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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2020)
La Grande Pride www.lagrandesd.org • March 2020 9 EVERY DAY MATTERS “Every Day Matters and School + You = Success” By Trish Yerges considered to have attendance issues. The La Grande School “We’d like to see District’s Strategic Plan has everyone at 95% a goal to reach 94% atten- attendance, which dance this year. To achieve is considered good this goal, the district has attendance,” he said. initiated the “Every Day “At this point in the Matters & School Plus You year there are about Equals Success,” a com- 115 school days, and munication campaign to if that is the case, if disseminate information on you’ve missed more why regular attendance is than 11 school days crucial for school success. for any reason, then Leading the district’s you would be con- attendance committee sidered chronically overseeing this campaign is absent.” Chris Wagner, the vice prin- When a student is cipal at the Middle School. chronically absent, The committee is pro- then the school considers viding the schools with the student at risk to not resources to bring the be successful at school. “It’s attendance up. Since this is one of the strongest risk the first year of doing it, the factors we look at, both in committee set some goals terms of not learning how at the to read on time and grad- “Right now, we’re just at uation,” said Wagner. “Stu- 92.85% for daily attendance dents not reading at grade throughout the year for the level by the end of the third entire district,” said Wagner. grade are 18% less likely to “We would like to be at 94% graduate.” by the end of the year.” The consequences of not beginning of the year. attending school regularly “One thing we share is includes poorer academic that it’s hard to do well performance and having a in school when you aren’t hard time staying caught attending regularly. We up. “They fall behind which would like parents to know causes them to either go that regular attendance into themselves and hide means 90% attendance or and don’t ask questions or better,” he said. “In other they have behavior issues words, for every 10 school because they feel insecure days, a kid should not miss when they don’t know the more than one day.” answers. So it creates a Anyone beneath that snowball effect on every- percentile is considered not thing else,” said Wagner. a regular attender and is Those not attending regularly have a hard time connecting with their peers because they’re gone so much that their peers don’t necessarily rely on them to be at school. “They are not as involved in school, and part of the success in school is to at- tend, participate, do your best, and get along with people,” said Wagner. “But there’s no way to do very well when you’re not a regu- lar attender at school.” The Every Day Matters campaign involves using informational propaganda and signs that are placed around the community and displayed on the movie the- ater screen. “Basically, we’re trying to get families into this culture of getting up, getting ready, and attending school each day,” said Wagner. “Kids with this culture tend to do health and dental care, homeless situations or kids living in hotels that strug- gle to get to school. The second is the aver- sion to school---“I won’t go, can’t go”---a mindset some- times caused by bullying and harassment or feeling unsupported or unwelcomed at school. The third category is complete disengagement, not having a good rela- tionship at the school. A student may feel they are not getting enough out of school. better in school.” A lot of non-attenders A fourth category is a live within the city limits. common myth that ‘the only There is bussing available problem with absences is but for whatever reasons, when they are unexcused.’ they don’t catch the bus. If “That is a myth,” said Wag- they are within a mile of the ner. “Every day away from school, they are considered school for whatever reason in walking distance of the is a day away from instruc- school, yet some choose not tion.” to come to school or have The bottom line is that some barrier that prevents success in school is directly them from coming. The attendance secretary tied to being a regular at- plays an important role in tender at school. That’s why connecting with families the district is working hard who have unexcused, absent toward achieving the ulti- children. She calls every mate 95% attendance rate. day to check on their where- “We want to work with abouts and reasons for families and support them being absent. to get their kids to school on There are four basic a regular basis,” said Wag- categories of reasons why ner. “Please contact your students become non-at- school teacher if you have tenders. The first is barri- any questions about atten- ers, such as health-related issues, poor transportation, dance or see our attendance trauma in home, lack of secretary.”
