Last school year, the district commissioned what turned out to be an eye-opening study of student attendance that found that half of high school students missed 18 days of school or more -- and one-third missed at least seven weeks of school.
The landscape wasn't a whole lot better in the elementary schools. Forty-three percent of kindergartners missed 18 days or more, for instance.
Well, that study got district officials taking a closer look at attendance. Over the summer, they initiated automated wake-up calls to students who miss 10 percent of school days. More attendance teachers were added this fall at low-performing schools. And the district is about to take practices from other districts and pilot them at some Buffalo schools.
So far this year, attendance has improved across the district. Average daily attendance, through the end of November, increased from 88.9 percent to 91 percent.
Western New York Day Treatment saw a 12.5 percent increase, to 96 percent. At Riverside -- historically a school with one of the worst attendance rates -- average daily attendance increased from 69 percent to 80 percent.
Associate Superintendent Will Keresztes says he's waiting to get the results of a more thorough data analysis, which will drill down to indicate whether there's been improvement at each school in the percent of "chronically absent" students -- those missing at least 10 percent of school days.
"Comparing average daily attendance is necessary but insufficient," he said. "It doesn’t allow to dig deep into individual students."
For the moment, though, average daily attendance is what we have available.
While there has been improvement in most schools, there's still a considerable disparity.
Consider: at the district's alternative school, The Academy, on an average day, two-thirds of students showed up. At Riverside, Bennett and East high schools, about four out of five students showed up.
On the other hand, at City Honors, Olmsted 156 and Middle Early College, about 95 percent of students showed up on average.
Here's the complete breakdown, comparing average daily attendance in each school through the end of November 2011 to average daily attendance through the end of November 2010:
| School number | School | Average daily attendance through 11/30/11 | Average daily attendance through 11/30/10 | Increase/decrease |
| 3 | D'Youville Porter | 92.98% | 92.09% | 0.89% |
| 6 | BEST | 92.38% | 88.63% | 3.75% |
| 17 | Early Childhd Ctr 17 | 90.26% | 90.05% | 0.21% |
| 18 | Pantoja | 93.10% | 89.96% | 3.14% |
| 19 | Native Am Magnet | 94.39% | 90.77% | 3.62% |
| 27 | Hillery Park | 93.66% | 92.75% | 0.91% |
| 30 | Frank Sedita | 92.65% | 90.68% | 1.97% |
| 31 | Harriett Ross Tubman | 92.83% | 90.63% | 2.20% |
| 32 | Bennett Park | 93.63% | 92.66% | 0.97% |
| 33 | Bilingual Center 33 | 91.90% | 90.33% | 1.57% |
| 37 | Futures Academy | 90.29% | 88.92% | 1.37% |
| 39 | MLK | 92.74% | 89.22% | 3.52% |
| 43 | Lovejoy Discovery | 92.73% | 91.13% | 1.60% |
| 45 | Intl School 45 | 94.14% | 92.00% | 2.14% |
| 53 | Community Schl 53 | 91.50% | 90.44% | 1.06% |
| 54 | Blackman | 93.47% | 91.73% | 1.74% |
| 59 | Drew Science Magnet | 92.47% | 91.64% | 0.83% |
| 61 | Early Childhd Ctr 61 | 91.32% | 91.29% | 0.03% |
| 64 | Olmsted 64 | 95.94% | 95.44% | 0.50% |
| 65 | Roosevelt | 91.95% | 88.16% | 3.79% |
| 66 | North Park Middle | 92.90% | 91.00% | 1.90% |
| 67 | Discovery | 95.78% | 95.56% | 0.22% |
| 69 | Houghton | 92.42% | 91.23% | 1.19% |
| 72 | Lorraine | 93.94% | 91.33% | 2.61% |
| 74 | Hamlin Park | 91.65% | 89.76% | 1.89% |
| 76 | Badillo | 90.43% | 88.39% | 2.04% |
| 79 | Grabiarz | 92.91% | 91.19% | 1.72% |
| 80 | Highgate Heights | 93.64% | 93.32% | 0.32% |
| 81 | School 81 | 94.67% | 92.73% | 1.94% |
| 82 | Early Childhd Ctr 82 | 91.57% | 91.31% | 0.26% |
| 84 | Erie Co Health Ctr | 86.93% | 87.79% | -0.86% |
| 89 | Wright | 93.73% | 92.30% | 1.43% |
| 90 | Drew ECC 90 | 90.38% | 89.79% | 0.59% |
| 91 | BUILD | 92.42% | 91.58% | 0.84% |
| 93 | Southside | 93.21% | 90.62% | 2.59% |
| 94 | West Hertel | 91.80% | 88.95% | 2.85% |
| 95 | Waterfront | 92.86% | 90.29% | 2.57% |
| 97 | Austin | 92.70% | 90.77% | 1.93% |
| 99 | Makowski | 93.09% | 92.62% | 0.47% |
| 131 | The Academy School | 67.30% | ||
| 156 | Olmsted 156 | 94.54% | 92.25% | 2.29% |
| 187 | Performing Arts | 92.61% | 90.38% | 2.23% |
| 195 | City Honors | 96.50% | 95.03% | 1.47% |
| 197 | Math Science Tech Prep | 87.90% | 89.31% | -1.41% |
| 198 | Intl Prep | 90.89% | 85.30% | 5.59% |
| 200 | Bennett HS | 80.04% | 71.93% | 8.11% |
| 202 | Grover Cleveland | |||
| 204 | Lafayette | 84.14% | 76.02% | 8.12% |
| 205 | Riverside | 79.53% | 68.95% | 10.58% |
| 206 | South Park | 81.48% | 79.99% | 1.49% |
| 212 | da Vinci | 93.08% | 91.45% | 1.63% |
| 301 | Burgard | 81.24% | 76.37% | 4.87% |
| 302 | Emerson | 89.79% | 86.58% | 3.21% |
| 304 | Hutch Tech | 91.43% | 89.59% | 1.84% |
| 305 | McKinley | 83.72% | 76.18% | 7.54% |
| 307 | East | 80.48% | 78.00% | 2.48% |
| 402 | Occupational Trng Ctr | 93.00% | 92.62% | 0.38% |
| 407 | WNY Day Treatment | 96.06% | 83.58% | 12.48% |
| 415 | Middle Early College | 94.88% | 92.23% | 2.65% |
| Total | 90.95% | 88.91% | 2.04% |
- Mary Pasciak
facebook.com/mary.pasciak twitter.com/SchoolZoneBlog mpasciak@buffnews.com
