When it comes to student outcomes, one of the most powerful indicators of success or struggles can be found in classroom attendance. And since the pandemic, schools have struggled more than ever with higher-than-usual absenteeism rates.
The Philomath School District is not immune from the issue. Across each campus, administrators are taking school attendance seriously with the implementation of incentive programs and the creating inviting, positive on-campus experiences to get kids in the building.
Mark Henderson, beginning his third third year as Philomath High School’s principal, said an attendance incentive program will be implemented this year.
“What we’d like to see is all kids above 90% attendance, which essentially means that they’ve missed one day a month,” Henderson said. “Where we’re going to see the real bang for our buck is focusing on those 80 to 90% attenders and getting them above 90.”
Henderson mentioned research that has shown interventions among students who attend 80% or more are the “easiest to move” upward. However, for the kids who regularly attend less than 80%, other issues often come into play.
“There might be some barriers at home and whatnot that might be getting in the way of them getting to school every day and some of those we can work with,” he said.
What are the incentives? Students will earn tickets based on their attendance rate and they can turn those in for various items like a fleece blanket, water bottle or gift card, or earn privileges like an extended lunch period.
“One of my assistant principals applied for a grant for a couple hundred dollars but if there’s people out in the community that would like to donate for the incentive pool, that would be fantastic,” Henderson said.
Principal Steve Bell at the middle school also strives for the 90% attendance rate.
“What we’re trying to do is to always be positive and create an environment where they want to be here,” Bell said, “You know, have activities throughout the day that is a pull for them to want to be at school either in the classroom or outside the classroom.”
The middle school will make a personal phone call to parents or guardians when a child is not in school.
“If we have a student that’s not here and we don’t know about it, we have that communication with parents and families to kind of find out reasons why and how we can support them,” Bell said. “To me, that’s the thing that’s going to continue to work in our favor — these relationships we create with families.”
Attendance is also an issue at even the lowest grade levels. As such, it’s also a focus for principals Abby Couture at Clemens Primary School (grades K-1) and Eric Beasley at Philomath Elementary (grades 2-5) and Blodgett Elementary (K-4).
“We’re doing incentives to increase student attendance and have come up with some plans and incentives to really encourage families to get their kids to school every day,” said Couture, beginning her eighth year as principal.
At the elementary school, Beasley said last year the students and staff had fun with some celebrations for good attendance.
“The first half of the year, Mr. (Mike) McDonough (assistant principal) got taped to the wall and each kid that was a regular attender got a piece of tape to do that,” Beasley said. “And in the second half of the year, if you were a regular attender, you got a little cup of slime to slime some teachers. So we’ve got some things like that to try and encourage regular attendance.”
Attendance is also on the mind of Garth Gerot, Philomath Academy’s first-year principal.
“One of the things that I’m really coming in looking at is attendance — the importance of having a student in their seat every day so they can be successful,” he said. “This is really important to me and part of being successful as a student.”
Gerot calls attendance critical to a student’s success. ‘We can’t help kids that aren’t here,” he said.
Philomath High School
Henderson said professional learning efforts continue at PHS with a particular focus this year on teachers collaborating with one another on student data.
“The research is pretty clear that when teachers collaborate with one another, their practice grows and thus students learn at higher levels,” Henderson said. “It’s talking about what’s going on in your own classroom or maybe you have difficult kids that you can’t reach and so you rely on your teammates to help you and maybe they have ideas that you’ve never tried. It’s all about setting aside that time, roughly an hour a week, to get together and work together on improving practice.”
New teachers at the high school include Savanna Sanders for math and Jenny Workman for Spanish. In the front office, Ashley Toombs has moved into the administrative support role of athletics assistant.
The high school saw no major changes to the building over the summer. Henderson did mention the possibility that some district office personnel may relocate to the high school if the right configuration can be determined. Philomath Academy’s presence in the district office building has created some office space challenges.
Enrollment at the high school appears to be similar to last year based on numbers made available last week. By the time everybody’s in class, Henderson believes enrollment will be up.
“I know that we lost a couple of kids to Corvallis but we’ve also brought in some kids from Kings Valley,” Henderson said. “We’re the only district that hasn’t dropped enrollment around the area, I believe, and we’re definitely going to be up. We won’t be up a ton but we graduated 104 and I think this year’s freshmen class is in the neighborhood of 115 to 120.”
Freshmen only were scheduled to attend classes Tuesday with all students in the building beginning Wednesday.
Philomath Academy
Gerot takes over as principal at Philomath Academy, a position that this past academic year was filled by Susan Halliday, the superintendent of schools. Gerot described why he felt Philomath would be a good fit for him.
“Really, it’s an opportunity to help those students that weren’t successful in a traditional classroom,” he said. “I think that we can make a great impact with those students in an alternative program like ours.”
Gerot spent the last two years as principal at Pleasant Hill High School and his recent past also includes serving as a battalion commander with the Willamette Leadership Academy, a Eugene-based public charter military academy.
“One of the things that stood out to me and the reason that I was also interested in this position is that it’s just not an online program and we’re not servicing students that are just not working in a traditional classroom and need online curriculum,” he said. “It really is about that engagement and offering students the different things that they need that they may not have been getting in a traditional classroom.”
In the area of staffing, two teachers will move to full-time status.
“What that’s going to look like is they’re going to be working to support students here at the academy and then part of their time is going to be at the high school helping with credit recovery,” Gerot said.
Philomath Academy students were able to come in Tuesday to check out Chromebooks and then classes begin Wednesday.
Philomath Middle School
Bell reported no major personnel changes with most of the staff returning, however, there have been some reassignments. Maria Gutoski, who has been in special education, will teach sixth-grade language arts. Ben Silva was moved from eighth-grade science to the electives (wood shop, fitness and the leadership class). Mitch Gross moves from student success coach to eighth-grade science. In addition, two new special education teachers are now a part of the team with Tyler McConnell and Molly Schultz (who will share her time with the high school).
On the enrollment front, the middle school also appears to be in the neighborhood of last year’s numbers.
“It’s always interesting that first week of school to see who hasn’t registered and who might come in that we don’t know about,” Bell said. “Family dynamic changes sometimes happen but we’re going to be around 350 would be my guess.”
As far as the campus, no major changes were done beyond routine maintenance. Bell mentioned that the outside modulars got a new paint job.
Bell has the longest tenure of any Philomath School District principal as he begins his 17th year in the position. Overall, he’s beginning his 23rd year at the middle school.
Sixth graders were scheduled to go to class Tuesday with all students on campus beginning Wednesday.
Philomath Elementary, Blodgett Elementary
The South 16th Street extension project that connects the road to the intersection of Cedar and South 17th occurred over the summer to change the drop-off and pick-up dynamic at the elementary school.
“Our sidewalks have been widened and the turnaround tended to jam up at 16th and Applegate at arrival and dismissal times because everybody had to go through that four-way stop and so having that cut-through with improved streets, it just makes a huge difference,” Beasley said. “We’ll have additional parking … I’m just really excited for the new flow.”
Beasley hopes parents will utilize the new road entering from 17th, 18th or 19th to drop off children at the curb by the building — lines were to be painted for a dedicated student transfer zone. At the same time, he hopes that parents will not come down 16th as in the past because then kids would need to cross the road to reach campus.
Buses will also drop off in this vicinity as well. Children will go through the side gate and start their morning in the covered area or gym-cafeteria space toward the back of the building. At the end of the day, parents will pick up on the new road while buses continue to pick up in the parking lot.
As far as other changes, Beasley mentioned a new communication tool called BrightArrow which allows the school to text parents with reminders, etc. New card reader systems on the school’s exterior doors is another addition.
Philomath Elementary returns all 16 classroom teachers with the only additions being a couple of instructional assistants and a playground-cafeteria assistant. Early enrollment numbers last week showed 31 at Blodgett and 366 at PES.
No major changes were done to the building over the summer other than creating space to accommodate the district librarian and psychologist because of tight quarters at the district office. In addition, the school’s computer lab layout was changed.
Beasley is starting his second year as principal and 25th as an educator.
Classes began Tuesday for second graders only. All students will attend beginning Wednesday.
Clemens Primary School
The school’s new covered play shed is the most visible change on campus as classes get ready to begin. Couture said it will completely change the options for getting students time out of the classroom.
“In the past, if we had a rainy day, we would have to do recess indoors,” Couture said. “With all of the classes that we have, we don’t have a ton of space to have indoor recess so we were just using every nook and cranny to be able to get the kids up and moving rather than just staying in the classroom. And now, with a covered area, we’ll be outside every day.”
Some work on the play shed will continue into the middle of September.
“What’s not going to be done is there is a climbing wall that’s going to be installed as another play structure … that is not going to be installed until Sept. 12,” Couture said.
A Benton Community Foundation grant helped pay for the climbing wall. Another grant from the Siletz tribe allowed the school to purchase a basketball hoop to be installed. Overall, the structure was paid for through funds from the Philomath School District and the Clemens Foundation, the latter contributing $50,000 toward the project.
In the building, the school will again be able to offer music with the return of teacher Hailey Van Essen (formerly Hailey Vandewiele). The school will also offer additional support in the areas of speech and language, and special education with part-time staff hired. Five student teachers will be in the building this year, Couture said.
Enrollment heading into the first week is at around 93 for the first grade and 75 for kindergarten.
The first week at Clemens Primary revolves around individual student assessments over the first couple of days followed by half days for students Thursday (surnames A-K) and Friday (surnames L-Z). All CPS students begin regular attendance on Sept. 9.
