Pickett County school officials implementing new strategies to reduce chronic absenteeism as nearly a quarter of the student population missed significant time last year.
Director of Schools Melissa Robbins said absences become chronic when a student misses more than 18 days. . Robbins said the district identified the issue through state data and internal attendance records that classified 23 percent of Pickett County students as chronically absent.
“I think it’ll be a positive effect,” Robbins said. “I think teachers will be encouraged because students are coming to school prepared and ready to learn. I think it will definitely help close achievement gaps for students because we do see that as students miss school, they miss learning.”
Robbins said the district sees the highest levels of absenteeism at the high school level, specifically among upperclassmen. Robbins said the district currently uses an automated system to notify parents of absences and conducts personal phone calls to check on the well-being of students who are out of the classroom as they try to curb cases of ‘senioritis.’
Robbins said the district uses the Skyward system to track attendance in-house and has already seen improvements among students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
“Sometimes those calls are actually made in person and you know, there’s phone conversations checking in on kids and making sure, you know, everything’s okay,” Robbins said. “Like sometimes they’re absent because they’re sick, sometimes they’re absent because they got hurt, and there are various other factors and we want to make sure we can help where we can as a school.”
Robbins said high school typically show higher rates of absenteeism as they gain the freedom of a driver’s license or begin working outside of school. Robbins said the district is exploring a program called Renaissance to reward students who show attendance growth over time.
“We’re looking at different things at this point to do that,” Robbins said. “And some of the things are looking at making a change in within our incentivized program and tying that to the possibility of looking at their grades and then incentives for that, which ties into attendance as well.”
Robbins said the district previously utilized “Bobcat Bucks” which students could trade for prizes to encourage a positive school experience. Robbins said the school system is also considering nine-week challenges and more strategic scheduling to combat school apathy among the oldest students.
Robbins said the district is currently hosting summer school and will continue refining its incentive strategies before presenting the final plans to parents for the new school year.
