Recently a patron of the district asked me why the school was so concerned about attendance this year. While the quick answer to this question is…because we care, which we do. The longer answer is we check on why children are not in school because the Department of Education evaluates our district, at least in part, on our children’s attendance at school. The state strives for each district to have 90% of its students present 90% of the time.

Research shows us that students perform better in school if they are present at school. If you have ever had to help a child make-up work when they have missed school, you know how hard it is for the student to comprehend or understand what they needed to learn from the assignment. I think, ultimately, we all want our children to attend every day of school they can when they are not ill. We, at Worth County R-III, are no different. We understand as the winter months progress students will not feel well. We hope, however, that unless they are running a fever or are vomiting that parents will encourage children to come to school.

Currently our attendance rates this far in the school year are 97% for the elementary and 87% for the junior high/ high school. We do care when a child is not in school and when we see that a child is falling behind in their attendance we do try to make contact if we haven’t heard from the parent or guardian.

Hopefully the whole community can get behind this initiative. Encourage kids to get to school and to stay in school.