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Dear HKMS Families,

Once a month the HKMS team leaders gather for operational, logistical, and strategic planning.  Each team (6th, 7th, 8th, FPA, and Student Support) bring up areas that need attention, initiatives we want to undertake, or requirements that are coming down the pike.  This week we met and spent most of our meeting talking about attendance concerns.  I have also received a number of emails and phone calls about the recent "attendance letters" that were sent out last week.  So attendance is on everyone's mind and for good reason.  Check out these empirically-based research findings:

• Attendance is a better predictor of high school and college success than eighth-grade standardized test scores (Buehler, et al., 2012).

• One day of missed school can equate to 2.5 days of lost math learning and 1.5 days of lost language and literacy learning (Ansari & Pianta, 2019; Applied Survey Research, 2011).

• By the sixth grade, chronic absence [missing 10% or more of school] becomes a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school (De La Torre et al., 2018; Neild & Balfanz, 2005).

• Studies consistently show that students with better attendance score higher on achievement tests and receive higher course grades than their frequently absent peers (Cohn & Johnson, 2006; Gottfried, 2014).

• Chronic absenteeism in individual students can negatively affect the academic achievement of their non-absent peers, as teachers must dedicate more time to helping them catch up (Gottfried, 2014; Musser, 2021).

• Chronic absenteeism during K-8 has been linked to negative outcomes in early adulthood, including greater economic difficulties, poorer educational outcomes, and lower income (Ansari et al., 2020).

The State of Connecticut School Attendance guidelines provide parents some attendance discretion, allowing for up to nine (n=9) absences for the full school year, all of which parents can identify as excused.  This represents 5% of the school year.   Absences at or below 5% or less seem to have a minimal effect on student outcomes.  When children are sick, have a death in their family, need to attend a legal appointment, or have an extraordinary educational opportunity, the state allows schools to "excuse" further absences.  A student who is chronically absent, or is absent more than 10% of the year (18 absences/year) is considered truant, and we must report that truancy to the state.  At that point families are required to partner with the school to develop interventions to disrupt the absence pattern.  Families who refuse, can be identified as being neglectful of their child's education and can be reported to Department of Children and Families (DCF) as such. 

From a teacher's perspective student absenteeism is a major issue, for which there is no easy solution.  Let's say a student misses three days of lessons about dividing fractions.  By day four, when the absent student returns, the math teacher should be ready to give the students a quiz, to make sure they are understanding the topic.  During the quiz the teacher may be able to spend a few minutes with the absent student, but she is also monitoring the quiz, and as students finish, she moves on to the next topic.  The absent student is lost, and it may take weeks for him to catch up.  In the meantime, new content also does not make sense as math builds on prior lessons.  Grading this student is also problematic; do we hold them as accountable as the other students? do we excuse them? or somehow modify the content of the quiz so they can demonstrate what they know, even if incomplete?  All lousy responses to a pretty common problem.   

When a child is sick we want you to keep them home.  We can handle a day off or two here or there.  But taking a week long family vacation that does not align with one of our predetermined vacation weeks, is really difficult.  When the absence is "excused" teachers are required to provide the makeup work.  However, once they become "unexcused" teacher are no longer required to do so.  Most of the Keller teachers are very understanding, and try to work with families who "need" to take a family trip, but they do not have to, and we are discussing if we may be enabling unexcused absences, especially for vacations.  Our advice, please plan family trips considering the school schedule.  Over the course of the year, we schedule three-weeks off during the year, six long weekends, and eleven-weeks off over the summer.   While those times can be harder and more expensive to book trips (as teachers we are well aware!), it is crucial for your child's future that you do everything you can to stick to those times for recreational trips.    

It was a full five-day week that most of us made it through without an absence.  If your child made it all five-days, be sure to congratulate them and keep the momentum going through next week (Wednesday is a special day here featuring our Gratitude Assembly!).  Reminder---next Wednesday is an early release day.  HKMS students will head home at 11:50am.  Until then be sure to check out all the great middle school teaching and learning from this week in our latest newsletter!

Hoping you and your family have a wonderful weekend!  

Sincerely,

Steve Clapp, Ed.D.

Principal

Our young historians have built models of early River Valley Civilizations. The earliest civilizations developed around major river valleys, like the Tigris and Euphrates (Mesopotamia/Sumer), the Indus (Harappa), the Nile (Egypt), and Meso-America (Mayan/Incan).  Exploring why this happened at about the same time provides Mr. Bernardi's scholars with rich topics to explore.  

Sixth grade students in health class are learning the difference between macronutrients and micronutrients. 

References for the Opening Letter

Allensworth, E., Moore, P., & Stevens, W. D. (2018). The predictive power of student attendance data in Chicago Public Schools. UChicago Consortium on School Research.

Ansari, A., & Pianta, R. C. (2019). Child attendance in elementary school and the achievement gap: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111(3), 488–502.

Ansari, A., Purtell, K. M., & Gershoff, E. T. (2020). The long-term effects of childhood absence from school. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 69, 101131.

Applied Survey Research. (2011, July 15). Attendance in early elementary grades. https://www.attendanceworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASR-Mini-Report-Attendance-Readiness-and-Third-Grade-Outcomes-7-8-11.pdf

Balfanz, R., & Byrnes, V. (2012). The importance of being in school: A report on absenteeism in the nation's public schools. Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools.

Cohn, E., & Johnson, C. (2006). Incidence and impact of student absenteeism in an urban school district. The Journal of Negro Education, 75(2), 170–179.

De La Torre, M., Allensworth, E. M., & Stevens, W. D. (2018). The predictive power of student attendance data in Chicago Public Schools. Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Gottfried, M. A. (2014). Absent peers? The effect of student absenteeism on peers' academic achievement. The Elementary School Journal, 114(4), 494–516.

Musser, E. (2021). Peer effects of chronic absenteeism in the elementary grades: The importance of context and measurement. American Educational Research Journal, 58(5), 903–936.

Neild, R. C., & Balfanz, R. (2005). From grade eight on: A final analysis of student enrollment, movement, and dropout trajectories. The Consortium on Student Retention Data Exchange Journal, 9(1), 1S–78S.