Absent students cost district $6,700 first month

Fallbrook Union High School students who did not regularly report for class the first month of school cost the district $6,702.61, says John Hayek, assistant principal. Since the money could have been used for classroom materials, sports equipment, improved technology and myriad other purchases to benefit students, it’s an irreplaceable loss.

Each day a student is absent from school, the Average Daily Attendance rate of $37.15, or ADA for that student, is computed as a loss against the FUHS operating budget. ADA funds are provided to schools by the state based on their enrollments and are at the core of the “school funding” issue the governor and legislature lock horns over each year when they negotiate the state budget.

Loss of ADA money is crucial to schools in Fallbrook where declining enrollments already signal belt tightening. If a kid misses class for a day and the absence results in a loss of $37.15, the school can’t turn off the lights in a classroom just because they planned to pay part of the bill with that student’s ADA and now don’t have it. Bottom line, if the kids aren’t in class, the school doesn’t get the money.

Although $37.15 may not seem like much, consider the cost of one textbook, a box of paper for a copy machine used to print out math study guides, ink cartridges for a graphics class, chemicals for chemistry classes and so on.

Hayek says last year 2,699 students were absent all day. That’s a loss of approximately $100,268. Where are these students who are supposed to be in school? A few are sick or injured. Some are family emergencies or vacations. Many take extended holiday trips to Mexico in December and fail to return when school resumes.

Others are truant, which becomes an issue for law enforcement. Regardless of the reason, every day an enrolled student is absent, it costs the district $37.15 for that student. Schools also lose ADA even when absences are school approved. Last year’s (unauthorized) “Senior Ditch Day” cost the district $15,000.

There are ways around this problem, Hayek says, but parents have to help. For instance, if a parent keeps a child out of school for the entire day for a doctor’s appointment of one hour, the school loses $35.17. However, if the child attends school before or after the doctor’s appointment, there’s no loss. This applies to any reason a parent pulls a student out of school temporarily.

“Parents may think one absence won’t make a difference, but it does,” Hayek says.

He’s worried about more than just the loss of ADA, though. When students are absent from school for even one day, they miss information they will need for a test, which for some could mean failing a class. Moreover, it’s more expensive to educate that student, because makeup tests or after-hours teacher assistance to help a student catch up cost money.

Kids who miss a month, such as those who leave for Mexico in December and return long after school starts in January, are the greatest at risk. Hayek says this predicament affects about 10 percent of FUHS students. They might not catch up at all.

Angel Merida, who attends Palomar College as a sophomore, now 30 and married with a son, says her father pulled her out of school for trips to Mexico frequently during her elementary and high school education. Now Merida is enrolled in remedial classes to learn the information she missed so she can continue her college education.

She’s not finding it easy.

Hayek and other administrators are not content to let the “culture of absences,” as he puts it, run the school, so along with teachers, support staff, administration and parents, an Attendance Task Force has been convened to find ways to improve attendance. Their goal is to raise ADA by one percent.

Thus far the task force has created a monthly “perfect attendance” award consisting of gift certificates, spirit wear, dance tickets and parking spaces. Each month all students who had perfect attendance for the preceding month will be rewarded for their efforts. The program begins at the end of this month.

Incentives aside, parents must be responsible for seeing that their children attend school every day, not only because it means the school will have the money to provide materials for them but because it’s the only way they can get 100 percent of the education they need.