Mrs. Gormley’s Class Takes On JSEC Attendance Issues

Juniors in Mrs. Gormley’s Community Development Class, have created an initiative to focus on an attendance as their major project this semester.  This project was deemed very impressive by our own JSEC Administrative Team.  Juniors in the Community Development class, have made it their goal to tackle the root causes as to why students are absent and often unmotivated to go to school.   The class has contacted and held meetings with many people including the Superintendent of the Providence School Department–Superintendent Mr. Maher, the Executive Director of Attendance–Ms. Onye,  and are hoping to meet with Governor of the State of Rhode Island–Mrs. Gina Raimondo.  The goal is to get to the bottom of this problem that seems to be getting worse as Rhode Island ranks at 7th worse in school absenteeism in the country.

In Providence, 50% of high school students are chronically absent, while 1 out of 4 students in elementary school are absent and 1 out of 3 middle school students are absent, which is an alarming and proven statistic.  The class has created a survey which will be distributed amongst the entire school in hope to receive feedback.

We are hoping that through our survey we will have insight to at least why JSEC students are late/absent and hope to come up with ways for improvement.  We know that with higher attendance comes higher test scores and grades.  We know that now the seeds are planted to be on time, show up on time, and learn from bell to bell.  Any distraction from this weakens our education and now is a critical time for students to thrive, learn, expand their knowledge and should they not come to school, all that is diminished.

We will keep JSEC updated as results come in.  Our plan is to educate not only JSEC but all stakeholders on how to make high school a great place to come and excite students to arrive on time to school each and every day.