October 20, 2025

Greetings, BHS students, families and community. 

I hope this issue of the newsletter finds you well. As the first quarter nears an end this Friday, I find myself reflecting on an issue that has taken up an incredible amount of time and energy for the BHS staff, student support team, and the administration: attendance. I usually keep my newsletters upbeat, but this time I'm reaching out to share some important information that I hope may make a positive difference.

We are already about 25% of our way through the academic year. Yet, some students have experienced substantially less of the school year. Why? Because of high levels of absence. While attendance rates at BHS, BSD, and across the US have slowly but steadily increased since the historic lows after the return from COVID, persistent absence still remains stubbornly normalized and one of the greatest challenges we face in education. And that's not surprising; COVID was a time when our institutions broke the social compact of compulsory schooling -- we shut our doors and opened remote classrooms. What seemed unshakable suddenly collapsed...and not everyone has bounced back in the years since.

As of last Friday, students have had 34 days of school -- and, so far, 15% of our student body has been absent at least 10% of the school year. That's a substantial loss of instruction, and it takes a toll quickly. A recent study of elementary students in Delaware found that students with high rates of absence tend to score significantly lower on standardized assessments in both mathematics and literacy. This is not surprising, since disruption of learning is challenging to overcome in elementary school. But at the high school level this can be even more damaging. 

In high school level, where the pace is faster and diplomas are awarded based on credits earned, the learning loss can be even more marked. Indeed, it is truly difficult to miss a lot of a high school class and pass it (as it should be) -- and even harder to truly be ready for the next year of learning, since each year builds on the ones before it. Taken all together, this means that high absence rates substantially increase the risk of failing to graduate high school in four years, or at all.

But it's not just individuals who are affected by absence. Even before COVID, research like this 2019 study found a link between individuals and groups: individuals with high absence rates (due to truancy or class-cutting) are likely to influence higher absenteeism in the classroom as a whole. In other words, absence can be "catching".

And the impacts don't stop there. The 2025 study also identified another impact that most teachers can tell you from their own experience: that class-cutting and absence affects even the students with perfect attendance, as teachers must slow down to reteach or help students who cut class or stayed home catch up. It can feel impossible to strike a balance between bringing students who missed class up to speed, while honoring the efforts of students who are present every day.

Now of course there are legitimate reasons to be out, and sometimes there are valid reasons to be out for a long while. This message is not about that. This is about the other times. All this is to say:

BHS Students, please do your very best to get to school on time each day, stay in school all day, and attend each of your classes. Come to school when you'd rather not. Come to school when you stayed up too late on the bus back from a game -- or just playing video games. Come to school even when you'd rather delay an exam you didn't prepare enough for. And, yes, come to school on your birthday.

BHS Parents, please do your very best to get your kids to school each day, make sure they stay there, and pay heed to the text alerts, emails and conference invitations that are being sent when classes are missed. Please tell your kids that they need to go to each class, even and especially the ones that feel hard. Please don't try to call out your student on an excused absence when it's not a legitimate excused absence.

We are doing more at BHS than perhaps ever before to monitor attendance, build early alert systems, and try to catch and resolve attendance challenges before the hole gets too deep. But it's a team effort. We can get back to a time when being in school, each day, was the overwhelming norm, and absences the scarce exception. And as we focus more on assigning grades based on what students know and can do, it will become more important than ever that each student is present and attending to their learning.

As always, my appreciation for your partnership and support.

With gratitude,

Sabrina Westdijk