Dixon High School struggling to improve student attendance after 2020 pandemic disruptions

DIXON – Since schools returned to in-person learning following the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions in 2020 and 2021, low student attendance at Dixon High School has continued to be a problem, according to the State Report Card released Oct. 30 by the Illinois State Board of Education.

The annual report, which uses testing data and graduation rates from the most recent school year, provides information about the performance of all Illinois public schools. At DHS, the data shows 42.2% of all students during the 2023-24 school year were chronically absent, which means they have missed at least 10% of school days throughout the year.

That’s nearly double its 2018-19 rate of 22.6%; it is a slight decrease from its high point in 2021-22, but has increased since 2022-23.

However, DHS isn’t the only school facing low attendance. Across Illinois, chronic absenteeism has continued to be a problem after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data shows an average of 26.3% chronically absent students in all of Illinois’ public schools during the 2023-24 school year. That number has been steadily decreasing since 2021-22, but it’s still higher than the 2018-19 rate of 17.5%.

High school students – specifically sophomores, juniors and seniors – showed the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in Illinois with averages of 33.1%, 35.8% and 41%, respectively. At Dixon High School all four grades had about the same rates, the lowest being freshman with 42.7% and the highest being seniors with 44.8%, according to the report card.

During the pandemic, between 2020 and 2021, “there was this online learning. At certain points, we told [students] they couldn’t come to school. Then at other points, we said, ‘well, it’s kind of your choice. You can do some home stuff, you can do some in-person stuff,’” DHS Principal Jared Shaner said in an interview with Shaw Local News Network.

Now, in 2024, “we’re just simply past that,” but “for some [students] it’s just been really hard to get back in that habit of consistent attendance,” he said.

Sometimes students, and families, think that they can complete their work at home, because, although DHS does not offer any type of online program, schoolwork is accessible online through Canvas, the school’s learning management system.

“We try to just emphasize how important it is to be in front of the instructor giving that instruction on a consistent, daily basis,” Shaner said.

The district has also made it one of DHS’ school improvement goals in the 2024-25 school year to address chronic absenteeism and attendance, he said.

More specifically, the goal is to decrease the school’s rate of chronic absenteeism by 3% by the end of the school year, which is expected to increase student achievement and engagement, according to the improvement plan.

To do that, “first and foremost, we’re going to look at how we’re reporting attendance to the state to make sure that it is accurate and we are being fairly represented compared to other school districts,” Shaner said.

Sterling High School and Rock Falls High School had much lower rates of chronic absenteeism for 2023-24, with rates of 21.6% and 19.9%, respectively. For Sterling, that rate increased from 18.5% in 2022-23 while Rock Falls’ mostly stayed the same.

Low student attendance is an ongoing problem at DHS but “I promise you, 40% of our kids are not gone everyday,” Shaner said.

According to the report, on average 86.7% of DHS’ student body is coming to school on any given day. That number has mostly remained the same since 2021-22, but in 2018-19 that average was at 93.3%.

Attendance policies

The DHS attendance policy states that absences may be excused for a variety of reasons, including a physical or mental illness, the observance of a religious holiday or event, a death in the immediate family and the list goes on, according to the 2024-25 student handbook.

For those absences to be marked as excused, Illinois law requires that the student’s parent or guardian call the school to give an explanation, according to the ISBE.

At DHS, for example, if a student is sick, their parent or guardian must call within 24 hours of the absence; if the student is missing class because of a medical appointment, they are required to bring a note from their provider, Shaner said.

Unexcused absences occur when the parent or guardian does not call and the school can’t get in touch with them. At DHS, if a student is more than about 30 minutes late to class that would also count as an unexcused absence, Shaner said.

In the ISBE’s report card, any student who misses 10% or 17.6 days of the school year with either an excused or unexcused absence is counted as chronically absent.

“It doesn’t matter if you get mono and you’re in the hospital for 13 days. It doesn’t matter if, God forbid, you have three family members pass away and you take days off for funerals,” he said.

Because of that, one thing the administration is doing to decrease chronic absenteeism is identifying students who were absent for 17, 18, 19 or 20 days of the 2023-24 school year and setting up conversations with those students and their families.

“We certainly have kids, just like every school does, who miss 40 days of school in the year. We’re probably not going to magically get them to go from missing 40 days to under 17,” Shaner said.

“The focus for us has been on those kids” because if they improved their attendance by a day or two they would no longer be identified as chronically absent, he said.

Another resource the school began utilizing for the 2024-25 school year is the Regional Office of Education No. 47′s NEXUS program, which provides parent education, home visiting, family case management and coordinates intake and/or referral to community agencies.

Low attendance “does tend to be not only a student problem, but a family problem, as well,” Shaner said, adding that “sometimes it’s a single-parent home. Sometimes it’s just not a lot of support from a mom or dad in getting a kid up and making sure they’re ready to go and things like that.”

“That’s why we try to involve the families. To see what we can do to help them,” he said.

Taking an incentive-based approach

The school disciplines students for unexcused absences: One unexcused absence results in a 30-minute detention, two to four absences result in a one-hour, after-school detention and more than four result in two one-hour, after-school detentions, according to DHS’ policies and procedures.

“But it can’t just all be discipline,” Shaner said. To achieve its goal, the school has taken more of an incentive-based approach as opposed to punishment based.

For example, in September and October the school began meeting with all students who are struggling with attendance, individually and with their families, to set up “attendance contracts,” Shaner said.

During those meetings the school tries to identify “what are the reasons [the student] is not coming to school? Is it transportation? Is it a change in family structure? Then we’ll brainstorm ideas on how [the school] can work around those barriers with them and we’ll put a contract in place,” he said.

The contracts are individualized to each student. For example, it could be if the student attends school three days in a row or if they attend for the whole week then they’ll get some type of reward.

The school has a “perfect attendance award,” when every week one student from each grade level is chosen, according to Shaner.

Each quarter the school hosts Positive Behaviors Interventions and Supports, or PBIS, celebrations for all students who are under that 10% absenteeism rate during what the school calls an ELP period, which is like a free study period. At the most recent event, those students and school staff “went down to the gym, played some basketball, listened to music, ate some ice cream, that type of stuff,” Shaner said.

The school also has started tying attendance to the opportunity to opt out of taking final exams; they also need to be at a certain attendance rate to attend special events such as homecoming, prom and the winter dance.

“They absolutely want to do those things and are willing to improve in areas if that’s tied to it,” Shaner said. “It’s not surprising, but homecoming is really big. I had a bunch of students, the two to three weeks before homecoming, who came and asked me about their attendance.”