Greenwood High School continues to have one of the higher rates of chronic absenteeism in Mississippi, even while its nearby middle school almost halved its rate during the past school year.
Those are some of the results gleaned from a report released Friday by the Mississippi Department of Education.
Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10%, or 18 days, of the school year for any reason. This would include excused and unexcused absences as well as suspensions.
“Chronic absenteeism has a negative impact on student achievement because students who are not in school are not learning,” Dr. Carey Wright, the state superintendent of education, said in a prepared statement.
Greenwood High posted the highest absentee rate in the newly merged Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District. During the 2018-19 school year, 280 of its 695 students, or 40.3%, were absent from school at least 10% of the time. That was, though, a slight improvement over the previous year, when 41.6% of students were chronically absent.
In the recently released accountability grades, Greenwood High stayed at D on the state’s A-to-F scale.
Meanwhile, at Greenwood Middle School, the chronic absenteeism rate fell to 12%, a marked improvement from the previous year, when the rate was 22.5%. Its accountability grade during the same time frame also improved from D to B.
Dr. Mary Brown, the superintendent of the consolidated district, said in an emailed re-sponse that “there are many factors which contribute to chronic ab-senteeism, such as student migration, excused absences, student illnesses and others.”
She said Greenwood Middle School “was proactive in addressing seasonal allergies, which may have impacted student attendance. They also targeted students who were frequently absent by implementing an attendance plan which provided incentives for students who improved their daily attendance. They addressed student behavior by providing an alternate learning environment.”
Statewide, the percent of students missing 18 or more days during the school year was 13%, a significant improvement from the rate of nearly 17% the year before.
“Our declining chronic absenteeism rate is encouraging, and it corresponds to rising student achievement statewide,” said Wright. “Students who attend school regularly perform better academically.”
Trends both in Mississippi and nationally, according to MDE, show that absenteeism starts out high in kindergarten and then decreases steadily until students enter middle school, when it begins rising and peaks in high school. The 10 public schools with the highest rates of chronic absenteeism are all high schools, led by Lanier High School in Jackson at 61.4%.
Leflore County’s two other high schools buck that trend.
Even though both Amanda Elzy and Leflore County high schools saw an increase in their chronic absenteeism rates this past year, they still compare favorably to the state average. Elzy has a rate of just under 13%, and Leflore’s is 8%.
Brown said the consolidated district is “reviewing data and best practices in an effort to continue to decrease the chronic absenteeism rate in all schools. We applaud all schools for their efforts in working to decrease the rate of chronic absenteeism.”
In neighboring Carroll County, the district saw improvement across the board as its overall rate fell to 16.8%, compared to 24.4% the year before.
•Contact Tim Kalich at 581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
