Attendance Matters!

Our goal at JCP is to have 95% attendance for every student. (We understand that kids will always get sick and need to miss a day or two.) We've even started posting our daily attendance around the main entrance points on campus to make parents aware. 

We had a group of 1st grade teachers who found a correlation between student growth in reading and their attendance rates. Here’s what they found:

• Students who were gone 8 or more days, about two weeks of school (that is roughly 10% or more of our year so far,) grew an average of 2 reading levels over the first 90+ days of school. It didn’t matter if these students were struggling or strong readers.
• Students who were gone less than 8 days grew an average of 6 reading levels over the first 90+ days of school.

Yes, you are reading that correctly. Those students who had better attendance increase their reading levels 3x's more than their peers with poor attendance. And this growth was the same whether the student was an advanced reader, or a struggling reader.

If their attendance rates remain the same, students with more absences will increase only 4 reading levels, while the group of students with less will increase 12. Which group do you think will be more prepared to the rigor of second grade?

If they're "big" sick, please keep them home. But with the sniffles, or a bad case of extra-whiney, please sent the our way. We can deal with the whining and snot. They can wipe their noses on their sleeves as they read, we're ok with that. 😀