SJSD begins year with attendance gains

By Jazmine Knight

Attendance within the St. Joseph School District is starting to look up.

Ashly McGinnis, assistant superintendent of academic services, said numbers have significantly improved as students readjust from the impact of the COVID pandemic.

In October of 2022, the district sat at 79.55% for attendance across all schools. A year later, the attendance rate was 82.41%. Now in October 2024, the district continues to see growth.

“We’ve been hovering between 85% and 86% for the month of October, which is a nice gain,” McGinnis said.

The district strives to meet state expectations for attendance, which is 90%. McGinnis said an increase in family engagement is driving the gains.

“We’ve been very intentional about trying to bring our families in,” she said. “Get to know them, get to know what barriers they may have to coming to school and just trying to work with families the best we can.”

In addition, St. Joseph schools have strengthened a partnership with the juvenile and prosecuting attorney offices that aims to improve attendance compliance.

Previously, high school and kindergarten students struggled the most with attendance. However, McGinnis said both are increasing and the district is proud of that.

“We are super proud of some of those gains,” McGinnis said. “We still have work to do, but I think that coming back from COVID has been a challenge. It’s been slow and steady making that progress.”

As the district still works to surpass the 90% mark, classroom engagement will be a main focus moving forward.

“Making sure our classrooms have engaging instruction to where kids want to come to school every day. So we’re trying to be creative and provide real world, meaningful lessons on the daily,” she said.

District officials said parents understanding the importance of getting children to school every day is appreciated. McGinnis she is most proud of the kindergarten class at Pershing (96.84%) as well as Hosea and Bode, which are almost at 90% as a whole (89.09% for Hosea and 88.50% for Bode).

“As far as improvement, it’s still at the high schools,” said McGinnis.

When asked what she would say to those teenage students to encourage them to come to class, McGinnis said that’s tough. She points to a need for them to see the value in their learning.

“It’s our responsibility to make that meaningful for them,” she said. “We also need their support in communicating their learning needs so that we can meet them where they’re at and help them grow to be successful.”

For the full breakdown of attendance at each school and by grade level, go to newspressnow.com.