"I'm a go to school": JP celebrates perfect attendance by LISD students

Allocation of Average Daily Attendance money from state

Justice of the peace Hector Liendo held an appreciation rally to honor students at LISD who have posted perfect attendance this year. This reminded me of the many times that I've heard teachers comment "Los peores son los que nucan fallan, no los aguantan en la casa (The worst ones are the ones who never miss school, they can't stand them at home)". It also reminds me of hearing how just one absence would disqualify an elementary kid from getting a brand new bike. I've always thought that's pretty harsh. I also think that it reflects poorly on the perfect attedance campaigns the schools promote.

I think most of us assume that perfect attendance equals to good academic performance. Conversely, the consensus would probably be that poor attendance would be very hard to overcome for most students. Not surprisingly, in this particular case, research actually supports our own prejudices. Consider the following conclusions arrived at by researcher Christina Longstaffe who took on the task of studying any correlation between attendance and school performance in California schools. She notes:

Non-attendance doesn't only affect the school, it affects the student, the family and the community. Absentism is detrimental to students achievement, promotion, graduation self-esteem and employment potential. It is evident that students who miss school fall behind their peers in the classroom. This. in turn, leads to low self-esteem and increases the chances that at-risk students will drop out of school. Failure to graduate is associated with decreased learning potential in adulthood and other negative outcomes.

Congratulations to all those students who have perfect attendance as well as to all those who strive and aspire to go to school as often as possible. Everyone knows that many students are absent for reasons other than their simply not wanting to go to school.