SJSD attendance program showing early signs of success

A program to improve attendance in the St. Joseph School District is showing signs of success to start the school year.

According to a press release, the School District launched the “Strive for 5” attendance program a month ago to address the ongoing problem of chronic absenteeism in schools. The goal of the program is to encourage students to only miss five days or fewer throughout the year.

“While it is still too early to tell if the areas of growth are directly related to Strive for 5, we are thrilled to see improvement in attendance,” said Dr. Kendra Lau, Director of Assessment. “When students miss school, they miss opportunities to learn. This program is just one part of a multi-pronged approach being used to address chronic absenteeism in our district.”

The District set an attendance goal of 87% this year, which represents a three percent increase over last year. The following information includes highlights from the latest attendance reports:

District-level celebrations:

District attendance is up 1.7% from this time last year (Current – 91.3%, Last Year – 89.6%)
District attendance is currently 4.3% above its 2018 year-end goal of 87%

School building celebrations:

Central High School attendance is at 91.8% up from last year by 1.9%
Lafayette High School attendance is up 6.2% from last year
Spring Garden Middle School attendance is up 4.5% from last year
Truman Middle School is up 3.7% from last year
Edison Elementary attendance is up 3.7% from last year
Parkway Elementary attendance is up 3.8% from last year
Hyde Elementary School was up 3.1% from last year

Other highlights:

The number of high school students considered chronically absent by school year has dropped in all three high schools since last year.
The number of middle school students considered chronically absent by school year has dropped in all four middle schools since last year.
The number of elementary school students considered chronically absent by school year has either dropped or remained steady in nine of 16 elementary schools since last year.