Attendance

From February 1st until now Mrs. Casey is still keeping track of every Freshmans', Sophomores', Juniors' and Seniors' attendance for these couple of days. They have announced each grade's attendance in the morning bulletins: who had the most tardies, missed the whole day or came to school but missed the last few classes of the day. I asked Mrs.Casey why she is keeping track of students' attendance and she said “research shows direct relationship of amount of school missed with grades and their future”. It’s important for her to keep track of the attendance because “the State of Washington has set new guides for all schools and so we have to meet those guides”. Some of the changes are working towards PBIS, or Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, which is a proactive approach to establishing the behavioral supports and social culture and needed for all students in a school to achieve social, emotional, and academic success. I interviewed a few students about how they felt about Mrs.Casey keeping track of the attendance and why they thought she was doing this. One of their responses was “she might be doing this so each class can hear and be notified of their attendance for their class and they can make a difference”. I asked if attendance was important to them and they said if they miss too many days of school it affects their grades and also because some of them can't leave for lunch. If she were to continue this next year some students there will be a change; one of the responses was “it will motivate them and also because of open lunch”. Some suggestions for a solution from some students were court (no excuse), extra work, make-up Saturday, and grade attendance.