Post-Pandemic attendance and chronic absenteeism in Jamestown Public Schools is improving.
JPS Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker, presenting to the Jamestown School Board, said the average daily attendance is dramatically up since 2020, “And chronic absenteeism is dramatically down, especially among sub-groups. So, the trends are good. The results are not as good as we want them to be. We want the chronic absenteeism to be as low as possible. We want average daily attendance to be as high as possible. But, we have hit the 90 percentile, 91 percentile, in most of the buildings. Some trouble still at the High School and we’re working on that and our chronic absenteeism numbers are on the way down.”
Whitaker said, according to a White House report, the number of public school students nationally who are chronically absent, meaning they miss at least 10 percent of days in a school year, whether excused or unexcused, has nearly doubled. Research has shown that students with high rates of absenteeism are at the greatest risk of falling behind and dropping out of school.
Whitaker said researchers developed an Early Warning System that can help identify students in early grades who may be falling off the graduation path using the criteria of attendance, behavior, and core classes, “So, attendance means.. if you can lower the number of students missing 10% of the school year or more they have a better chance at graduating. Behavior is if you have a large number of small out of school suspensions or in-school suspensions or even a few long-term out of school suspensions, that gets in the way of graduation. And ‘C’ is core classes. Are you passing your core classes.”
Whitaker said those criteria are highly predictive with sixth or seventh grade students who struggle with one or more of those having a 60% chance of not graduating from high school.
He said district wide Intervention tactics include classroom and group interventions; small group and individual planning; and focused individual interventions.
Whitaker said interventions at Jamestown High School include tutoring and check in/check out meetings, “Attempting to build relationships and help a student to track their own success on a daily basis, smaller chunks.. greater success as opposed to larger chunks of time, home visits, building those relationships with parents, parent conferences, child study team referrals, literacy intervention.. this has to do with academics as well. But if you’re struggling with reading, you tend to disengage with school as well.”
Whitaker said the main goal is to prevent failure and to provide students the best chance of graduation.
“Children with ADHD and autism face significantly higher risks of school suspension and expulsion, often due to behavior stemming from their neurodivergence being interpreted as disruptive. ADHD is linked to a 33 times higher likelihood of suspension, while autism/ASD increases the risk by 10 times. Students with these conditions are often punished for behaviors beyond their control, such as impulsivity, restlessness, and sensory overload.” (https://www.americanprogress.org/article) Why am I posting this? Because I am one fed-up parent of an ADHD child, and the Jamestown school district is failing our children. I will never forget the time my child was newly diagnosed, and I sat waiting for my kids to get out of school, overhearing teachers state they wished children with behavioral disorders would be secluded to a separate classroom. Around this time, the Principal at Fletcher Elementary had brought up OSS for my youngest. I found it odd, considering other punishments had yet to be utilized, and I let her know I was familiar with statistics surrounding out-of-school suspensions, their lack of positive outcomes, and how unfair they are in distribution from a statistical standpoint. The Jamestown school district has extremely poor statistics. Some schools in the district are as high as 20% in OSS distribution. My child’s pediatrician is getting concerned; his counselor is getting concerned. Why should that matter? Because this area already has a high poverty rate, and suspensions lead to higher dropout rates and incarcerations. People have to ask themselves if they really want an education system that perpetuates the very cycle some children are born into in an area where 40% of children live in poverty. For children who live in poverty, they are already at a higher risk of continuing to live in poverty going into adulthood. Perhaps the Superintendent might start giving a shit. I’ve gone as far as contacting The New York State Governor and the Department of Education; you get the gist, but giving up isn’t an option when you have kids to take care of!
Sincerely, One pissed-off Mom.