NSD, Alberta Education take steps to improve student attendance

October 29, 2015

Alberta Education is hoping that a multi-ministry approach to dealing with poor attendance numbers for Northland School Division will make the difference.

Lorna Rosen, deputy minister of education, said NSD was the best funded school division in the province by Alberta Education. But continuing to pour money into solutions without understanding the issues would lead to the same results.

“It’s about stopping to look at education as if it’s separate and distinct from the community….I think it’s about us looking holistically at the community itself, what the community needs, what are the real reasons that … children are not attending school and see how we can take a different approach,” said Rosen.

Rosen, along with NSD public trustee Colin Kelly and
superintendent Donna Barrett, appeared in front of the standing committee on public accounts on Tuesday to respond to recommendations made by Auditor General Merwan Saher to address low attendance numbers in the sprawling northern school division.

Saher made three overall recommendations in his March 2015 audit, two that required NSD to take steps and one that required further, intensive Alberta Education involvement in “exercis(ing) oversight.” NSD was directed to develop a plan to improve student attendance, and to monitor and enforce student attendance.

Saher criticized NSD’s operations for lack of reliable
attendance data.

While NSD said it now had a division-wide monitoring system in place, Barrett admitted that data from 2014-2015, which indicated a two per cent division-wide improvement in attendance, was not necessarily accurate, especially with high school attendance. If student attendance data was not entered, the system defaulted to 100 per cent. That glitch has been corrected, she said, which means it will be difficult to compare the new school’s year’s attendance rate to the previous year.

Based on the potentially-skewed data, Kelly reported that two schools had an attendance at 90 per cent or better and 11 schools at 85 per cent or better. Overall, 15 of NSD’s 24 schools had seen attendance improvements.

Barrett said NSD was shooting for a five per cent student attendance growth each year with the “ultimate goal” of hitting a 95 per cent attendance target. However, she could not offer a date as to when that target was to be met.

“It’s a long term target but we do want our students to be successful,” said Barrett.

A number of MLAs on the standing committee, while understanding the educational reason for such a high number, questioned whether that figure was realistic.

Kelly said changes had been made to the division-wide budget including reallocating $200,000 to support attendance improvement initiatives. He said it was estimated it would cost NSD approximately $2 million to fully implement all 29 attendance recommendations, with $1.5 million to hire community liaison officers and $200,000 allocated to student transportation.

Barrett said protocol was now in place to direct schools on what action to take when a student was absent. Previously, schools did their own follow-up, much of which was not recorded, which was also noted by Saher. Now, every absence is followed with a phone call by the teacher or a home-visit by the teacher, principal or school liaison, said Barrett, and after three days, the student is “flagged for closer monitoring,” which means looking at the issues and circumstances surrounding his absence. Each school now has an attendance support committee, which reviews the student’s situation and then determines which agencies and supports need to be put in place to ensure the student can get to school.

It is this multi-disciplinary approach that Alberta Education wants, said Rosen. In late July a committee was formed with representatives from education, health, Aboriginal relations, and human services to focus on developing strategies for improving governance, student attendance and achievement, as well as reducing the achievement gap between First Nations, Metis and Inuit students and non-Aboriginal learners.

“Progress toward implementing the auditor general’s recommendations has been made over the past few months,” she said.

Absenteeism has been an ongoing concern with NSD for 40 years. As it stands now, one-third of NSD’s approximate 2,700 students are chronically absent. Poor student attendance was one reason why Alberta Education replaced NSD’s 23-member corporate board in 2010, naming Kelly as public trustee.

The NSD communities are feeling disenfranchised without an elected board, said Kelly, “and I completely concur with that.”

Education Minister David Eggen has expressed his desire to have an elected board in NSD as soon as possible.