School district using new method to report low attendance

By Chris Fortune

Buchanan County and the St. Joseph School District will lean toward an automated process to report attendance issues in the upcoming school year.

The PowerSchool system, which tracks attendance, will automatically alert the county diversion officer if attendance falls below a certain level. In the past, the school district relied solely on attendance interventionists to submit cases to the Buchanan County diversion officer.

“I’ve been working with the I.T. guys with the school district on their PowerSchool, and they’re setting it up to where it’s going to pull names for me based on percentage of attendance,” diversion officer Andrew Schweder said.

Attendance interventionists will continue to be stationed at St. Joseph schools, but PowerSchool will notify Schweder if a student falls below 80% attendance. The district wants to see a 90% attendance rate.

“It’s headed my way, and we’re reviewing the case, and then they’re on my radar from there,” he said.

Buchanan County partnered with the St. Joseph School District for the diversion officer position, with each paying half of the salary.

“It came about from a need that was apparent from looking at the numbers of attendance the school district had, and probably historical, that they wanted to do better,” Presiding Commissioner Scott Nelson said.

Schweder focuses on truancy issues in Buchanan County, with an emphasis on the St. Joseph School District since that is where most of the truancy cases arise.

“The (St. Joseph) school district keeps me very busy with cases,” he said.

Schweder recently completed his first full year on the job after being hired in July 2023. By the end of the 2023-24 school year in May, Schweder had submitted 55 total truancy cases to the courts.

Responsibility for low attendance falls on the parent until their child enters seventh grade, where they can face up to 15 days in jail or a fine through the court, but Schweder wants parents to avoid facing these penalties.

“We’re not trying to put parents in jail because that would kind of defeat the purpose,” he said. “If we arrest you for not sending your kid to school, who’s going to be there to send your kid to school?”

As News-Press NOW previously reported, the district announced an attendance rate of 77.56% for the 2023-24 school year, down from 78.91% in 2022-23. An attendance rate of less than 80% could cause the district to not qualify for full accreditation, but it would not be a concern unless these trends continue into the 2025-26 school year. Schweder is optimistic about increasing these attendance rates.

“It’s not going to be that hard to get most of these kids at 90% or above,” he said. “I mean, it is just cooperation with the parents and the students.”