to pupil achievement is college attendance,” Darren Rasmussen, Burke principal, stated in an electronic mail to households. “Burke Excessive strongly believes that every day attendance is vital to the tutorial success in addition to social and emotional well-being.”

College students can get their absences excused if they’re lacking class for quite a lot of causes together with illness, courtroom appearances, bereavement or transportation points, in response to college board coverage. Unexcused absences embrace college students who’re truant, lacking class for a motive that doesn’t qualify for an excuse or are “unverified,” that means nobody can affirm why the coed is gone. In recent times a majority of absences have been unexcused, in response to Omaha Public Faculties district knowledge.

Burke Excessive is the one OPS college that has carried out the homecoming coverage, stated Bridget Blevins, spokeswoman for OPS. Every college has its personal initiatives for enhancing issues like absenteeism, she stated.

The district reported within the 2020-21 college yr that just about 60% of scholars had been both chronically absent or in danger for power absenteeism, which is outlined by lacking 10% or extra of college days.

Whereas 62% of Burke college students had been chronically absent or in danger in 2020-21, Burke Excessive had one of the best attendance fee out of the district’s seven excessive colleges.

Nicole Seymour, govt director of Higher Omaha Attendance and Studying Providers Middle, stated she hasn’t heard of colleges within the space utilizing extracurricular actions like homecoming as a technique to extend attendance.

Seymour stated whereas any such motivation to go to class would possibly work for some, the GOALS Middle focuses on research-based initiatives.

“The methods which can be really helpful for use are ones that aren’t punitive however are supportive and rehabilitative,” Seymour stated. “I don’t wish to converse on the methods any college is utilizing inside their very own packages, I simply have a look at the analysis.”

Seymour stated power absenteeism is “the more severe it’s ever been.”

And the issue shouldn’t be restricted to Omaha. Statewide, practically one in 5 college students met the standards for power absenteeism in the course of the 2020-21 college yr, in response to recent reporting by the Flatwater Free Press, a nonprofit information outlet in Nebraska. It reported that power absenteeism surged throughout the state amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the nationwide degree, between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 college years the share of scholars thought of chronically absent grew from 19.7% to just about 29%, in response to the Nationwide College Boards Affiliation.

OPS launched “Try for 95” within the 2018-19 college yr to fight absenteeism charges, Blevins stated. The initiative focuses on efforts to get college students to attend not less than 95% of the college yr, or miss lower than 9 college days.

The variety of college students who attended 95% of the college yr grew by 2% between 2018-19 and 2019-20, in response to district knowledge. It then fell by roughly 8% in 2020-21.

Seymour stated with a purpose to lower absenteeism, communities have to deal with addressing the obstacles college students face at house that preserve them from going to class, corresponding to parental considerations, poverty and primary wants points.

“We all know there are root causes which can be conserving chronically absent college students out of college and they’re outdoors of the management of the college,” Seymour stated. “We now have to work with youngsters and households on addressing, supporting and overcoming these limitations that preserve them from attending to the college constructing.”