Denver Public Schools may run regular attendance reports and hold principals, and even individual teachers, accountable for keeping students in class after a report showed dismal attendance rates at many schools.
“I think it’s critical to good decisionmaking that we have great data, and I think this is a step ahead in this effort,” said Superintendent Michael Bennet. “I hope our daily attendance rates improve.”
The first-ever comprehensive look at this data in Denver shows that attendance is high in elementary school and slowly deteriorates as students get even a little bit older.
Last school year, sixth-graders’ attendance rate was 92 percent; ninth-graders’ was only 81 percent.
DPS officials may consider broad policy changes to make sure children who miss a lot of school don’t fall behind.
Those changes could include holding students back a grade level if they miss too much school or finding other ways for them to get credits if they have dropped out.
Attendance numbers show that some students are missing a substantial portion of their education.
More than half the students in all middle schools – including K-8s – missed between seven and 26 days of school last year.
About 20 percent of students at West, Montbello, John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln high schools missed class between 27 and 43 days of the roughly 180-day school year.
In most high schools, attendance rates hover at 80 percent or less.
At West High, the average daily attendance rate was 69 percent in the 2006-07 school year.
Even existing alternative education programs aren’t pulling in high-attendance numbers – something assistant superintendent Happy Haynes said may mean that the district needs to seek outside solutions.
At Denver Online High School, for example, 23 percent of its students missed between 27 and 43 days of school last year.
“All of this is going to inform our work,” she said. “Driven by circumstances, family issues, work, even the alternative schools themselves can’t address all that.”
Among other findings in the 65-page report:
Kindergarten through eighth- grade schools had an average of 94 percent attendance. Middle schools had an 89 percent average.
Charter schools, operated independently of the district, had significantly higher attendance than noncharter schools. Three met 97-percent-attendance goals set by the district.
The district’s overall attendance rate – 88 percent – was about 5 percentage points lower than the state’s overall attendance rate, which was 93 percent in the same year.
The attendance report underscores Denver Public Schools’ effort to begin holding all schools accountable for improving attendance and boosting CSAP scores and parental involvement.
When schools fall short of goals set by the district, they could get extra resources and help, officials said.
Bennet said the district will now be able to run weekly or monthly attendance reports on schools to see how they’re doing.
He told board members he could picture calling a principal whose school was struggling with attendance and saying, “Hey, you’re in the bottom third in attendance this month. … We don’t want to see you there next month.”
Remington Elementary principal Veronica Benavidez believes schools need to take attendance seriously – even if kids are gone for personal problems.
When Benavidez arrived at the high-poverty northwest Denver school a little more than a year ago, she was astonished the average attendance rate was only 92 percent – low for an elementary school.
Most hover above 95 percent statewide.
This past school year, she gave pizza and popcorn parties to classrooms with 95 percent attendance or higher.
The number of students with perfect attendance jumped from three to 17 in one year. And the school’s overall attendance rate went up from 93 to 94 percent.
“I think it is our responsibility,” Benavidez said. “If they’re not coming because of a condition in the schools, then we need to fix it. If they’re not coming because of something at home, then we need to connect them to community resources for help.”
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
