As we get started into a new year, lets talk a little about attendance. Attendance issues are still a struggle for us at MCHS. Building some common understanding about the the issue is crucial as we begin. Typically when we talk about attendance people think about truancy. Truancy consists of skipping school and cutting classes. Most people rightly think that this is not a problem for them or their students. At MCHS we don't have a Truancy issue. When we look at our attendance issues we are looking at a Chronic Absence issue. This differs from truancy in that it includes ALL absences. Chronic Absence includes excused and unexcused absences, absences for trips, athletic events, and any other reason you can think of why a student would miss school. When students miss 10% or more of school days (18 days approximately) in the school year they are categorized as "Chronically Absent." Research shows that chronically absent students have lower achievement in math and reading, struggle with social and emotional development, see increases in mental health issues, and struggle to graduate from high school.

At MCHS there are two things that are clear from the data that we look at. First, our chronic absence rate is very high. Over 40% of our students were "Chronically Absent", missing 18 or more days of school last year. Coupled with this was our climate survey where 63.6% of our parents indicated that "student absenteeism is not greater for my student than other groups of students." This indicates that our parents do not see that their students absences are an issue. This shows us that we need to work on student attendance both within and outside of the school.

At school we will be monitoring attendance closely through our MTSS Team (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) and contacting families to problem solve with them when we are concerned. We will also be working on the overall climate of the school through programs like Advisory and Sources of Strength. Additionally we will be running contests and incentives throughout the year to encourage better attendance.

We are also calling on our families to help us. Please schedule appointments after school if you are able, don't leave early for that trip in the spring, minimize leaving school for athletic events, and make sure your student(s) attend when they are healthy. If students are having problems (mental health, anxiety, social issues) let us know and we will do whatever we can to help. The worst thing that you can do is re-enforce a message that missing school solves these problems.

If we work together as a school community we are sure we can lower our rate of Chronic Absences. If you are interested in helping organize campaigns and attendance incentives at our school, please let us know.

The St. Lawrence County Suicide Awareness Coalition organized an event called "Chalk the Walk, Have to Talk" in recognition of September as Suicide Prevention Month. MCHS students used time in our Advisory Period to write positive messages of support on the sidewalks around our school. It was wonderful to see our students out working together to create a positive environment at our school. Thank you to Mrs. Curley for organizing this and a bigger thanks to all of our Advisory teachers for encouraging our students to participate.

We wanted to take a moment to let our families know about our school safety drills. Each year NYS mandates that we conduct 12 drills a year- 8 fire drills and 4 lockdown drills. These required drills have been done for years and likely families were not even aware that they occurred. However, with the recent capital project, we have added features that will be visible and audible to people around the school when these drills occur. Our school now has external speakers and strobe lights that will be in use when these drills are conducted.

We wanted to let our school community know this ahead of doing our drills. If you are around school and hear our alarm system or see our kids outside the school it is likely us doing a required drill. We know sometimes these things can look disconcerting if you are not expecting to see it. However these drills are essential in helping us to ensure that we are able to protect students and staff in the case of an emergency. Also, be sure that if there were a real emergency going on that the school district and law enforcement would be communicating that with the community.

If you have any questions, please let us know.