Districtwide Attendance Initiative

It is essential that every student and family know that attendance is the first step to success in school. A strong emphasis on attendance is fundamental to achieving our mission of academic success and our goal of graduation for every student. SUSD has initiated one of the most comprehensive attendance initiatives the district has ever experienced, with particular focus on the ninth grade.

• Less than 10 students at each high school had perfect attendance in the fall 2007 semester.
• Single-period absences by ninth-graders, as reported for three years, are approximately double the number of absences for 10th-graders, and as much as four times the number of absences for 12th-graders.

The Sunnyside Districtwide Attendance Initiative addresses the following key areas:

• Alignment and clarification of the attendance policy.
• A districtwide policy will be enforced consistently at
  SUSD schools.
• Organizational efficiency to ensure that all high school teachers follow the same procedure, to decrease attendance-taking errors and to improve our overall efficiency.
• Incentives and recognitions at each school K-12 to acknowledge and give positive reinforcement to those students who improve their attendance. Each school now has a budget for incentives to strengthen attendance initiative goals.
• Awareness of the importance of attendance, with improved student/parent communication systems and the development of a new cultural attitude toward attendance policies.
• The Freshman Attendance Intervention Plan includes timely interventions and consequences, attendance monitoring, the Mentors Project, messageyou, and active involvement of the Governing Board and superintendent.

  – All site administrators have responsibility for interventions with ninth-grade students who experience attendance problems.

  – The Mentors Project partners central office personnel with freshman house and home base teachers at Desert View and Sunnyside high schools to assist with monitoring attendance of freshmen.

  – messageyou™, a cell phone text messaging system, communicates with parents/guardians immediately following an unexcused absence from a regularly scheduled class. The system was launched in April 2008 for students/families who have not responded to interventions.

PROJECT GRADUATION

• Phase I Call to Action: A Strategic Plan
• Phase II Credit Recovery
• Phase III Freshman Intervention
• Phase IV Freshman Attendance Initiative
• Phase V Advisory Periods for 2008-09
• Phase VI Summer School

The following message, inspired by a brainstorming session of the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council, will be widely distributed to students and families:

WARNING: MISSING SCHOOL CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR FUTURE!