Schools Make End-Of-Year Attendance Push

Gemma Joseph Lumpkin, Michael Fox and James Newton knocked on a door a Blake Street apartment building. A woman inside answered. No children could be heard at play.

That was a good sign. It could mean that the children who live there were in fact at school on Tuesday.

New Haven Public School officials and volunteers are fanning out across the city and knocking on doors this week as part of a, ​“Attendance Matters” initiative to remind parents that their children should be at school every day until the end of the school year.

Schools Superintendent Carol Birks and Lumpkin, the school district’s chief of the Office of Youth, Family and Community Engagement, delivered that message during a press conference Tuesday at the Floyd Little Athletic Center. Then they headed into neighborhoods across the city to try to connect with the parents of students who are chronically absent from school.

With just a little over a month left in the school year, they wanted to remind parents that absences — excused or not — still count toward whether a student is considered chronically absent. And that chronic absenteeism is a key predictor in student success. Last school year 19.9 percent or about 4,000 city students were chronically absent from New Haven schools.

“Chronic absences in kindergarten and pre‑K can predict lower test scores, poor attendance, and retention in later grades especially if the problem persists for more than a year,” Birks said. ​“Research shows missing as little as two or three days per month can translate to third graders unable to master reading, sixth graders failing courses and ultimately teens dropping out.”

Birks said in the past, the state and the district only counted unexcused absences as a cause for concern but it gave ​“a false understanding of how absence affects student success.”

She said further that this time of year, the homestretch before the end of the school year, the district sees a sharp decline in attendance. So, she asked teams of district personnel from the dropout prevention and truancy program and volunteers to hit the doors and get the word out. Birks said it only takes missing about 10 percent of the school year, or on average around two days per month, to be deemed chronically absent.

“Absences — even parent excused absences — can add up and contribute to academic trouble,” Birks said. ​“Chronic absenteeism is not just students skipping school but those who miss school often for vacation or doctor’s appointments.

“We are encouraging families, the community to send your children to school every day,” she added. ​“It is vitally important for them to be present.”

Lumpkin and crew, armed with a clipboard of addresses of chronically absent students, passed that message on Blake and Dyer streets in the Beaver Hills section. When they found someone at home, they didn’t ask for anyone by name, just announced that they were from the school district and were stopping by to remind the household about the importance of attending school.

No adult or potential parent was confronted or quizzed about why their child has been missing school. But they each got a brochure about attendance and all of the services that the district provides to help make sure students get to school.

Lumpkin said most of those who actually answer the door know why the school district is knocking on their door.

“These aren’t the students who are yet over the line,” she said. ​“But they’re getting close.”

Fox said that students miss school for all kinds of reasons including for vacations or even incidences of homelessness. In the case of a student’s family not having a place to live, the district can help. But first, they have to find out. Tuesday’s canvas is part of the district’s year-long effort to reduce absenteeism and it will continue throughout the week.

“We like to say that no matter what, if our students are no in their seats, in their classrooms, they cannot learn,” Joseph-Lumpkin said.

Click the Facebook Live video to catch the press conference.