Is Your Attendance Party Helping Or Hurting?

An Open Letter To School Leaders

Dear School Leader,

I heard the announcement at the end of the day about which classrooms have perfect attendance when I picked up my kids. I saw the posts on ​social media about the party that you had for children who never missed a day of school.

I get it. The kids need to be in class. We know that “students who attend school regularly have been shown to achieve at higher levels than ​students who do not have regular attendance.” We also know that, for you, lower attendance can lead to funding cuts or perception that your ​school doesn’t have a strong sense of belonging. The district places a lot of pressure on principals about the numbers.

It makes sense that you would do everything you can to get kids to school each day but there is a good chance that some of your well ​intentioned attendance related incentives aren’t aligned to your goals. The parties, the awards, the field trips - It’s what schools have been doing ​for years but it doesn’t work.

I know that the people at the central office don’t leave room for nuance when they send their reports about the percentage of kids who have ​missed school. They hold you accountable for all the kids who aren’t there – excused or unexcused. When district leaders gather principals ​together they compare you to other schools. They crown the winners and often ignore much of the good work that is being done in some of the ​more challenging places.

Still, these incentives reward the children who may not need help in this domain. They may make their families feel good but it doesn’t ensure ​their child’s continued attendance. They don’t uplift those that need support. If anything, these celebrations reinforce the notion that they’re ​not enough. For many of those kids who don’t partake in the attendance celebrations, it’s just another area of school where they haven't yet ​found success. It serves as another way of othering them.

So I’m asking you, as someone who has sat where you sit, to stop this practice and continue focusing on the other strategies you are using. I ​know that you’re calling absent families, door knocking, and trying to remove barriers for those who need it. I know you’re having student ​support meetings and sending letters home to families in danger of chronic absenteeism. Those long term strategies, in addition to building a ​strong culture, are what matters. Over time, they make an impact.

It’s the quiet, ongoing work that makes the real difference and I know you’re doing it. I know that there is a family you helped to find a stable ​place to live or the one you connected with another family for transportation because they don’t have a vehicle. I know that more than one of ​your staff is calling a child in the morning to make sure they’re awake in time to get to school. These stories don’t get told because we don’t ​shine a spotlight on them but they are the ones that truly matter.

I know that you can’t stop your district and supervisor from caring about the increases and decreases in your school’s attendance because I ​couldn’t either. What you can do is to decide not to play the game the wrong way. The one that harms the children and families we’re most ​hoping to help. You can choose to stop ineffective practices and break the cycle.

You can tell your staff and families that most nine year olds don’t control whether or not they attend school and so we are going to stop ​celebrating and shaming. We aren’t going to praise those children that get sick less than others nor are we going to admonish their families for ​keeping ill students home when needed. You can remind your team that the best way we can get kids to school is by building trust through ​authentic relationships.

So please, continue pulling every lever that you can to strengthen attendance, except the broken ones. Let go of those that we know are ​ineffective and the ones that require us to put people down in order to lift others up.

At the end of each school day, during those announcements, you can say, “We’re so glad you were in school today. We look forward to seeing ​you tomorrow,” and mean it, because strong communities aren’t built through division but by bringing each one of us together.

Sincerely,

A Former Principal Who Made The Same Mistakes

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