High School In Focus - Unit 4
LESSON 4.7 - Attendance and the Importance of Being There
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT:
Attendance for students can be all over the board. Some students never miss a day, while others seem to miss some school weekly. Today, students will be exploring the importance of attendance, why it matters and what their role is in building good attendance habits.
To begin, the students will do an activity called, “Washing the Elephant.” Begin by sending one student into the hallway. Then, have another volunteer come to the front of the class to demonstrate the process of washing an elephant. They should do this using both words and movement to show what they are doing each step of the process. Once this volunteer has finished, invite the student from the hallway back into the room. Now, have a second volunteer come to the front and demonstrate the process again. This
student cannot use word, only movement and everyone should be careful not to say or imply what they are doing. Once the second demonstration is complete, ask the student who was out of the room to describe what they were seeing.
You can do this a couple more times and ask students to demonstrate anything that you like. Some examples could be, “brushing a hippopotamus’ teeth,” and “styling a gorilla’s hair.”
DIGGING IN:
Of course, being outside of the room made it difficult to understand exactly what was going on. As simple as it may seem, this is the exact same problem that arises when a student is absent from school. While they might be able to complete the work after returning, every moment that a student is away from the classroom represents some kind of gap in their learning.
While attendance isn’t explicitly dealt with the in the curriculum handbook, it is covered in the general student handbook for all students at Muncie Community Schools. The expectation is that students miss no more than nine days over the course of a school year. This number can be used to demonstrate how to calculate attendance percentage:
9 (potential absences) divided by 180 (days in a school year) equals .05 or 5%. Subtract that from 100% and you can see that Muncie Community Schools expects students to keep an attendance percentage of 95% or better.
Attendance isn’t something that students will only have to think about during their time in school either. Attendance in the workplace is just as important to think about, and poor habits can (and does) cause people to lose their job.
New workers (in their first year) in the U.S. get on average 13 days of PTO. Explain to the students that this is “paid time off” that can be used for vacation, illness, etc. In many cases, once this time is used, there is no more to be had. Attendance percentage can be calculated for this scenario like this:
13 divided by the total work days in a year. Students will likely try to tell you that this number will be 365, but remind them that the “work week” is generally considered to be five days. Ask the students if they can arrive at this number (it should be 261). Now, 13 divided by 261 equals .049808... Basically, 5% and this shows us that most workers in the U.S. are expected to maintain an attendance percentage of about 95%.
This is not a coincidence. Why do you think that the school system would expect students to maintain the same attendance rate as people in the workplace? It’s all about habit. Students know that there are bad habits and good habits. This expectation is designed to help students develop good habits that will benefit them when they get into the workforce.
Next, have students calculate their current attendance. In order to do this, there are two hurdles that will need to be overcome. The first and most obvious is figuring out the easiest and most accurate way to get students’ attendance for the school year into their hands. Many schools have student information system software (PowerSchool, Infinite Campus, etc.) that allows students to view their attendance in real time. Oftentimes the issue for middle school students will be that they do not know the credentials to access this. You can certainly access this information ahead of time and provide it to students individually. Alternately, you could calculate students’ attendance for your class specifically, but at the end of the day, each student will need to know the number of days they’ve missed so far this school year.
The second thing that will need to be calculated is the total number of days of school that the students have been in school so far. While they will be using the overall number of 180 school days to calculate their current attendance percentage, using the current number of school days will give students an opportunity to get an idea of the path they are on if they continue to miss school at the same pace.
First, have students divide their total number of days missed by 180 to calculate their attendance percentage. Then ask them to do the same with the current number of days they’ve been in school this year. What is the difference between these two calculations? Which one is a better predictor of where you will be by the end of the school year? What kinds of changes can you make now to make sure that you don’t go below 95% attendance by the end of the school year?
INTO ACTION:
Talk to the students about the positive habits that can impact attendance. These may include things like getting adequate sleep, eating well, setting an alarm, getting involved with school activities, getting active and staying healthy. Then, pass out the “Letter to Me” sheet to students. Students will be writing a letter and they should imagine that the audience is themselves as they are about to begin their 9th grade year. They’ve had time to build habits (both good and bad), and this time of new beginning is a perfect time to think about all of those things that can help them be successful in being present for their high school years.
In their letters, students should write at least three paragraphs that include an explanation of why they believe attendance is important and three examples of positive habits they recommend for attendance.