WEYBURN - Their respective basketball teams may have been battling for supremacy on the courts, vying for the McLeod Series title, but primary administrators from the Weyburn and Estevan Comprehensive Schools were getting along just fine in the boardroom.
Principal James Jones and vice-principal Craig Palmer from the Estevan Comprehensive School joined Renee Cuthbert and Adam Wilson, their respective counterparts from the Weyburn Comprehensive School, to talk about attendance within their schools, which are the two largest facilities in the South East Cornerstone Public School Division.
The four administrators were joined by SECPSD director of education Keith Keating for the presentation to the board members attending the Feb. 14 open board session in the division's head office in Weyburn.
Keating began the hour-long presentation by outlining the division's system goal No. 3, which calls for effective use of information to measure, monitor and report improvements in the division.
He spoke briefly about the 17 different tools used to assess and report on continuous improvements while the school administrators focused on attendance record keeping at their respective schools. They discussed how they can drill down into specific details that can be used to assist students, teachers and parents in reaching the goal of providing the students with every opportunity to move forward in the learning process.
Keating spoke of early literacy and reading programs, special math projects, and reviews and report card use as communication tools.
Student behaviour is also tracked along with their achievements.
These tracking processes are generally started with updated attendance records and that is where the two administration teams stepped in to talk about processes used to help the systems and students.
Jones was first up and he spoke of familiar tools used within the new education plan that is now surfacing in all provincial schools. A focus on attendance was a main feature and how important it was to continue conversations about attendance on a year-to-year basis.
Cuthbert addressed the issue of student and family emergence from the pandemic issues of a couple of years ago and how "getting students back into the school buildings" was a goal. Both she and Jones agreed this was an important factor and Keating supported their statement by noting that an increase of four to five per cent in attendance post pandemic was a good one. While the figure may not be interpreted as being "seismic" by the administrators, Jones stated, "Don't sell yourselves short. It's significant."
Jones spoke of daily dynamic attendance processes where the numbers are checked every day so that "things we talk about in the office make us dig into as administrators. That's a healthy starting point for me."
The numbers varied a bit between the two schools since WCS is a school that includes Grades 7 to 12 while ECS is dedicated to Grades 9 through 12. The two facilities host student populations of between 770 and 900 or more.
The percentage of students attending these schools 80-90 per cent of the assigned school time ranged between 76.3 and 88.1 per cent for Grades 10-12 compared with Grades 7-9, with WCS holding a slightly better attendance record, which brought forth a query from board member Jim Vermeersch as to why this was an ongoing situation.
Keating responded by noting that regional demographics had a lot to do with the slight disparity.
Wilson spoke about the attendance gathering portal where data can be filtered by semester, students can be viewed at each grade, and their attendance rates are recorded and followed, even if they have transferred from one school in the Cornerstone division to another.
If the information received calls for interventions then "we can click on and drill down to more granular levels," he said.
"What intervention can be put in place? We can follow progress and results. Lateness is noted," Wilson added.
The facts are revealed and information shared and that is a huge issue in the larger schools, he suggested.
Cuthbert added they have even implemented a "period-by-period attendance tracking system," which she admitted required more work for teachers, but they "haven't received any complaints because they see the value of it."
The data is sent to parents and communications begin if there are attendance issues.
Jones said ECS engages the user-friendly Edsby system on a regular basis for their daily figures on students, and the visual results "are a powerful tool we can see, outlining absences and parents can see it on their portal." He added that active users see the difference between direct communication versus sending out notifications.
Palmer said he has used the Edsby system for some time and it has been a solid learning experience for both teachers and students.
"There are tonnes of information out there," he said, explaining how excused absences are tracked and why they are noted. He said sometimes that might involve an extended travel experience for the student and family, as one example, or maybe a medical issue.
This gives all participants "a quick chunk of data and everybody knows what happened," he said. Edsby provides the panoramic view he added so that trends can be tracked on the side and that can bring about positive conversations among teachers, students and parents as well as administration.
"We can bring in the teacher to discuss the issue. We can get hold of mom and dad, then decisions can be made on what to do with extensive absences," Palmer said.
The far-reaching system leads to further discussion and ideas to launch alternate plans to address an ongoing issue of absenteeism.
He noted one example where it was felt absences were perhaps making a student fall behind, but communications with the teacher involved indicated that there wasn't an issue with keeping up with the subject demands and with only a brief intervention, a successful path forward was forged among administration, teacher, student and parents.
Cuthbert agreed that communication with all sides usually leads to successful family and student interventions.
Generating more conversations with family is important, said Jones.
Keating wrapped up the forum by noting variances between larger schools and the smaller rural settings, yet the new attendance projects provide "data for accountability and a focus for the schools of each community."
He concluded by saying the metrics for the new provincial education plan have yet to be determined, but he felt Cornerstone was on the right path.
