NEW YORK—Over a hundred students from three schools with “most improved” attendance were honored at a New York Yankees’ pre-game ceremony yesterday. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a partnership with the Yankees in his “Every Student, Every Day” initiative to reduce absentee rates in New York City public schools.
“We are using every tool available to drive home the point that every student needs to be in school every day,” Bloomberg said.
The mayor previously launched similar initiatives, such as WakeUp! NYC, and created a task force against truancy last year.
In the 2009–2010 school year, 20 percent of the city’s 1.1 million public school students missed at least one month of school.
John Feinblatt, who oversees the task force on Truancy, Chronic Absenteeism, and School Engagement, congratulated the students present at the event, who had drastically raised their chronically absent records over the past school year.
“Absenteeism is a signal that something is wrong in a student’s life, and it is predictive of poor academic outcomes, including poor performance and likelihood of dropping out,” Feinblatt said. According to research done by the city administration, three out of four students chronically absent in sixth grade don’t graduate from high school.
The three schools with the most improved attendance were P.S. 181 in the Bronx, with a 38-percent decrease in absenteeism over the past year, Isaac Newton Middle School in East Harlem, with a 41-percent truancy reduction, and High School for Teaching and the Professions in South Bronx, with a 21-percent attendance improvement.
“High schools are historically the hardest schools to impact attendance rates because student performance and patterns are so ingrained,” said Gary Prince, the principal of the High School for Teaching and the Professions.
These three schools were among 25 schools with the highest truancy rates participating in the city’s pilot program to raise attendance rates. Three hundred tickets were provided by the Yankees as an incentive for the students to participate in the year-long attendance challenge.
“We are using every tool available to drive home the point that every student needs to be in school every day,” Bloomberg said.
The mayor previously launched similar initiatives, such as WakeUp! NYC, and created a task force against truancy last year.
In the 2009–2010 school year, 20 percent of the city’s 1.1 million public school students missed at least one month of school.
John Feinblatt, who oversees the task force on Truancy, Chronic Absenteeism, and School Engagement, congratulated the students present at the event, who had drastically raised their chronically absent records over the past school year.
“Absenteeism is a signal that something is wrong in a student’s life, and it is predictive of poor academic outcomes, including poor performance and likelihood of dropping out,” Feinblatt said. According to research done by the city administration, three out of four students chronically absent in sixth grade don’t graduate from high school.
The three schools with the most improved attendance were P.S. 181 in the Bronx, with a 38-percent decrease in absenteeism over the past year, Isaac Newton Middle School in East Harlem, with a 41-percent truancy reduction, and High School for Teaching and the Professions in South Bronx, with a 21-percent attendance improvement.
“High schools are historically the hardest schools to impact attendance rates because student performance and patterns are so ingrained,” said Gary Prince, the principal of the High School for Teaching and the Professions.
These three schools were among 25 schools with the highest truancy rates participating in the city’s pilot program to raise attendance rates. Three hundred tickets were provided by the Yankees as an incentive for the students to participate in the year-long attendance challenge.
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