Video: Monroe Co. And Aberdeen Opposite In Absenteeism Rates

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MONROE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Two Monroe county school districts are on opposite sides of the attendance spectrum, a new survey shows.

Kids Count identifies districts hit hardest by chronic absenteeism and why kids are skipping out.

This also means these schools are losing out on thousands of dollars.
The numbers show Aberdeen with the lowest in our viewing area, while Monroe County is hit the hardest.

Using data from the Mississippi Department of Education, a Mississippi Kids Count study shows the rates of chronic absenteeism in schools.

Aberdeen school district is among the lowest at 8.4%.

“We feel like what we’re doing on a daily basis as far as our messaging to our students and to our parents as far as the importance of being at school everyday, we feel like that’s making a difference as far as our attendance rates,” said Aberdeen Conservator Mac Curlee.

The organization says chronic absenteeism is when a student misses 10% or more of the academic year.

Curlee says while that number is good, he wants it even lower.

“We would like to be lower than 8.6 and some of the numbers that are reflected by each school, we want to have a lower percentage going forward, we sure do,” said Curlee.

The Kids Count survey shows the Monroe County School District comes in with the highest absenteeism rate in the viewing area, at 25.8%.

Superintendent Scott Cantrell says they are re-evaluating the data.

“But we feel it’s just our high school data. We know our elementary numbers and middle school numbers will be much better,” said Cantrell.

Cantrell says even if the numbers are true, they still want to improve.

“What policies do you have in place helping your attendance? So we’re certainly open to that because we know we have to have our kids at school, if they’re not at school then they don’t have a chance and we don’t have a chance for learning to occur, so we’ve got to dig deep into the numbers and that’s what data is for,” said Cantrell.
Cantrell also says MAEP funding is based on average daily attendance during October and November.
If the numbers are low, then the districts wont get the full amount of funding.

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