Utah school cuts absenteeism in half with new incentives

SALT LAKE CITY – Chronic absenteeism has become one of the top priorities in Utah schools, and a junior high school has cut its absenteeism in half.

West Lake Jr. High has focused on increasing attendance, and it’s working. Principal Sarah Wall said that students’ overall sense of belonging has gone up over the past year, according to survey data.

“It’s due to our teachers and our wonderful staff for helping our students feel welcome and really feel like they are part of something,” Wall said.

Teachers have changed the way they take attendance. Students scan their badges before each class. That leads to more accurate attendance data, and it frees teachers to welcome students at the door.

They’ve also incentivized attendance with rewards for students.

“You want to come to school to get those rewards. But you also want to come to school because of the environment, and the learning environment is pretty great,” said student Jordyn Bowser.

Wall said the students with good attendance have been on field trips, had donuts and even movie parties.

“The last time we did donuts, we had them play outside, and all the students who had really good attendance got to be part of those activities,” Wall said.

Maria Riojas is the school’s attendance tracker. If a student has frequent absences, she does house calls to see what the school can do to help.

“We try to do everything we can here in school. Once we’ve exhausted all our efforts here, it becomes tier two, then tier three, and that’s where the home visits become involved,” Riojas said. “A lot of it is just that their parents aren’t motivating them. … Most cases, what I’ve seen is the student kind of runs the household. So if they don’t want to go to school, they just don’t come to school.”

And if that doesn’t work, many high schools are now fining for truancy. Depending on the district, it can be $5-$20 per absence.

“Our high schools, one step that they’re doing is truancy citations. This is allowed,” said Granite District Director of Student Services and Prevention Jared Reynolds. “The administration is trying to get them back to class. They’re with friends, so they’re really kind of defiantly being absent. They’ll be charged a truancy citation for that.”

With students’ attendance improving, academic performance has improved as well.

“Definitely is a correlation between if you’re here, your grades are better,” Wall said. “You’re not getting graded on participation, but you do get graded on whether or not you’re mastering essential standards, and to master essential standards, you need to be here to be able to learn that.”

That’s why the message to students is clear.

“Just get to class, just go to school on time, that’s all we are asking,” Riojas said.

New statewide effort to boost school attendance

State lawmakers just passed new laws to address attendance, and a statewide attendance campaign is making inroads.

Utah State Board of Education Attendance Specialist Megan Menlove said that there were three bills passed during the last legislative session addressing student school attendance.

“Those address issues with data, attendance data, and those also address reasons why students can be excused from school,” Menlove said.

She said the bills add reasons to the list of valid excuses for students to be absent from school, and tie grades and attendance together.

“We’re super excited that so many people are reaching out for help with attendance and that more people are talking about attendance,” Menlove said.

She said the USBE has been running an engagement and attendance campaign for a few years to encourage parents and families to collaborate.

“I think part of that’s been because of our campaign and just the increased awareness of what’s available from USBE to the state to our schools.”

USBE has provided training and resources to schools in the state.

“We’ve learned from other states that when we send a common message that does make an impact on the state, and we know that our state has never tried a statewide attendance campaign.”

Menlove said that they use what is called a root analysis to figure out why a student is missing class.

“As we address those, then we can figure out why a kid’s not at school or what’s a better environment,” she said. “If they don’t want to be at a certain school or they don’t want to be at a certain brick-and-mortar school, we can look at all those options.”

Now that teachers and schools can tie attendance to grades, that might be one of those new incentives.

“There’s no one magic bullet,” Menlove said. “We wish there was. If there was, I think people would have figured it out.”

Related: Is chronic absenteeism in students as bad as we think it is?