Skipping School/ Attendance

What is skipping school?

Some of the skipping issues come from waking up late, if you’re already pretty late you'd stop at a convenient store or a coffee place like dunkin or aroma joe’s because teens view it as “well I'm already late so I might as well get something before I go”. Students skip class for multiple ”reasons” like avoiding teachers or other classmates, to be social (skip/hangout with other peers),students can go on their phone, if you have a favorite teacher or staff member you may rather hangout or talk to them rather than going to class. Some students feel like going to the class is pointless if they’ve missed a lot of school causing them to get behind in that class when the student comes back we see all of the work Smoking is also a problem with skipping class, students will ask to go to the nurse or the bathroom and go meet up with their friend to go hide somewhere to smoke/vape. Teenagers also do this by themselves and just go to the bathroom. school skipping can also have some genuine reasons behind why they are leaving or missing school.

Destructive Decisions and Skipping School

Destructive decisions are made constantly by everybody whether it is minor or not.

Students tend to think of the short term effects rather than the long term effects like how skipping a class or even a day of school may effect your future, by skipping that class because you just weren't feeling like it or because it was “pointless” because you’re already failing can cause you to fail the whole class in general and then you have to do credit recovery,summer school,redue that class later in your school career and possibly even stay back a year and not be able to graduate with your class on time. Most of the time students skip because of destructive decisions but some of the time it can be for safety concerns. For example if a peer and yourself get into an altercation and they post about what had happened or make a group chat and even though you thought it wasn't a big deal and or that it was solved the person you had that incident with want to or is threatening you to fight or beat you up; if you really feel like it's not that big of a deal or if you’re scared to get your butt beat and that it could be on video. You'd probably want to be away from that peer to avoid or prevent that from happening.

How does skipping school impact school culture?

Skipping school has a very negative impact on our school Culture. Most people probably don't even recognize it, but if you think about it say someone you know missed a week of school came back and didn't do any work while they were out they could’ve tried but couldn't understand anything without help or they could've just not had felt like doing it. Now this student is clearly very overwhelmed/stressed out because they see how much missing work they have in every class. This student is now most likely self doubting themselves and feels like there's no point on trying because “even if I did try there'd be no point I wouldn't pass and the teacher isn't going to help”.

Those thoughts that that one single student had just affected the rest of the year for that class because now that they’ve given up on doing their work. How do you think this would impact the classroom now?

Skipping School Statistics

The administration referral data for LHS shows that students skipping class was the second highest issue last year being a 206 in the data chart. The year before that it was 483 being the highest score in 2021-2022. More than 20% average of students in high school are chronically absent compared with LHS having 2.9% skipping class last year.

How are other schools dealing with skipping school?

Schools are making a limit on how many day you can be out so it would stop them for the most part but it is all in the student

Schools are doing a tier list for attendance like tier 1 needs help to get to school tier 2 is ok at getting to school tier 3 is good at getting to school

Attendance Review Team

Solutions

One solution can be starting school at a later time.
More one to one time with students that need it.
Smaller classes could help students focus more.
Better hall monitors
Teachers being more respectful when they're addressing an issue to a student.
Making aditional contact with parent.

Works Cited:

Connecticut State Department of Education. “What can schools do to improve attendance.” CT.gov, https://portal.ct.gov/SDE/Publications/Reducing-Chronic-Absence-in-Connecticuts-Schools/What-can-schools-do-to-improve-attendance. Accessed 8 August 2023.

LaconiaDailySun. “Drop-out rates seen declining as local high schools reach out to students.” The Laconia Daily Sun, 9 April 2009, https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news/local/drop-out-rates-seen-declining-as-local-high-schools-reach-out-to-students/article_82e8edf0-f75a-59d9-8c65-76ccc2022ff9.html. Accessed 8 August 2023.

“10 tips to tackle students skipping classes and boost performance.” Creatrix Campus, 3 March 2015, https://www.creatrixcampus.com/blog/10-tips-to-tackle-students-skipping-classes-and-boost-performance. Accessed 9 August 2023.

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