Godfrey-Lee — How do you motivate teenagers to get to class on time?
Lee Middle and High School recently had success when a few of their staff members dressed up in inflatable dragon costumes and “chased” students who lingered in the halls before the first-hour bell.
All humor aside, the building’s new attendance task force is taking truancy seriously, and has made it their mission to encourage all students to be at school and make it to all their classes on time.
The team, composed of administrators, a counselor and teacher representative, come up with ideas to work with frequently tardy and absent students and reward those who consistently show up at school.
“Truancy is still an issue, so we want to work with and educate our families about our district-wide attendance policy,” Lee Middle School Assistant Principal Peggy McCormick said.
Following two years of a district-wide attendance task force focused on standardizing expectations and communication with families, this is the first school year for building-specific task forces.
Each task force now implements the expectations, which McCormick said align with Kent ISD’s Strive for Less than 5 initiative to address chronic absenteeism.
Incentivizing Attendance
In the district, 10 tardies equal one full-day absence in the attendance formula. The consequences for repeated tardies and absences at Lee are still quite traditional: Students can receive detention or a call home to their families to discuss an improvement plan.
For students who consistently show up at school and in class on time, the administration is finding new and creative ways to incentivize perfect attendance.
“We want to reward the ones who are doing it the right way, by giving out perfect attendance awards or golden tickets in the school store,” McCormick said. “We also have Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports assemblies every marking period to celebrate the middle and high schools reaching their attendance goals.”
The task force looked to former Assistant Principal Justin Noordhoek for creative methods to motivate students to get to class on time.
The most recent “Box Office Attendance Challenge” awarded a dollar amount per student having perfect attendance. Tardies were subtracted from the total amount, and whichever grade level met its “box office” goal will get to see a movie in a theater next semester.
Noordhoek also volunteered to be recorded and played on every TV screen in the high school hallways and common areas during passing time.
“We’ve done attendance challenges that were not as successful, but if we hear students having conversations in the hall about how fun they are, then we know it’s a good challenge,” he said.
Some of the attendance-themed videos on the Lee Middle and High School Instagram page have more than 10,000 views.
“You can’t be afraid to do goofy things,” McCormick added. “The small things we’re doing that seem so simple have the biggest impacts.”
Why Being Present Matters
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased rates of chronic absenteeism. The district also eliminated its school buses during the pandemic, transferring the task of getting students to school to families.
In the 2023-24 school year about a third of K-12 students in Michigan were chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of school days due to excused or unexcused absences, according to the Michigan Department of Education.
Prior to the pandemic, in the 2018-19 school year, chronic absenteeism in Kent ISD’s service area was at 14.6%, according to MI School Data.
Since setting the goal of 75% of students missing four or fewer days of school at the start of the marking period, Lee Middle School students have exceeded it at 84%.
“It’s all about consistent reinforcement about the importance of attendance,” Noordhoek said. “It’s becoming a part of the culture in the district.”
Kent ISD Attendance Officer Mark Larson said in a previous interview with SNN that family involvement is a crucial part of bolstering consistent attendance and reducing absenteeism.
Unifying attendance efforts in every Godfrey-Lee school was especially helpful to families with children in multiple grade levels, McCormick said.
“Middle-school attendance is a shift from elementary, because attendance is taken six times a day,” she said. “We’re here to bridge communications with the families, and hope they feel comfortable reaching out to us.”
Godfrey-Lee’s Kent Student Services Network coordinators also assist each building’s task force by stepping in to help families when needed.
“We’re really working to strengthen our processes around attendance,” Noordhoek said. “We still need to formulate the role each building plays and pave an attendance path.”
Read more from Godfrey-Lee:
• High school students lead lessons for middle-school peers
• High school students put on Hispanic Heritage Festival for community
