By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
Getting to class by 8 o’clock each morning is no simple task for Waldport High School senior Airyanna Paden.
Paden, 17, grew up in Yachats, but her family moved to Eddyville this year when they bought a house there.
She’s in the car with her mother, Jennifer, and brother, Connor, 14, by 7 a.m. The first stop is Yaquina View Elementary School in Newport where her mother works. Paden then she takes the wheel to continue on to Waldport with her brother.
It’s 36 miles and 50 minutes each way.
Like 90 percent of Waldport High’s 185 students, Paden is on track to graduate this year – but it’s not without a lot of incentives and oversight by principal Amy Skirvin, and a concerted effort to track attendance by the school’s teachers and staff.
Oregon’s education leaders believe the key to learning is for students to show up every day. The Lincoln County School District believes that as well.
But new attendance figures by the Oregon Department of Education show that an average of 38 percent of Oregon students missed at least three weeks of class during the 2022-23 school year, an ominous statistic that’s even grimmer than the previous year, when students first returned to school buildings full time following the Covid pandemic.
Students are considered chronically absent if they miss more than 17 to 18 school days a year, setting them up for not learning to read or failing to graduate from high school, according to data from the state.
As poor is the statewide attendance numbers are, they are even worse in Lincoln County – where 45 percent of all students were considered chronically absent last school year. The numbers range from nearly 61 percent at Oceanlake Elementary School in Lincoln City to 24 percent and 34 percent at Waldport middle and high schools.
School district officials are keenly aware of the numbers, what seems to work and where there are issues. The Lincoln County district aims for a 90 percent attendance rate for the school year. Just 55 percent of its students reached that mark in 2022-23, down from 62 percent the year before.
There is no one issue that leads to attendance issues. Just like LCSD’s 5,000 students, there can be many reasons.
But overall, Lincoln County falls into the bottom third of Oregon’s counties when it comes to socio-economic issues like income and education. The school district also grapples with a significant population of students who are considered homeless, including those living in unstable situations or with friends or relatives.
“There’s a spectrum of issues,” says Susan Van Liew, assistant superintendent. “But all of our schools are trying to do something to get kids to school all of the time.”
Or it can be as simple as being sick, usually the biggest reason for absences.
“Yes, keep them home when they’re sick,” Van Liew said. “But make sure they’re here when they’re not.”
Carrot and stick approach
Skirvin and the Waldport school staff use a simple-sounding carrot and stick approach to attendance that it started last year. But it required the district to increase a half-time office position to full time and a new computer program to better track everything a student is doing – including whether they are showing up.
“Someone attending less than 90 percent of the time is missing 17 to 18 days of class,” Skirvin said. “That’s a lot of missed instruction.”
At Waldport schools, students have to be in class 90 percent of the time to participate in extracurricular activities – everything from playing volleyball and competing in forestry competitions, to performing in the school play or going to prom. The school also hands out tokens to students who have one or fewer absences a month, which they can redeem for small rewards or save for drawings for larger prizes, including electronics.
Each teacher takes daily attendance. That goes into a report monitored by the attendance secretary and Skirvin.
If there’s an issue, the school sends an email to the student and their parents. If there’s a growing issue, a teacher, Skirvin or assistant principal Steve Cooper will talk to the student one-on-one to check closer for issues – and suggest ways to make up the absences.
“Ninety to 95 percent of parents know it and understand it. Once you explain it, they understand,” Skirvin said. “We all want the same thing.”
In addition, to play or practice a sport or other extra-curricular activity, a Waldport middle or high student may not have an unexcused or unverified absence from one or more classes the day of the event or the last school day before the event.
To attend a school dance or field trip, a student must have a 90 percent attendance rate and no unexcused absences for 10 days prior to the event — a significant incentive, Skirvin says, for many students.
“When the kids have something they want to do and they know the expectations, they’ll do it,” Skirvin said.
The incentives work for Paden and sophomore Payshentz Herron. Both are involved in sports and other activities.
“There’s some kids who may not care so much,” Herron said. “But a lot do, and most are involved in extracurricular activities and want to make sure they can keep doing it.”
Principals and school administrators talk with each other regularly about all kinds of issues, sharing ideas of what works and what doesn’t.
Toledo High, which had the highest absenteeism rate of any of the district’s four high schools last year, adopted Waldport’s attendance program this year. Chloe Minch, the first-year principal at Toledo, said they implemented it in September with little pushback — and the results have been startling.
Just 48 percent of Toledo’s high school students hit the 90 percent attendance mark last year, Minch said. For the first month of school this fall, the rate was 73 percent. The effect on tardies – a student not in their seat when the class bell rings – was even starker, Minch said. For the first nine days of school in September 2022 there were 1,516 tardies. The same period this September? Just 123.
“We’ve had just one person not make (extracurricular) eligibility each week,” Minch said.
The expectation is that the effect of regular attendance will trickle down to improved test results and graduation rates – measurements the state and school district track closely.
“It’s pretty impressive,” Minch told YachatsNews. “I’m glad Amy let me steal it. It’s been great.”
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
Schools, number of students and percent chronically absent
Elementary schools
- Oceanlake Elementary (278) – 60.8 percent
- Yaquina View Elementary (317) – 55.5 percent
- Toledo Elementary (355) – 46.5 percent
- Crestview Heights (255) – 44.7 percent
- Taft Elementary (435) – 43.9 percent
- Sam Case Elementary (364) – 36 percent
Middle/Junior Highs
- Toledo Junior High (88) – 45.5 percent
- Taft Middle (232) — 40.9 percent
- Newport Middle School (454) – 37.4 percent
- Waldport Middle (78) – 24.4 percent
High Schools
- Taft High (421) – 47.7 percent
- Toledo High (161) – 46 percent
- Waldport High (180) – 34.4 percent
- Newport High (594) – 34.3 percent
Others
- Eddyville Charter School (188) – 41.5 percent
- Siletz Valley Schools (206) – 55.3 percent
- Compass Online K-12 (118) 59.3 percent
Good job with the Waldport and Toledo carrot and stick plan to improve student attendance in our schools. It teaches the children there are consequences associated with behavior. You make a commitment to be on time and attend school for 90 percent of your school year, positive results occur. If you elect to ignore the commitment, negative results occur. The important thing to remember is not having good responsible attendance as well as good grades hurts the individual student in terms of being eligible for good jobs and advancement in the work field they elect to pursue. Now, it would be nice to see how the grades improve per student over time with the 90% attendance.