"80% of success is showing up." - Woody Allen
Over the summer, with the 2024-2025 school year approaching, district leadership gathered to find new ways to address a concern impacting school districts across the nation - Chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of the school year, regardless of whether the absences are excused or unexcused. This equates to roughly 18 days of out a 180-day school year, or about two to three days per month.
At the end of the 2023-2024 school year, district-wide absenteeism sat at 17.2%. Working with building leaders, administration, teachers, and our Board of Education, our district identified a number of ways to bring this number down, with the goal of reducing chronic absenteeism by 2%. Today, as we mark the end of the the 2024-2025 school year, we're happy to report that number has dropped to 14.4%, a 2.8% decrease, exceeding our goal.
"This success is a direct reflection of the dedication and hard work of our entire school community Through trust-building relationships, consistent communication, phone calls, home visits, student meetings, thank-you notes, attendance challenges, goal setting, and celebrating progress, we've made a real impact," said DeEtte Bready, Community Schools Advisor.
Throughout the school year, building leadership found creative ways to encourage students to achieve weekly "perfect attendance." From being entered into gift card raffles, to earning other privileges - it became a bit of a competition, and something to strive for among our students. Judging by the numbers, it was a success.
Chronic absenteeism is down across the board, seen below:
Homer Brink: down 3.4%
Middle School: down 3.3%
Maine Memorial: down 3.1%
High School: down 1.6%
At Maine Memorial, 14 students received perfect attendance for the year!
We will continue working with our students, families, and the community to help bring these numbers down even further. Congratulations to our school community for achieving this success.