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Garrison School Board Attempting to Curb Excessive Student Absences
Impact on children’s learning feared
by Margaret Sternberg
Citing a statistic that eight Garrison students had missed more than 30 days of school during the past school year, School Superintendent Gloria Colucci emphasized the impact of attendance on a child’s education during the November 2 meeting of the Garrison Board of Education.
Noting that a student who is out 20 days has missed one month of school, she added she was hopeful that through the establishment of a set of guidelines, by the updating of the Attendance Policy, it would alert parents that the school was “serious about…wanting children to be in school on a regular basis.” Although later admitting the school had almost no recourse if there was no improvement, Colucci appeared confident that making parents aware that attendance was an issue might be sufficient to effect a positive change.
Adding that tardiness was also a problem (as exemplified by parents dropping off their children after 8:20 am, by which time, she said, children should be in their homerooms), Colucci said parents will be reminded about the “official start of the day.” Trustee Leann Malone noted that tardiness is disruptive to the class, with Colucci adding that the child involved “never catches up” and lateness doesn’t “set a good tone for the day.”
Board President Anita Prentice noted that last year’s school attendance was at 93.7%, falling short of the state goal of 95%. This year, September’s attendance was 97% and Colucci added that the 95% goal was “achievable, because we are so close.”
Trustee Jim Cannon requested the statistics be broken out into excused versus unexcused absences, pointing out that a medical reason is a valid reason for an absence. He also requested information about a crossover of tardiness versus absence, citing parents who may bring a child in later in the day after determining that a child may be not feeling well at 8 am but fine at 10 am. He said that type of situation would not affect the education process. Colucci responded that was why the policy was being formulated as a set of guidelines that, no matter what time period was involved, it was based on the discretion of the administrators. Colucci and the trustees also acknowledged that parents take their younger children out of school based on the vacation schedules of the high school students as well as parents whose jobs take them out of the area for months at a time, circumstances over which they had little control.
Finishing the Education Committee report, Superintendent Colucci said Destination Imagination has formed two teams.
In other business, Trustee Eric Jacoby reported the Technology Committee held preliminary discussions on the 2005-6 technology plan and had also discussed some of the hardware and software changes to the school, including the addition of 11 new PCs to the Library Media Center from which ten Dell computers had been moved into the classrooms. A network laser printer has also been added in the library. The “rolling” upgrade of PCs and the effect on the budget were cited as discussion issues as were the number of seats in the Media Center 16 versus a standard class size of 20.
Superintendent Colucci and Trustees Palefsky and Malone reported on their attendance at the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) conference. Malone, who was the voting delegate, reported that all of the resolutions NYSSBA had recommended for support had passed. Among them was a resolution supporting the instituting a legal challenge within the state to the federal “No Child Left Behind Act.” If NYSSBA is successful, New York would then join several other states in challenging the Act.
Malone said a resolution recommending creation of a “predator-free zone” had also passed. NYSSBA will seek legislation requiring registered, Level 3 sex offenders to maintain a distance of at least 1,000-feet from school property or be subject to arrest. Malone said the resolution differs from current law in that current law restricts sex offenders, whose victims were under the age of 18, from knowingly entering any school grounds as a mandatory condition of probation or conditional discharge. She said current law does not address offenders who have completed their term and were released unconditionally, leaving them free to go onto school grounds.
A somewhat abashed Colucci reported the traffic signal is “mechanically ready,” however, she said, the Department of Transportation has cited issues needing resolution before they will proceed with the inspection. Chazen Engineering is trying to “track down” those issues in an effort to resolve the impasse. One possible, but unconfirmed, cause for the delay is the location of the crosswalk, which was supposed to have been moved by the contractor.
The next meeting of the Garrison Board of Education will be Wednesday, November, 16, at 7 pm.
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