OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Oshkosh Area School District recently launched a new school attendance campaign. It’s centered around helping students understand that attending school matters because they matter.
School leaders are reaching out to students and their families to encourage attendance at Oshkosh schools. The effort is called “Attendance Matters: Attend Today, Achieve Tomorrow.”
Director of Pupil Services Matt Kaemmerer tells FOX 11 the purpose is to build awareness around the importance of attending school.
“As much as we focus on literacy, math, behavior, life skills, if students aren’t actually coming to school, none of those things matter because they’re not there to actually receive their curriculum anyways,”.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the statewide chronic absenteeism score is 85.7. Oshkosh’s chronic absenteeism score is 89.1, up from 87.4 last year. The score is 100 minus the multi-year average chronic absenteeism rate, so the higher, the better the attendance.
FOX 11 asked the district why it’s so concerned with attendance when the numbers are up.
“There’s still you know, 11% of our students who are considered chronically absent that, unless they attend school and build those habits now, they’re not going to be college, career and community ready,” said Kaemmerer.
All schools in Oshkosh’s district reached 80 or more for their chronic absenteeism score. But the high schools have some of the lowest, with West scoring 85.7 and North scoring 80.2.
“The early levels, elementary school, it’s more on parents to get their child to school. Once students hit middle school or high school, they have a lot more say in it,” said Kaemmerer.
But with the ongoing tripledemic, some parents don’t see the point of the campaign.
“We’ve got COVID, RSV and influenza and sorts of stuff going on,” said Kailey Novak, a mother. “Some of these kids or parents are making the right call and not sending their extremely sick children to class.”
Novak says her oldest son is sometimes late to school because of various reasons that aren’t his fault.
“If his little brother isn’t quite ready or if something happens where we can’t get this kids both ready on the same schedule.”
Jaime Pappenfuss agrees. She says her son often misses school because of therapy appointments he has to attend for his ADHD.
“It just eliminates those kids completely and makes them feel even more targeted or isolated from other kids that are being rewarded positively for maybe not having those kinds of difficulties.”
“It’s not to be critical of anyone in particular,” said Kaemmerer. “It’s all about building habits that are going to carry over to their life beyond school.”
As part of the campaign, every student household received a letter from the Superintendent as well as a refrigerator magnet with school start times. The magnet is meant to serve as a reminder but also to reinforce the importance of school attendance at home.
