Absenteeism a Big Factor in School Report Cards

Absenteeism plays a large role in how schools are assessed in the state's revised performance reports, according to assistant superintendent Cheryl Dyer.

Dyer made her presentation about the new report at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting, citing the changes made, particularly in putting schools in peer groups, instead of grouping them by their district factor group, which was based on demographics. 

Now, Dyer said, the peer groups are based on those eligible for free and reduced lunches, as well as the percentage of students in special education and other similar factors.

Each individual school in the district is in its own peer group, and many of the schools in the district are not actually in peer groups together.

Dyer said that peer groups will not change based on achievement of students, but could change based on whether the characteristics inside the schools change.

“It could happen that we are at the high end of the peer group and something happens where we are higher in percentage of students in free and reduced lunch,” she said. “We don’t get a change in the peer group just because our scores change.”

Absenteeism

As for the report itself, absenteeism, which the district has been struggling with recently, is a big factor in determining a school’s college and career readiness.

Dyer said the state looks at chronic absenteeism, which is defined as being out of school for 10 percent of the school year for any reason, even if the absence is excused.

“Eighteen or more days absent regardless of the reason is chronically absent,” she said. “The target is 6 percent, no more than 6 percent of the school should have 10 percent or more absenteeism.”

Dyer said each school in the district met the goal for the 2011-12 school year, with absences between about 3 percent and 6 percent.

In addition, Dyer said, the report looks at course absenteeism, and, in the 2010-11 year, 60 percent of the student body was considered chronically absent from at least one class.

For the 2011-12 school year, Dyer said, that number had lowered to 19 percent.

“That’s a whole loss of credit issue,” she said. “It’s not about missing the full day.”

The report also looks at the possibility of post-secondary enrollment, Dyer said, which is based on how many students start at the school as freshmen and then graduate four years later.

“It is not based on how many students start the year as senior and graduate,” she said. “If we lose people along [the four years], we need to keep track of them so we can report data accurately.”

Improvement Plans

According to the report, Dyer said, most of the schools met the performance targets for academic achievement, except for Adamsville Primary School, for which there is already an improvement plan in place.

“Any school that does not meet its targets has to have an improvement plan, and they are different per school,” she said.

And college and career readiness at the elementary level is pretty much completely based on attendance, Dyer said.

Eisenhower Intermediate and the Bridgewater-Raritan Middle School, Dyer said, also have improvement plans because they have not met their targets.

Dyer said she also looked at comparisons between Bridgewater-Raritan and schools they normally compare themselves to, but that might not be in the specific peer group.

“The only school higher than us was Cresskill in our peer group, with their statewide rank being 93 and ours being 90,” she said. “For Hunterdon Central, which is not in our peer group, but we always compare to it, our statewide percentile was 90 and theirs was 84.”

As for using the data collected, Dyer said they will be analyzing it on a student level, looking at students who are showing low growth and what services they have been receiving.

Dyer said they will also be looking at chronic absenteeism, as well as student growth by teachers, and what that tells them about whether professional development or other work is needed.

“I'm sure there are schools that will be looking at us, and we will see how they are doing and what are they doing,” she said. “It is interesting data, and that’s what it means.”

Dyer said they will continue to be working on proficiency on the NJASK and academic achievement.

“Student growth is a big one, we are wrapping our brains around that and seeing the degree to which scores are combined,” she said.