Nov. 14—DIXON — Since schools returned to in-person learning following the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, low student attendance at Dixon High School remains an issue, according to the State Report Card released Oct. 30 . by the Illinois State Board of Education.
The annual report, which uses test data and graduation rates from the most recent school year, provides information on the performance of all public schools in Illinois. DHS data shows that 42.2% of all students were chronically absent during the 2023-2024 school year, meaning they missed at least 10% of school days throughout the year.
That is almost double the rate of 22.6% in 2018-2019; it is a slight decline from the 2021-2022 high, but has increased since 2022-2023.
However, DHS is not the only school with low attendance. Across Illinois, chronic absenteeism has remained a problem following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The data shows that in the 2023-2024 school year, an average of 26.3% of students were chronically absent from all Illinois public schools. That number has fallen steadily since 2021-2022, but is still higher than the 17.5% rate in 2018-2019.
High school students – particularly sophomores, juniors and seniors – had the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in Illinois, with averages of 33.1%, 35.8% and 41%, respectively. At Dixon High School, all four classes had about the same grades, with the lowest being freshmen at 42.7% and the highest being seniors at 44.8%, according to the report.
During the pandemic, between 2020 and 2021, “there was online learning. At certain points we told [students] they couldn’t come to school. At other points we said, ‘Well, it’s kind of your choice. You can do some things at home, you can do some personal things,” DHS Director Jared Shaner said in an interview with Shaw Local News Network.
Now, in 2024, “we’re just past that,” but “for some [students] it was just really hard to get back into that habit of consistent attendance,” he said.
Sometimes students and families think they can complete their work at home because while DHS does not offer any online programs, schoolwork can be accessed online through Canvas, the school’s learning management system.
“We try to emphasize the importance of being in front of the instructor providing that instruction on a consistent, daily basis,” Shaner said.
The district also has made it one of DHS’s school improvement goals for the 2024-2025 school year to address chronic absenteeism and school attendance, he said.
More specifically, the goal is to reduce chronic absenteeism at the school by 3% by the end of the school year, which is expected to increase student performance and engagement, according to the improvement plan.
To do that, “first and foremost, we’re going to look at how we report attendance to the state to make sure it’s accurate and that we’re fairly represented compared to other school districts,” Shaner said.
Sterling High School and Rock Falls High School had much lower rates of chronic absenteeism in 2023-2024, at 21.6% and 19.9%, respectively. For the British pound, that rate rose from 18.5% in 2022-2023, while Rock Falls’ rate remained largely unchanged.
Low student attendance is an ongoing problem at DHS, but “I promise you that 40% of our kids are not out every day,” Shaner said.
According to the report, an average of 86.7% of DHS students attend school on any given day. That number has remained largely the same since 2021-2022, but in 2018-2019 the average was 93.3%.
Attendance policy
The DHS attendance policy states that absences can be excused for a variety of reasons, including physical or mental illness, the celebration of a religious holiday or event, a death in the immediate family and the list goes on, according to the 2024-25 Student Handbook .
In order for these absences to be marked as excused, Illinois law requires the student’s parent or guardian to call the school to provide an explanation, the ISBE said.
For example, if a student at DHS is sick, his/her parent or guardian must call within 24 hours of the absence; If the student misses class due to a medical appointment, they should bring a note from his or her health care provider, Shaner said.
Unexcused absences occur when the parent or guardian does not call and the school is unable to contact them. At DHS, if a student is more than 30 minutes late to class, that also counts as an unexcused absence, Shaner said.
On the ISBE report card, any student who misses 10% or 17.6 days of the school year with an excused or unexcused absence is counted as chronically absent.
“It doesn’t matter if you get mono and spend 13 days in the hospital. It doesn’t matter if, God forbid, three family members die and you take days off for funerals,” he said.
Therefore, to reduce chronic absenteeism, the administration is identifying students who were absent 17, 18, 19 or 20 days in the 2023-2024 school year and setting up interviews with those students and their families.
“We certainly have kids, just like any school, who miss 40 days of school a year. We’re probably not going to magically get them to go from missing 40 days to being under 17,” Shaner said.
“The focus for us was on those kids” because if they improved their attendance by a day or two, they would no longer be classified as chronically absent, he said.
Another resource the school has begun using for the 2024-2025 school year is the Regional Office of Education No. 47’s NEXUS program, which provides parent education, home visits, family management, and coordinates intake and/or referrals to community agencies.
Low attendance “is often not just a student problem, but a family problem,” Shaner said, adding that “sometimes it’s a single-parent household. Sometimes there just isn’t much support from a mother or father in the family. Picking up a kid and making sure he’s ready to go and things like that.”
“That’s why we’re trying to get the families involved. To see what we can do to help them,” he said.
An incentive-based approach
The school disciplines students for unexcused absences: one unexcused absence results in a 30-minute detention, two to four absences results in a one-hour after-school detention, and more than four results in two one-hour after-school detentions. according to DHS policies and procedures.
“But it can’t just be discipline,” Shaner said. To achieve its goal, the school has opted for an incentive-based approach rather than a punishment-based approach.
In September and October, for example, the school began meeting with all students who have difficulty with attendance, both individually and with their families, to create “attendance contracts,” Shaner said.
During these meetings, the school tries to find out ‘what the reasons are [the student] doesn’t come to school? Is it transportation? Is there a change in the family structure? Then we will brainstorm about how [the school] We can work with them to overcome those barriers and we will enter into a contract,” he said.
The contracts are individualized for each student. For example, if the student goes to school three days in a row, or if he goes to school all week, he may receive some kind of reward.
According to Shaner, the school has a “perfect attendance award,” with one student from each grade chosen each week.
Every quarter, the school hosts Positive Behaviors Interventions and Supports (PBIS) celebrations for all students who are below that 10% absenteeism rate during what the school calls an ELP period, which is like a free study period. At the most recent event, those students and school staff “went to the gym, played basketball, listened to music, had ice cream, things like that,” Shaner said.
The school has also begun to link attendance to the ability to opt out of taking final exams; they also must have a certain attendance limit to attend special events such as homecoming, prom, and the winter dance.
“They definitely want to do those things and are willing to improve in certain areas if that goes along with it,” Shaner said. “It’s not surprising, but homecoming is a big deal. The two to three weeks before homecoming, I had a number of students come and ask me about their attendance.”
