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School to Community Connection |
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Issue 56 Student Attendance Directly Affects School Income Student absences, whether for sickness or vacation, directly affect school income. During a time of dramatically reduced state education funding, losses due to student absence become even more critical. Here are some figures to illustrate the enormity of this problem at HUSD. • Our district lost $908,230 in the 2002-03 school year due to student absences. That is almost 50% of the BUDGET CUTS the district had to make for this school year. • For the first two months of this school year our district has lost $165,225 due to students not coming to school. This is equivalent to the cost of three fully credentialed teachers with full health benefits! • If we projected out this two-month loss of revenue over the course of the school year it would be over $850,000. This is less than last year, but still a huge reduction of income to provide the quality programs students deserve. • The $908,230 loss is the same as one-half of the student population at one elementary school never coming to school. We need your help to reduce this problem---and we need it NOW! What some of you may not realize is that schools and the state now record absences differently since "we went to school", or the days when a simple absence note still allowed the school to be reimbursed by the state for your child's absence. Today it's very different. If a student misses an entire day of school, whether sick, a doctor's appointment, a family trip, etc…the school loses forty dollars for that day for that child. $40! The student receives an excused absence from school if he/she is ill, but the state does not pay us for that day. It is referred to as an excused non-funded day. Even though students are enrolled and make up work when absent, schools are only paid for days students are actually in attendance. Another important point – schools are paid for student attendance even if it is for just a few minutes during the day. If a child must be absent, the school can still record the student as present if he/she only stops in to check in with the teacher. Here are things you can do to help: 1. Bring your child to school even on days that they have doctor appointments. Schedule doctor and dental appointments AFTER school if possible. If a morning appointment is scheduled, be certain to bring your child BACK to school after the appointment. 2. Schedule vacations and family trips DURING designated school holidays. 3. Use the Independent Study contract for trips longer than FIVE days duration AND be certain to return them completed. Schools do NOT receive attendance dollars for contracts that have not been completed. (Please note that schools need a minimum of five working days of advance notice to prepare an independent study contract). 4. Here's the other important part of the situation for all of us---When SHOULD you keep your child home? Please keep your child home if he or she is indeed ill. Students who have a fever, are throwing up, or have a contagious disease like chicken pox, etc… KEEP THEM HOME! If they attend school when they are ill they will only get sicker, or pass their colds and viruses to other children who will end up missing school, too. This loss of revenue could rise even higher if we don’t act now. We need your help to see that your child attends school every day and that their attendance is counted. We need you to act now and we’re counting on you for help and support in solving this problem. Thank you for taking the time to help understand the needs of our district and how student attendance affects the district and your child. Let's all work together so that we can keep all of the necessary programs that this community values and support student learning. |
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