A computerized student truancy tracker should not only increase school attendance, but net the San Mateo-Foster City School District nearly $500,000 in state money once lost.
Though the district's attendance is strong, raising it can bring in more money since the state determines funding levels based on how many students are in the classroom every day.
“Our attendance runs around 95 to 96 percent through the year, all told. We’d like to have it at 98 percent but we do have to realize if a child’s sick, a child is sick. If children are not coming to school for other reasons though and we’re able to help we try.
If we’re able to raise our attendance 1 percent that’s about $480,000 for the district. So it’s significant not only for the children academically but also for the district financially,” said Joan Rosas, assistant superintendent for student services.
On Thursday, the district will hear a plan to implement a Web-based attendance program called Truancy Hunter to help it monitor student absences. In addition it started working harder to find solutions for issues keeping children from attending school.
“Truancy Hunter, we think, will give us a more consistent approach to monitoring our absence and help improve the number of days students are receiving instruction. We really do want the students to be in school and we also would like to get a bit more money back,” said Rosas.
The program crunches attendance information which can be accessed by school, by grade or even by student. The program can also generate letters home to parents explaining the absences of students. There is no start-up cost and creating letters can be paid by state mandate, said Rosas.
Students who have a habitual problem making it to class are referred to the district’s School Attendance Review Board, or SARB. The group, made up of parents, teachers and others in the community try to help solve issues facing the families that keep the child from making it to class. If this group isn’t able to help, the family is referred to the County Office of Education’s SARB group.
These sort of interventions have been successful, said Sue Larramendy, associate superintendent for student services for the County Office of Education. The only student who needed to be helped last year has barely missed a class this year.
The board meets 7 p.m. Thursday, May 18 at the District Office, 42 W. 42 Ave., San Mateo.
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