JACKSON, Mich — Chronic absenteeism remains a challenge for school districts around our state. Jackson Public Schools says it's working strategically to lower that number.
WATCH THE VIDEO TO FIND OUT WHAT'S BEING DONE:
"We're seeing that our chronic absentee numbers in our own data is showing a decline," says JPS Deputy Superintendent for Curriculum and Federal Programs Julie Baker.
Baker says reasons for absenteeism can range from academic struggles to transportation to personal conflicts…and the District is in year three of a multi-tiered, individualized strategy for decreasing absenteeism.
"It's looking at early warning data, so we look at ABC — attendance, behavior, and core subject areas," says Baker. "Staff will sit down on a monthly basis and they'll pull data in all three of those areas and they'll look for those students that have data that sort of comes off the page — those early warning signs."
Then...
"Based on that information, the team works on interventions. So they will reach out and talk to the parent, maybe have a meeting to talk about attendance and what's going on — to see if there's barriers that we can remove."
I ask Baker: Do you have enough staff and time to deal with it this way?
"We've added behavior interventionists in our building, and we had additional social workers last year," says Baker.
Michigan's official education data source, mischooldata.org, says chronic absenteeism is about 47% at JPS for the 2023-24 school year — the most recent data it has. Baker says that number includes all absences — including excused absences.
Jim Hines, spokesperson for the Center for Educational Performance and Information, says mischooldata.org absenteeism data includes all students who "missed 10 percent or more possible days during the scheduled school year, and were enrolled in a district or building for at least 10 consecutive days."
"It's a little different than we calculate it," says Baker. "But we still know that that's not a great number."
Baker says the District is seeing a turnaround in its own, more recently compiled data: "We still have a ways to go, but we're excited to see what that data is going to show at the state level. We think it's going to show a nice improvement."
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