BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Students who miss school may lose their work permits -- and their parents may lose their welfare checks -- under a plan to improve attendance in Cincinnati Public Schools.
The proposal also calls for expansion of Project Succeed Academy, an alternative school for students with discipline and truancy problems, and an attendance center at each school to better track truancy problems.
"The only way a child is going to learn is if that child is in school," said district Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Lionel Brown, who headed the task force that drafted the report. "When they're out of school, they pick up street behavior that causes problems when they return to school, such as academic deficiencies and discipline problems."
The task force -- charged last fall -- included school administrators and teachers, parents, Cincinnati police officers, juvenile court representatives and community leaders.
School board members must approve the plan -- announced this month -- before it is approved as policy.
CPS's daily attendance averaged 92.6 percent in elementary schools, 84 percent in middle schools and 83.8 percent in high schools in 1996-97. Average daily attendance in some high schools dipped as low as 74 percent.
Under the plan, three days of unexcused absence per quarter would be considered poor attendance. Excused absences include personal illness, illness in the family, quarantine in the home, death of a relative, observance of religious holidays, emergencies and home instruction.
Schools would be required to contact parents each day a student is absent without excuse.
Attendance should be checked period-by-period in all high schools; Aiken, Hughes, Western Hills, Walnut Hills, Withrow and Woodward already do.
In K-8 schools, attendance should be recorded twice daily, the report recommends.
Students with unexcused absences could be called to parent-teacher conferences, visited by police at homes or placed in Saturday school. They also face detentions.
For chronic offenders, administrators plan to investigate the legality of withholding students' work permits and parents' welfare funds.
"We want to foster a closer working relationship between parents and schools, as well as hold the parents accountable and responsible for their children," Dr. Brown said.
Project Succeed expansion
Those with 30 or more days of unexcused absences per quarter would be placed in Project Succeed Academy or referred to GED, Job Corps or Adult Education centers. Project Succeed, which enrolls 463 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, should expand to include ninth and 10th grades, the report recommends.
Students already face the loss of their driver's licenses for frequent unexcused absences.
Attendance centers would serve as places tardy students should report, students can get early dismissals approved, parents can call to report a child's absence or check attendance, and administrators can track attendance data, the report recommends.
Schools should hold assemblies or reward students with good attendance with certificates and awards.
The report also advocates tracking students who leave school altogether or are so habitually absent they're near the point of dropping out.
Finding reasons
The report calls for parents and court officials to be surveyed about obstacles to school attendance. And students should be polled about how various issues affect attendance, including transportation, school safety, parental involvement, relationships with teachers, extracurricular activities and attitudes about education.
Other states' successes will be considered, such as Arkansas', which defines how and when students can make up work missed due to absences, and Indiana's, which has a policy addressing vacation requests as they relate to school absences.
The report prompted preliminary praise from school board members. "I'm always anxious to learn why attendance isn't 100 percent," board member Lynwood Battle Jr. said. "For very good reasons, sometimes children need to stay at home, but there's no substitute for being there in class. We need to have some recognition that there are consequences for not attending school without an excuse."
