How to Improve Attendance through School Attendance Programs

Attendance in schools represents how motivated the students are in learning. School attendance programs can help in this using well researched methods that have been proven to be effective. This article presents how these programs can have a positive lasting effect on student attendance.

The Need for School Attendance Programs

A new direction in how education will be driven by the state policy makers has assisted in raising what it means for schools with their students’ attendance rates. Under the new policy, a majority of the schools will have to start looking for recurring absences at a school level. These absence rate will be an indicator for the success or failure for the new policies imposed. The implications from the imposed policies are definitely of prime importance as is the responses from the students and school personnel. What is now a defunct policy is that the responsibility attendance of the students lie solely on the guardians of the students. And in such, they will be held accountable to the rate of absences. And now as the policy shift is being realigned, the preliminary indication is that absenteeism will have to be resolved soon.

So the question now is what do schools have in their arsenal that can move the needle? As they try to ensure improved attendance, they have to remain within the guidelines of the school in enforcing any policy they come up with. The experts in this field have done research geared towards the understanding of how the impact of the different kinds of interventions and how they are practiced can affect the way students perceive school. The field experiences in most cases in schools can highlight the way pervasive techniques are applied to further enhance attendances. The use of these incentives will mostly be applicable in all grade levels below college. And while a few schools have managed to employ an assortment of rewards in order to improve attendance, it is revealed that all in all, it resulted in varying levels of effectiveness.

In an article that was published earlier this year a framework was discussed which sought to provide help to school staff so they can think about when and how to give out incentives in a way that it can positively affect student attendance. The research along with other earlier studies have concluded that chronic absenteeism has a negative effect on the academic performance of students.

Many academic institutions try to use incentives in an effort to decrease student absence rates. The schools usually has the liberty in defining what these Incentives are. They can sometimes be financial, informational, or social. In some cases, some other forms of inducement can be intended as a way to reshape a student’s behavior and ensure that he or she raises his or her attendance rate. There are some schools that may use these incentives in the form of recognition. In such cases the school may choose to set up hallway recognition announcements or symbolism such as stars to be stuck on the student’s lockers to recognize his or her good attendance record. While there are also schools that prefer the use of an activity which usually after school hours. These activities can include dance programs that can discourage students from skipping out on school.

There are recorded cases, in places such as Missouri and Tennessee, where there are more extravagant incentives were given to the students. Such incentives include monetary rewards, tickets to the hometown’s sports team game and in fewer occasions, the school even gave out cars. This practice was designed in accordance to the universal support system aiming to include everyone at school so the effect can also be universal.

There are also times when the school attendance can be incentivized using outside or state agencies. For instance, a family rewards incentive program have been implemented by the mayor through the mayor’s office of New York City. The program proposed 22 different kinds of incentives for the parents and their children which included some cash incentives for the families which have children that attended certain schools. The bar was set at a 95 percent attendance rate which was to be reevaluated at the end of each month. On the other hand, some programs are designed in the opposite way. Instead of giving out incentives, they give penalties penalties to families that had less than stellar attendance records of their children in school. The way it is set up is that the money will be directly deducted from the parent’s bank accounts if the student was not going to school as often enough. Sure enough, the latter approach received a lot of backlash with some even questioning the legality.

Due to the studies that concluded that the success of most incentive programs is largely mixed, some researchers proposed to make sense of it all by coming up with an interpretation of said conclusion. In this step, the schools are also giving their own insight as to how the implementation went wrong or went right. The attendance incentives were judged if they were a step in the wrong direction and if other kinds of incentives should have been considered. The study proposed other forms ways for improved results.

Some educators have considered what the actual problem is. The school attendance programs was giving the solution to the existing absenteeism problem. It was neither styled to make sure to equate the problem’s nature, or how each incentive was being implemented, nor was the incentive made to influence the behavior of the students. What the study signifies is that the students will always have a full hand into how often they choose to come to school.

What causes Chronic Absenteeism

Puberty

At a certain state of in a teen’s growth, there are some physical changes brought upon by puberty that may seem embarrassing or awkward. Most students at the age of schooling will start growing pimples or have a funny voice growing up. Their sexuality will also begin to mature thereby raising a few more problems.

Lack of Interest

School has to be interesting for a student to go to it. In today’s world, a lesson plan will have to compete for attention from all the digital gadgets surrounding the kids. Aside from ensuring that the students should have complete focus while they are in school, they should also try to engage with other students and the lessons to give them a feeling of control.

Sickness

Especially among the younger students, sickness is an unavoidable problem that will always cause absences. While it cannot be eliminated, it can be managed so the absences can be tamed. For instance, the school can have strict policies regarding how students with contagious diseases be barred from coming to school.

How To Proceed With A School Attendance Program

As the academic institution work to find out the best way to implement school attendance programs to get the best possible response from the students, the studies have found out that it is, in fact, way more important that teachers and school staff to center their attention on the choices of design of the incentives. These incentives have to be considered if they have a big chance to produce the effect that the school attendance program desires.

The school attendance of students is a measure that is often times regarded as the best predictor of how well a student would be a success academically. Of course, this includes years of education from pre-kindergarten up until high school. The research signifies to us how the students who has a better attendance in school results into having better outcomes. This includes getting higher grades and also failing a smaller number of classes. And ultimately, they have been expected to garner higher scores on standardized exams. Under school attendance program schemes, the schools will now have a way to create programs in their liking that is geared towards helping the students in whatever way. In some cases, the students are even given assistance on how they can be physically in school. School attendance programs can have some part of the comprehensive approach of schools to eliminate chronic absenteeism.

Aside from giving the student a lesser quality of education, there are also some other ways that absences can affect a student. It is a well known fact that absenteeism can be a cause for a student’s depression. In worst cases absenteeism can lead to a moral degradation which can then cause the student start doing drugs And they could exhibit unruly behavior that can lead to teen pregnancies.

School attendance programs will not always have all the answers but to ensure that the student’s and the school are seeing eye to eye, they need to have a mutual desire to better the lives of the students in school as well as on his or her future after graduation. This can form a trust among teachers and students which can then be the ultimate motivation for students to come to school.