School's Incentives Slash Rate of Truancy
Posted on: Monday, 31 March 2008, 03:00 CDT
By Benjamin Price
ATHENS, Ga. - Every month, Hilsman Middle School students get a reward just for coming to school every day.
Some months it's a T-shirt, sometimes it's a certificate, some- times it's a handshake from Principal Tony Price.
But a simple gift and short recognition can mean a lot to a 12- or 13-year-old, Mr. Price said, especially if the child hasn't had a lot of success in school.
As schools everywhere try to curb truancy, Hilsman's tack seems to work, and the school has cut the number of chronically absent pupils in half. Kids will get the message, Mr. Price said, that sitting in class every day is the first step toward more success.
"If you're here every day - focused and on time - you have a better chance of doing well," he said.
Filling seats in elementary and middle schools is more important than ever when schools must make "Adequate Yearly Progress" - the barometer used to gauge the overall quality of a school under the No Child Left Behind law.
While most high schools have to graduate enough students to make AYP benchmarks, attendance often is a key statistic for elementary and middle schools. If too many pupils miss 15 or more days of school, the school takes a hit.
Rewarding pupils for their behavior is one of the reasons Mr. Price thinks attendance at Hilsman improved significantly over the past three years.
Since 2004-05, the school has cut in half the number of pupils who missed too many days, from almost 15 percent to just 7 percent last year, according to numbers from the Governor's Office of Student Achievement.
That's good enough to satisfy the attendance requirements of AYP, but Mr. Price hopes it eventually will lead to more success in an area where the school struggles - test scores.
The state's Criterion-Ref-er-enced Competency Test is given to every pupil in grades 3 to 8 every year, and enough pupils must pass in order for the school to make AYP. Eighth-grade students must pass the test to get promoted to the ninth grade.
Last year, too many pupils failed the CRCT, and Hilsman didn't make AYP.
One of the strategies to improve those results this year is to get pupils to school more often.
"Their chances of passing CRCT are slim if they're not here and receiving instruction," he said.
Originally published by Benjamin Price Morris News Service.
(c) 2008 Augusta Chronicle, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Augusta Chronicle, The
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