City and County leaders come together to promote school attendance

Kay Dixon, Mayor David Thompson, Judge Executive Mike Mitchell, and Kelly Sprinkles are shown in the forefront reading a proclamation in the Mayor's office.

Community leaders, students, and staff are posed in the Mayor's Office for a proclamation signing.

Barbourville City Hall was crowded on Monday morning, September 9, as Mayor David Thompson, Judge-Executive Mike Mitchell, Barbourville and Knox County superintendent’s Kay Dixon and Kelly Sprinkles, students, school staff, and school partners issued a proclamation declaring September as Attendance Awareness Month in Knox County.

There is no rivalry when it comes to promoting the importance of attendance in both school systems.  That message was echoed Monday morning as the city and county came together to show that schools and community partners can reach out more frequently to absent students to determine what barriers they face to attending school and what would help them attend more regularly.

“Chronic absence predicts lower third-grade reading proficiency, course failure, and eventual dropout, it weakens our communities and our local economy,” shared Judge-Executive Mitchell as he read from the proclamation.

“It’s hard to measure improvement in classroom instruction if students are not in class to benefit from them,” he continued to say.

Both city and county superintendent’s pledged to continue reaching out to families and the community for support while increasing their own focus on attendance.  The proclamation stated that “schools and districts must do more to track, calculate and share the data on how many students are chronically absent so that we can see the attendance gaps and can deliver the right interventions to the right students.”

Among those at the signing were Brian Carey, Director of Pupil Personnel for Barbourville Independent and Bruce Mills and Bryan Elliott, Attendance Officers for Knox County Schools.  While their roles include tracking students and helping to identify student challenges, partners such as Berea College’s Partners for Education, which was also in attendance, can step in and assist with the barriers and provide interventions preventing attendance.

Mayor Thompson stressed the importance of the entire community coming together to share in the responsibility of regular student attendance.

“Improving attendance and reducing chronic absence takes commitment, collaboration and tailored approaches to particular challenges and strengths in each community,” Mayor Thompson read from the proclamation.

Next Tuesday, September 17, is High Attendance Day in districts throughout the state.  While the attention will be on schools with the best attendance, regular attendance all year long is the key to student success and successful schools.

Full text of the proclamation

WHEREAS, good attendance is essential to student achievement and graduation, and we are committed to dedicating our resources and attention to reducing chronic absenteeism rates, with a focus starting as early as prekindergarten and
kindergarten,

WHEREAS, chronic absence – missing 10 percent or more of school for any reason including excused and unexcused absences, or just two of three days a month – is a proven predictor of academic trouble and dropout rates,

WHEREAS, chronic absence is now a required reporting metric under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act,

WHEREAS, improving attendance and reducing chronic absence takes commitment, collaboration and tailored approaches to particular challenges and strengths in each community,

WHEREAS, chronic absence predicts lower third-grade reading proficiency, course failure and eventual dropout, it weakens our communities and our local economy,

WHEREAS the impact of chronic absence hits students in low-income communities and children of color particularly hard if they don’t have the resources to make up for lost time in the classroom and are more likely to face systemic barriers to getting to school – such as unreliable transportation, lack of access to health care, unstable or unaffordable housing,

WHEREAS, attendance gaps among groups of students often turn into achievement gaps that undermine student success. Chronic absence particularly exacerbates the achievement gap that separates students in low-income communities from their peers, since students from low-income communities are both more likely to be chronically absent and more likely to be affected academically by missing school,

WHEREAS, absenteeism also undermines efforts to improve struggling schools, since it’s hard to measure improvement in classroom instruction if students are not in class to benefit from them,

WHEREAS, schools and community partners can reach out more frequently to absent students to determine what barriers they face to attending school and what would help them attend more regularly,

WHEREAS, schools and districts must do more to track, calculate and share the data on how many students are chronically absent so that we can see the attendance gaps and can deliver the right interventions to the right students,

NOW, THEREFORE LET IT BE RESOLVED that we, the Mayor of Barbourville, the Judge-Executive of Knox County, and the Superintendent’s of the Barbourville Independent and Knox County school systems, hereby proclaim that Knox County, Kentucky will stand with the Nation in recognizing September 2019 as “Attendance Awareness Month”.

We hereby commit to focusing on reducing chronic absenteeism to give all children an equitable opportunity to learn, grow and thrive academically, emotionally and socially.