Burbank Unified highlights the cost — in dollars — of absenteeism
While a quality education may be considered priceless, missing a day of school has a cost per student: $51.
That’s how much Burbank Unified officials estimate the school district loses in state funding each time one of its roughly 15,000 students is absent per day.
The cash-strapped district is once again asking parents and students to be frugal when taking days off, highlighted by the board unanimously voting to designate September as “Attendance Awareness Month” during a meeting earlier this month.
“We’ve done this the last couple of years,” Burbank Unified’s Supt. Matt Hill said.
“This year, we want a stronger emphasis on it,” he added.
Hill is looking to focus on two areas: chronic absenteeism and financial impact.
Burbank Unified struggled with attendance issues in the latest reporting on the California Dashboard, an accountability system established online to measure a school district’s effectiveness in learning, college and career-course training, among other areas.
The rating system is based on colors, with blue being the best, or top mark, followed by green, yellow, orange and finally, red. Generally, school districts want to finish in the blue or green categories.
Burbank Unified landed in the orange grade under chronic absenteeism, with 7.2% of students listed as “chronically absent.” The percentage grew by 1% from the previous year.
Chronic absenteeism is defined by the state as missing 10% or more of instructional days.
“It’s a mixture of a lot of things,” Hill said of the causes for the absences. “The reasons vary for kindergartners to elementary to middle and high school.”
Hill said that because kindergarten is not mandatory in California, many Burbank parents don’t feel they need to bring their enrolled child to school every day. Plus, kindergartners naturally miss more days than other students.
“Kindergartners get sick more because they’re new to the school environment, and they’re getting germs,” Hill said.
At the elementary-school level, Hill said he’s noticed some parents like to take off additional days around holidays and, in a few instances, some students have yet to attend class this school year because they’re still on vacation.
“There’s not a lot, but we have a handful of parents out of town, and their students missed the first two weeks of school,” Hill said.
“We also see families taking an additional day or two off around holidays because they want a cheaper flight,” he added.
At the secondary-school level, Hill said absences are sometimes caused due to more severe reasons.
“You go into middle school and high school and we ask, ‘Is it anxiety, and is it stress?’” Hill said. “Are there illnesses that we’re not aware of?”
While Burbank Unified is preparing for a second proposed parcel tax campaign, which if passed would raise $9.1 million annually, the district also recently cut $3.5 million to balance its budget.
So, for Hill, every attendance dollar counts.
