Half of Providence High School Seniors Shouldn’t Graduate

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Stephen Beale, GoLocalProv News Editor

 

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Nearly half of all Providence high school seniors have missed so many days of school this year that they should not be able to graduate according to school board rules on school attendance.

Forty one percent of all seniors have missed 20 or more days as of June 6, according to data provided to GoLocalProv by the school district. At two high schools more than half had missed ten days or more this semester alone—the Hope Technology High School and Providence Career and Technical Academy. (See below charts.)

“We’ve had astronomical numbers … for as long as I’ve been on the council and I don’t see any movement to address that,” said Councilman Kevin Jackson. “I don’t think we know what to do with it. They’ve studied it but they’ve never put an action plan in place.”

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Mount Pleasant: Fifth of seniors miss a fifth of school year

In some instances, students have missed far more than just 20 days, based on attendance sheets obtained by GoLocalProv. At Mount Pleasant High School, nearly a fifth of the seniors had missed a fifth of the school year, which is 184 days. Fifty nine of the seniors had missed 30 or more days—more than a fourth of the class body. On one day, June 8, 41 percent of the student body was absent.

Kathleen Crain, the school board chair, called the high rate of chronic absenteeism “alarming.”

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“We are troubled by these numbers and we do need to make a concerted effort to change things—to keep kids in school,” Crain said.

School board policy dictates that students with 10 or more unexcused absences in a semester or 20 or more for the year should not earn course or grade level credit—unless a teacher certifies that the student is nonetheless proficient in the course material. (The policy is printed at the bottom of Page 43 of the Parent Handbook for the 2010-2011 school year.)

Sources in the school district tell GoLocalProv that the number of absences excused is minimal—one percent or less, according to one teacher who has worked in all the high schools.

‘Shuffling students through an overburdened system’

Those sources also tell GoLocalProv that teachers aren’t even aware of the school board policy on 10 and 20-day absences.

“I’ve never heard that,” one longtime teacher told GoLocalProv. “If that’s a policy, it’s on paper but it’s not been put in effect in my school.”

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Sources also said they were not aware of any teachers who have certified chronically absent students as proficient, in spite of missing 20 or more days for the year. “I’m not aware of any teacher who does that,” one teacher said.

Sources say that students will be promoted to the next grade or allowed to graduate regardless of the policy. “It’s not about the kids learning. It’s about shuffling them through an overburdened system,” another teacher said. “There’s pressure on the teachers to promote these kids because it costs so much money to hold them back.”

As of 2008, Providence had a graduation rate of 63 percent, but that number does not necessarily reflect the number of seniors who graduate. Instead it takes into account how a group of students performs over the course of their four or five-year high school career. The dropout rate for that year was 26 percent.

Can’t ‘save every kid’

Crain said the policy on absenteeism had not been discussed recently by the school board and she is not directly familiar with how it is being implemented. “I’m not sure how old that policy is, but we need to probably revisit it and figure out where we need to draw the line,” Crain said. “I think we need to find a realistic number where it does impact the student’s education and then implement it.”

Jackson said the district needs to reach out to students to find out why they aren’t showing up to school. “We’re still going to lose kids. I’m not some pie-in-the-sky guy who believes that we can save every kid,” Jackson said. “But when we’re losing 40 percent to 50 percent... That’s terrible.”

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Teachers who spoke with GoLocalProv described chronic absenteeism as one of the biggest issues in Providence public schools. “When you have a high absentee rate it reduces the opportunity for the children to have the education they need,” added Councilman Sam Zurier.

Asked why chronic absenteeism has been allowed to persist, Jackson suspects it is related to school testing. If those students who were chronically absent showed up for tests, he said that would bring down the school average. Jackson stopped short of accusing school officials of intentional inaction, but said the pressure to keep scores high has made the problem of chronic absenteeism less urgent for them.

“I think there’s so much pressure … it’s almost out of sight, out of mind,” Jackson said.

District spokeswoman: Already addressing absentee rate

But a spokeswoman for the district yesterday told GoLocalProv that officials have not ignored the problem and have in fact taken a number of steps to address it. “Recognizing the enormous challenges faced by our high schools and our high school students, Providence Schools has undertaken numerous initiatives in recent years to improve student achievement in our high schools,” said spokeswoman Christina O’Reilly.

She listed a number of specific initiatives, including:

■ Attendance teams at each high school: Teams of teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators notify parents and students of at-risk attendance through automated phone calls for every absence, letters mailed home in case of excessive absences, and requests to parents for meetings.

■ After or before school tutorials help students struggling with coursework to catch up. “Lack of skills is directly correlated with worsening student attendance,” O’Reilly said.

■ Outreach on the district’s new graduation policy, including faculty and staff training and more than 10 district-wide meetings for parents in addition to school-specific meetings.

■ Mandatory credit audits at every high school. “Guidance counselors meet with students to review their completed credits, their progress toward new credits, and their standing in the course progression toward graduation,” O’Reilly said.

■ High school principals get copies of eighth grade attendance data in February or March so they have “ample time to review student data, assess at-risk students, and focus extra attention on ensuring these students take advantage of offerings like the summer transition program.”

O’Reilly said the district goes out of its way to make sure middle school students are ready for the challenges of high school. “Executive Directors of High School and Middle School team to go together to every middle school to meet with students in Grades 6, 7 and 8 to talk to them about the realities and myths of high school, and how they can prepare through their work in middle school now,” she said.

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