By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released its 2022 District Report Card this week. Essentially, statewide and district-by-district data tracking attendance, graduation rate, ACT scores and the like.
The St. Joseph School District received disappointing results in this report, though they’re not alone. In St. Joseph, attendance in the school district declined from 84.3 percent in 2020 to 70.5 percent in 2022.
Ashly McGinnis, assistant superintendent of academic services, points to the pandemic and remote learning as reasons for the attendance drop.
"In 2020, you're looking at that pre-COVID data, because everything shut down," McGinnis said. "In 2021, we didn't have any state assessments and were primarily hybrid and going through COVID protocol at that time. So, 2022, we're really trying to get back to a sense of normal where we are all back in person."
The drop in attendance, McGinnis says, has led to a decline in other figures. For instance, the St. Joseph School District’s four-year graduation rate dropped from 79.6 percent in 2021 to 77.6 percent in 2022.
ACT scores dropped for the first time in four years, going from an average score of 21.6 to 20.5. McGinnis believes all of this turns around as soon as attendance goes back up.
"Attendance is the primary focus, because we cannot educate kids if we do not have them in seats," McGinnis said. "In my opinion, that's where we have to start. We do have plans in place. We've hired eight attendance interventionists so far to assist and engage our families in getting kids to school."
McGinnis says the district already has these protocols in place to help get attendance back up. The attendance rate for November 2022 is 78.2 percent. That's nearly an eight-point climb since the end of last school year, but there's still work to be done.
"We are showing progress," McGinnis noted. "Every building has attendance action plans right now that they are working. So, they're doing home visits, phone calls, letters home. Really, just trying to engage kids and parents to stress to them the importance of coming to school."
St. Joseph’s numbers follow a statewide trend. Attendance in Missouri from 2020 - 2022 dropped from 85.3 percent to 76.2 percent. Statewide ACT scores also dropped from 20.8 to 20.3 since 2021.
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