Teach your child to practice
frequent handwashing and to cover their coughs.
Students should not come to school if they have:
A fever of more than 100.5 degrees
Vomiting within the last 24 hours
Sustained cough, difficulty breathing and
shortness of breath.
Brown or green drainage from the nose with fever
Severe sore throat with fever.
Or any symptoms that will prevent the
student from participating in the normal
school activities due to symptoms such as
persistent cough, runny stuffy nose,
sore throat or diarrhea.
By Kristine Thomas
Silver Falls Curriculum Director Linda Myers said the district has made it a goal to “make school attendance a priority and we want to see students in school every day.”
In the Silver Falls School District’s Vision Plan, it states, “Every student will attend 95 percent or more school days.” The goal is for kindergarten and first-grade students to miss no more than five days of school and older students no more than nine days.
From the phone calls, emails and visits from parents and guardians, the teachers, principals and administrators in the Silver Falls School District have realized the new policy has caused some confusion.
Myers said parents are concerned about their student missing school and questioned if they will be penalized for missing school if they are ill.
“We want your kids in school because we can’t do any of the great things we do for kids if they are not in school,” Myers said. “We believe it’s important for kids to be at school. When kids are absent, they can’t make up classroom discussions or classroom projects. When kids miss school, they miss a critical part of learning. Kids need to be at school.”
Having said that, Myers also understands there are circumstances when a student cannot attend, such as when he or she needs to attend a family wedding or sibling’s graduation, or observe a religious holiday.
“We understand life happens and we don’t want kids to miss that,” she said. “What we are trying to share with parents is we don’t want kids missing school to go to a doctor’s appointment. We are asking parent to schedule appointments after or before school.”
She also doesn’t want students coming to school if they are ill, adding she trusts parents to know when a student is feeling terrible and needs to stay home versus when a student stayed up too late and wants to sleep in.
“We understand when kids are sick and can’t make it to school,” she said. “We don’t want them in school if they are ill.”
Myers said there is a focus on kindergarteners and first graders having a 95 percent attendance rate because these years are important for setting the groundwork for learning. The more school a student misses, the more he or she could fall behind.
Unfortunately, many people think it’s OK for a kindergarteners to miss school because, well, it’s only kindergarten, Myers said.
“Kindergarten is not the same as when most parents were in kindergarten,” she said. “It’s more of an academic setting where students are learning to read.”
Myers said the administration team did research on attendance and why students miss school What resonated with the staff was the three categories that explain absences: discretion, aversion and barriers.
Discretion is where parents and students don’t understand how much attendance matters, th school lacks a strong culture of attendance or students have something else they’d rather be doing.
Aversion happens when a student is struggling academically, dealing with anxiety or is being bullied.
Barriers are what make it a challenge for a student to attend school including a lack of access to healthcare; no safe path to school; lack transportation; family responsibilities; house instability; need to work; or justice system.
For between 80 to 90 percent of the students, attendance issues likely fall under the aversion and barrier categories.
Myers said those are the students the district’s staff will work with on an individual basis to create a check-in system and incentives for improving attendance.
“There are advocates at every school who can help families,” she said, adding she encourages families to seek assistance or talk with their school’s staff. “We know life happens and it can happen to any of us. We live in a community with the resources to help families out during tough times.”
Throughout the district, principals and staff members have created incentives to motivate students to arrive to school on time and to attend school.
At Victor Point and Silver Crest Elementary schools, students are given a goal to reach and if they achieved it they were awarded with an extra PE time. Other schools have motivated students with extra time for reading.
Assistant Superintendent Dandy Stevens made a presentation to the school board at its work session on Nov. 24. An emphasis on attendance and timeliness is a way to prepare students for the rigors of high school and beyond, Stevens said, adding there are studies showing the correlation to attendance and graduation rates and test scores.
In September, Parsons said there was a push to encourage kids to be in school. The results were a 95.91 percent attendance rate this year compared with 95.49 percent a year ago. From September to Nov. 22, attendance was 94.91 percent compared with 93.84 percent last year.
Parsons said there has been a big push to let parents know attendance matters. “If students aren’t here, we can’t educate them,” she said.
Butte Creek Principal Kevin Palmer sent a letter home with his students explaining the importance of being on time to school and in school every day. He also let each student know how many absences and tardies they had last year.
In his letter, Palmer wrote the goal is for each student to have a 95 percent attendance or better or missing no more than nine days of school.
“To give you an idea of our individual student attendance last year, exactly 60 percent of our kids accomplished this goal, which is great,” Palmer wrote. “However, it also means that a full 40 percent (125 kids) did not. In fact, of those 125 kids, 44 missed more than 20 days; 8 missed more than 30 days; and 5 students were absent more than 40 days of school. These high rates of absences need to end, and this will only happen when school takes a place of priority in each household.”
He sent a school calendar to every household and provided suggestions for planning appointments on Mondays when there is a half-day of school. He also asked parents to plan family vacations around the school calendar.
Myers said the district’s staff wants kids in school.“The things that are happening in the classroom are important.”
