EVERY MINUTE COUNTS
Parenting is a very difficult job. Parents can become
effective partners in their child’s education beginning in
Kindergarten. When you, as a parent, are a partner in your child’s
education, your involvement contributes to their success and achievement.
As soon as a child begins school, parents can be enlisted as partners to
reinforce the benefits of regular, on-time school attendance. The
school can help parents believe in and share the following messages:
• The more you are in school, the more you will learn.
• The more you learn, the higher your grades will be.
• The better your grades, the more you will enjoy school.
• The longer you stay in school, the more likely you are to succeed in careers
and life.
Regular, on-time school attendance is a goal that can only be achieved with the
cooperation of both parent and child. Absences contribute to lost
learning. Parents should make every effort to schedule family events
and appointments during non-school hours. When absences are
necessary, parents should call the school on the day of the absence or send a
note when the child returns. Please be specific in regards to the
reason for the absence – using ‘illness’ or ‘sick’ is not
acceptable. When absences extend to 5 or more consecutive school
days, parents must arrange for an Independent Study contract.
However, even an
excused absence translates into lost revenue for our school. State
financing for schools is based upon average daily attendance, or
For example, for each daily absence, Juan Cabrillo loses
approximately $46 in state revenue. If
only one child were to be absent in each classroom on a particular day, we
would lose well over $550 for that single day.
District wide, if absences were reduced by only 50 students per day, the
District would gain an additional $414,000 in state revenue for the year. These numbers are significant and absences
are negatively impacting the budgets that support your child’s education.
WHY
IT’S NOT OK TO BE LATE TO SCHOOL
Tardiness contributes to lost learning. When
a child arrives late to class, he/she begins the day behind, having missed the
teacher’s opening instructions for the day. At Juan Cabrillo, school
beings promptly at 8:10 am, and there is no ‘grace period.’ The
children are expected to be in the classroom when the bell rings, ready to
begin their day. Students who arrive at
school late miss out on:
In addition, students who arrive late are often unsure about what
they have to do in the lesson. They may
arrive at their classroom and find that their class has moved to another
location or gone to a lesson with a specialist and then waste additional time
locating the group. Most importantly,
latecomers miss out on essential reading, writing and math lessons and find
that learning becomes disjointed and difficult.
PARENT
TIPS FOR IMPROVING SCHOOL ATTENDANCE
Remember, research shows that students achieve more when they
attend school regularly and arrive on time.
In addition, schools lose valuable funding whenever students are
absent. There are no longer any ‘excused
absences’ as far as state funding is concerned.
Our District only collects state
funding for students who are physically in school on a given day.