Attribution:
Kimberly Doman is the Director of Alternative Education for a school district. She holds a
Bachelors degree in Secondary Education with a double major in Mathematics and Integrated
Science, a Masters degree in Educational Leadership with a concentration in K-12
Administration, and is currently pursuing an Education Specialist degree in Educational
Leadership.
Addressing Chronic Absenteeism at an Alternative High School
Daily attendance is a necessity for students to succeed in their classes. Teachers are tasked with
delivering a large amount of curriculum in one school year or semester/term, and they arent able
to catch up truant students within the class time if they have not been attending. For a truant
student, this only starts the downhill struggle with attendance, academics, behavior, and earning
credit towards their diploma. If a student is struggling with getting to school, their grades are
likely to slip. If they arent earning credit in school, they are more likely to drop out.
Defined as missing at least 10 percent (approximately 18 days) of school days in a school year,
chronic absenteeism puts students at heightened risk of falling behind and dropping out of
school. Together, communities can address and eliminate chronic absenteeism, and ultimately
boost student success and strengthen our nation's workforce and our future prosperity.
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the federal government requires states to report
chronic absenteeism rates, and districts will be allowed to use federal dollars on training to
reduce the problem. According to the State of Michigans Department of Education, the ESSA
Accountability piece addresses the A-F Grading System. This is broken into six indicators with
varying weights: Proficiency (29 percent), Growth (34 percent), School/Quality/Student Success
(14 percent), Graduation Rate (10 percent), English Learner (EL) Progress (10 percent), and
Participation (3 percent). The School Quality/Student Success indicator includes
teacher/administrator longevity; chronic student absenteeism; completion of postsecondary
credential while still in high school; time spent/access to fine arts, physical education, music.
Fourteen percent of the Accountability School Scorecard includes chronic absenteeism.
Alternative High School programs are currently under the same accountability system as
traditional systems. They are graded on the exact same scale. In a local Alternative High School,
their chronic absentee rate was just over 60%, compared to only 14.2% as the state average for
2015-16. As long as traditional schools are feeding their chronically absent students to their local
alternative programs, this problem will never be solved.
The State of Michigan is currently piloting a separate accountability scorecard specifically for
Alternative High Schools. This is the first year that they have started this pilot. Since its in the
early stages of collecting data and effectiveness, it will be a few years until any change for
Alternative Education accountability changes.
I am urging Alternative Education programs to not focus on building an attendance policy to
punish students for not attending school, rather to build in rewards and accountability within
their day to day operations. What the Alternative Education community needs is more support;
not another conversation about how they are not falling short compared to traditional schools.
The Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) system is used in many schools across the
country to tackle many school issues that could include attendance, discipline, and academic
gains on local/state assessments. Successful PBIS programs are a large part of the school culture.
Since there isnt just a one size fits all answer as to why students arent coming to school, it is
important that each building puts together a PBIS team. This team would meet at least monthly
to review student data. This review process is critical to see where efforts need to be tweaked and
targeted to get the desired result. This will be a major system change in your building, so it is
imperative that you have total staff buy-in to the concept.
The intrinsic motivation that students will feel will be our best bet in getting our Alternative
students to want to come to school when they are able.
