Since the COVID-19 Pandemic, attendance levels in Jamestown Public Schools have increased.

Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker told Board of Education members Tuesday also that chronic absenteeism in the district has decreased.

The trends are good, Whitaker noted, but the results could be better.

“The results are not as good as we want them to be,” the superintendent said. “We want the chronic absenteeism to be as low as possible, and average daily attendance to be as high as possible.”

In most of the schools in the district, a 90 to 91 percentile has been reached. There are some rough patches at Jamestown High School, but the district is working on those numbers, he said.

“Our chronic absentee numbers are on the way down,” Whitaker said.

Whitaker referenced reports from both the White House and the New York State School Boards Associations. The White House, he said, stated that “In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, one study found that the number of public school students who are chronically absent–meaning they miss at least 10 percent of days in a school year, whether excused or unexcused–has nearly doubled,” while NYSSBA said “‘Chronic absence is now more widespread and more concentrated than ever before,’ according to Attendance Works, a non-profit that advocates for policies and practices to improve school attendance. It affects all kinds of schools – high poverty and low poverty, rural, urban and suburban.”

Whitaker added that schools and school districts across the United States suffered during the various shutdowns and also with pandemic-related mental health issues.

In the district, Whitaker said, chronic absenteeism rate did double, but it has decreased.

“Average daily attendance is back to close to where it was pre-pandemic,” Whitaker said. “Our issue is really about chronic absenteeism.”

Whitaker said the New York State Education Department has defined chronic absenteeism as “missing 10 percent of school days within one academic year for any reason. This includes excused absences, unexcused absences, and suspensions. Research has shown that students with high rates of absenteeism are at the greatest risk of falling behind and dropping out of school.”

If a student is chronically absent, it means that the student is absent once every two weeks. In 2020, JPS was at 27%, and 2022 JPS was at 57%, and for 2024, JPS is sitting at 44%.

An important component, he said, of the district is to use what is known as the ABSs – Attendance, Behavior, and Core Classes.

-Attendance: if a district can lower the number of students who are missing 10% of the school year or more, then, the students have a better chance of graduating.

-Behavior: if a district has a large number of small out-of-school suspensions, or in-school suspensions, or a few long-term out- of-school suspensions, those suspensions get in the way of students graduating.

-Core Classes: are students passing classes? Students in sixth and seventh grade who are struggling with not passing one or more their classes have a 60% higher chance of not graduating from high school.

The district, he said, uses Learning Circle, a data aggregator that pulls data from various databases in which the district has access.

Solutions to battle chronic absenteeism, at JPS, include Tier Teams, development of an Early Warning System (EWS) via the ABCs, and mentoring and collabortion with parents, students and school staff.

Whittaker said that research suggests that when a student feels there is a support system at school, that student will want to come to school because that student feels a sense of belonging.

“I give you a lot of credit for looking at it, giving us the numbers, and trying to figure out, what we can do to try to solve this,” said John Panebianco, board member.

Board President Paul Abbott agreed.

“I give credit too. I know that we have staff that are really diving in on this, and they are reaching out to individual families. I know of principals who are going to houses on school days and knocking on doors. Family engagement is obviously the most critical thing,” Abbott said.