Students in Springfield Public Schools have improved their overall attendance rate, and are getting closer to meeting a goal of increasing overall class attendance by 2%.
According to school officials, second-quarter attendance was 92.19%, which was 1.37% higher than the rate for the same time in 2022-2023. The improvement rate is better than the first quarter’s, as well. The school district reported an increase of 0.91 % over last year, from 92.11% to 93.02%.
The quarter ended on Dec. 22, at the start of the holiday break. It marked halftime in a yearlong game of attempting to increase Springfield’s average daily attendance rate by 2%. Superintendent Grenita Lathan has promised to take a Gatorade bath if the target is met at year’s end.
Ben Hackenwerth, chief innovation officer for Springfield Public Schools, said he and others are encouraged by the rate, even though attendance has not yet hit the target.
“We continue to be pretty optimistic about it,” Hackenwerth said. “While we’re not at the 2% yet, we are maintaining a nice cushion over where we were last year.”
Better performance through expected challenges
The change is meaningful to educators considering that the second and third quarters stretch over months full of holidays, winter weather and illnesses.
But school officials have been more active this year than in year’s past, Hackenwerth said. Principals and building leaders are using a number of tactics to improve attendance, from friendly competition between schools to focusing on shorter increments of time — many schools promote focusing on perfect attendance for two-week periods, for instance.
“There was a time when we celebrated perfect attendance, but once you lose that, there is not a lot to celebrate,” Hackenwerth said. “We’re looking past that, and trying to give short windows to be successful, and that has made a big difference.”
Part Missouri's annual review
The attendance rate is a small part of the Continuous Improvement portion of the Missouri School Improvement Program. Combined with kindergarten assessments, the use of improvement plans and other measures, attendance accounts for four out of a possible 52 points. The portion that involves annual MAP tests accounts for 140 points.
In its latest report, released in December from the state, SPS earned zero out of a possible four points, because it did not meet attendance targets.
The state measures a different attendance figure: It tracks the percentage of students who attend school at least 85% of the time. SPS came in at 75%, behind the state average of 81.4%.
“We want kids in seats because we think it’s the best way to achieve long-term success,” Hackenwerth said. “State funding is based on attendance, so it has importance there, which means getting resources for classrooms. But just kids being in seats positively affects their achievement.”
Hackenwerth said educators are gearing up to emphasize attendance in the remainder of the third quarter, which ends on March 7. Plans have not yet been finalized, but he said some unique incentives will be devised.
He appreciated families hearing more from schools, as they have made attendance a priority.
“Families got accustomed to us not concentrating on this, because of obvious reasons,” he said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. “I know it’s been a shift for families getting phone calls, and we don’t want kids attending if they are sick. But we are really focused on maximizing the opportunities when they can be in buildings.”
