Elmore County Schools keeping tabs on absenteeism

Documentation of student absences in Elmore County Schools is greatly centralized. 

Elmore County Schools director of administrative services Shay Jackson is tasked with managing programs surrounding school attendance, which includes better communication with juvenile courts to aid in improving attendance. With 15 campuses and more than 11,000 students, it can be daunting. 

“We have about 200 students with five or more unexcused absences so far this school year,” Jackson said.

Those students along with parents have been sent letters to report to the Elmore County District Court Judge Ben Baxley. At five unexcused absences, the visit to juvenile court is meant to be a reminder of how serious school attendance is. At seven unexcused absences and parents can be summoned to court.

So far this school year 80 petitions have been filed in Elmore County juvenile court in regards to truancy. Just last week Jackson had to sign her first warrant related to truancy.

In less than a year, Baxley has ordered at least three parents to serve time in the Elmore County Jail related to truancy.

“Students have to be in school to learn,” Baxley said.

Baxley has decades of experience as a criminal prosecutor and has seen how an education keeps many from issues in criminal courts.

Currently more than 7,000 students have one or more unexcused absences.

Some parents have complained that excuses were sent but never recovered from a young student’s backpack. Jackson has centralized and modernized how parents can submit excuses for their child’s absence. 

Parents can now go online within three days of the absence and file the excuse.

“It eliminates the issues of sending it with the student,” Jackson said.

So far this school year more than 8,500 excuses have been submitted.

The online system also allows school staff to request home visits from central office personnel when students are excessively absent to try to determine the root cause.

Excused absences help keep students away from Baxley’s court room but Jackson also keeps up with attendance as it relates to the Alabama Report Card. Reported by the Alabama Department of Education, chronic absenteeism affects each school’s score. Chronic absenteeism is when students are absent 18 or more days during the school year regardless if it’s excused or not.

In the 2022-23 school year, 17.66% students were considered chronically absent. Last school year that number grew to 20.15%.

Currently the most chronically absent students are those in kindergarten and eighth grade. This school year about 17% of students are already considered chronically absent. Jackson said it indicates chronic absenteeism may be higher this school year but she is still hopeful. 

Jackson looks at trends during the school year in an effort to predict which students might be categorized as chronically absent at the end of the school year. Some of those students may have 10 absences currently.

“When you look at some of the students, they were out sick with flu or COVID,” Jackson said. “Since they have come back, they haven’t missed a day.”