Chronic absenteeism is a large problem faced across the school system. Specifically, at West Po, staff are addressing the issue in multiple ways to increase the wellbeing of the school.
By Virginia law, all students ages five to 18 years old are required to attend school regularly. Chronic absenteeism is not just tardies, excused absences count as well. If a student misses more than 10 percent of the school year for any reason, they are deemed chronically absent.
West Potomac is addressing chronic absenteeism with many different methods, including reaching out to parents and spreading the word. The percentage of chronically absent students has slowly decreased over the last few years, with the goal of having only 15% of students chronically absent.
Brian Bishop, West Potomac Dean of Students says, “A few years ago we were up to 26% of students that had missed more than 10% of the school year, we got it down to around 19% at the end of last year.”
Despite this improvement, Bishop and West Po administration hope to continue decreasing the number of chronically absent students.
“Our goal is to get to 15% or below this year…We’ve been trying to do a whole bunch of different things as we’ve been bringing it down year after year,” Bishop said.
To continue to drop the number of chronically absent students, Bishop implements parent-student conferences.
“When a student reaches 10 unexcused days of absences, we have a meeting with them and the parents. We try to set goals, make strategies to try to make sure they show up for school,” Bishop said.
During these meetings, students’ grades are addressed as well to keep them up to speed in their classes.
“A lot of those meetings are about how we can help them with their grades, because 90% of the time, they are failing most of their classes because they haven’t been in class to do the assignments required,” Bishop said.
Another way staff are combating absences is outreach to the community. Lots of parents misinterpret what chronic absenteeism really is. The idea that you can be excused but not unexcused is not true. No matter what type of absence it is, the student still misses a significant amount of instructional time.
Sophomore Lux Gremo is chronically absent. In November, they were only able to attend four full days of school as a consequence of sickness and travel. Of the days they did attend, they recall feeling stressed.
“[The days] were very miserable,” Gremo recounted. “My teachers understood, I let them know about what was going on, but I kind of just sat there and wasn’t sure what to do.”
West Po Principal Jessica Statz said, “We want to make sure students know that school is a priority, and attempt to help kids be successful so they can go onto whatever their next step might be, if that’s graduating, joining the workforce, going to college, or joining the military.”
Ms. Statz emphasizes the importance of attending school and avoiding being chronically absent.
“Every single day might not seem like a lot, but everyday is still important,” Ms. Statz said.
For Gremo, this significance is a personal experience.
“This is still continuing to affect me and my grades, from that specific month, because so much happened and I just found it really hard to recover,” Gremo said. “I’m still working on it.”
