High Absentee Rate in your district?

[MHDNURSE]

If you are working in a school district with a high rate of absenteeism, I would love to hear what your school is doing to combat this issue. I am in a new district this year, working as a School Nurse Case Manager and my main focus is to increase school attendance by managing kids with chronic illness more closely. My position was created because they saw a need for more closely monitoring certain kids and the school nurses just do not have the time our resources to do this.

[ruby_jane, BSN, RN]

I think this is amazing (and I think you'll do great at this).

I'm now at the elementary level. In high school, if you missed a certain number of days, you absence failed the class and had to come in on Saturday school or....one time, diplomas were held!!

In both districts, 10 absences in a row = truant officer to home/withdrawl from school. It seems like parents (or maybe students) know this rule and will have eight absences, an attendance, four absences, two days in school, nine days out.

In the majority of my time as a school nurse this had nothing (nada, zip) to do with health or chronic illness.

I have one student with a myriad of diagnoses (psych, medical, real, imaginary) and he misses a great deal of school. Because he is SPED and because he never has three absences in a row (that's the magic number where you need a doctors' note) we cannot legally do much. It dramatically jacks with his learning (he's been held back twice in different grades). Because he meets SPED criteria, we don't do much.

Sorry for the rambly thoughts. I look forward to reading some of the innovative solutions.

@ruby_jane our new superintendent just redid the absence policy because while there was one written with all kids of threats and promises to do x, y and z, it seems it was never really enforced. Our district has a 29% chronically absent rate- it's insane! I think the first step will be to actually enforce the policy. It's just like how schools threaten not to allow kids who are non compliant with vaccines, yet they come, no vaccines, no paperwork and admin turns a blind eye...

[ruby_jane, BSN, RN]

5 minutes ago, MHDNURSE said:

@ruby_jane our new superintendent just redid the absence policy because while there was one written with all kids of threats and promises to do x, y and z, it seems it was never really enforced. Our district has a 29% chronically absent rate- it's insane! I think the first step will be to actually enforce the policy. It's just like how schools threaten not to allow kids who are non compliant with vaccines, yet they come, no vaccines, no paperwork and admin turns a blind eye...

29%?!?!? Yeeps.

Also this year I was successful at my Gandalf-in-the-river stance; no vaccine, no admit to school. Best year ever!

On 9/4/2019 at 12:59 PM, ruby_jane said:

Best year ever!

OMG x1000000000!

[JenTheSchoolRN, BSN, RN]

My school is finally giving me the admin back-up to crack down on missing paperwork (vaccines, physical).

But, for students with a chronic illness that will equal more than 14 days out, we do two things:

(1) set them up with outside tutoring. Public charters in my state work with the student's public school district who will provide up to 4 hours of outside tutoring (mainly to help with make-up assignments so student isn't using the time they are at school to fully manage this)

(2) Set up a 504 meeting and plan. Including a plan for when student is xx number of days out due chronic illness in a row.

BUT:

Sometimes the number of days a student is out due to a chronic condition is just too much to pass the year. And therefore we look at an extended 5 year completion plan (on the HS level).

I have nothing to do with non chronic illness related absences. But I do know this: when your public school's attendance rate drops below a certain amount, it can affect funding. And tardies and early dismissals are part of this. Tardies/early dismissals are the larger issue in my district vs full day absences. (Parents will write notes to dismiss students early ALL THE TIME.)