Can belonging be measured by student attendance?  I believe so, but carefully.

I recall a number of years ago one of our secondary schools was working on improving the engagement of the learners in their school and using attendance data as one measure.  Although they didn’t know it at the time, by using attendance data, what they were really measuring was Behavioural Engagement (Toshalis and Nakkula, 2012); which includes attendance, classroom participation, question-posing and question answering, and extracurricular involvement.  If I recall correctly, they were also using student achievement data to measure the other forms of engagement, as defined by Toshalis and Nakkula, 2012, in their research paper entitled, “Motivation, Engagement and Student Voice” (2012)…one of my favourites as many of  my colleagues know and which has informed our BLPSA:  

What they discovered was that they needed to look at the “attendance story” of each student (which our small size allows us to do), as there were surprises; some of the academically solid students missed a large number of days due to extracurricular involvement – sports days, hockey, music, dance, etc. – and they began to wonder about the impact of this level of involvement – knowing as well that it was important to the well-being and sense of belonging of those students. They discovered that there really were only a few students who they has serious concerns about as they rarely attended school, however they began to intervene for all situations. They did achieve some success that year in this work.

The point is that this school was, as are many of our schools today, “on to something” as we know that “successful schools begin by engaging students and making sure that they come to school regularly” (Ontario Ministry of Education Presentation, February 2016). “If they aren’t in school, they don’t learn. Improving school attendance improves success in school.”  (Bruner, Discher, Change, Attendance Works, http://www.attendanceworks.org, cited in Ontario Ministry of Education Presentation, February 2016).  We also know that poor school attendance increases the risk of students leaving school early, and that the research shows that the context of the school makes little difference (small school versus large school, rural versus urban).  We also know that poor attendance begins in early elementary school, and grows increasingly by grades 6, 7 and 8. Thus, we are all paying closer attention to the overall attendance of our students and are beginning to increase our levels of intervention.

Every School Day Counts, Every School Day is Important

This is because the province of Ontario is beginning to shine a “spotlight” on the need for schools to be knowledgeable about attendance including relevant legislation, the current research, the factors impacting attendance, and best practices to make the necessary change as these are all factors that need to be considered as we engage in the analysis of our data. So what are some things that we need to know?

• “Persistent Absenteeism” can be considered to be “any student/pupil who has missed 10% or more of school days for any reason, including unexcused or excused absences, over an academic year” (Ontario Ministry of Education Presentation, February 2016).
• The Education Act specifies that it is the duty of the principal to ensure that attendance is recorded. 265(1)(c)
• Compulsory Attendance – Students who are between the ages of 6 and 18 are required to attend school daily.
• Attendance is excused if a student is receiving satisfactory instruction at home or elsewhere, due to illness/medical, there is no school/transportation depending upon their age and distances, has obtained a secondary school graduation diploma, receiving music (half day/week), expelled, suspended, excluded, due to a holy day, etc. Section 21(2).

Data to Consider:

• During the 2013-2014 school year, 12.8% of elementary students were “persistently absent” from school. English Language boards were at 13.2% and French Language boards were at 5.1%.
• During the 2013-2014 school year, 1 in 8 elementary students were “persistently absent” from school in Ontario.
• During the 2013-2014 school year, 1 in 5 elementary students were “persistently absent” from school in the Thunder Bay region.
• During the 2013-2014 school year, 1 in 4 elementary students were “persistently absent” from school in the Superior-Greenstone District School Board. We had the second highest rate of absenteeism in the province. 
• That year, in Ontario, there was a 19% achievement gap in Grade 6 Math between Grade 6 students who were persistently absent and student who were not.

Responding to this Data:

As the school describe above discovered, it is the conversations that we are having/must begin having about attendance that will be the catalyst for change as we learn that we need to re-culture our expectations about attending in our district school board.  Raising the level of awareness about the impact of attendance not only on student achievement but on a student’s sense of belonging ultimately results in intervention and an increasing level of support for some students. We must educate and support parents/caregivers early on and consistently (remember the letters that principals were sending home with report cards providing information regarding the need to improve attendance?) in understanding that they are the “greatest enablers of poor school attendance” (Ontario Ministry of Education Presentation, February 2016), while at the same time ensuring that our policies and procedures keep students in school.  This would include a deep analysis of the “attendance culture” in our schools, asking ourselves what the alternatives are for some suspensions, what happens on snow days (do we capitalize on the small number of students and provide for some targeted instruction?), the approach that is taken when students are removed for vacations, the communication with local organizations around the scheduling of tournaments and competitions (which we all acknowledge are critical for our students), how we are role modelling daily attendance, and the list could go on and on. However, critical to this discussion is the notion that we need to figure out if students are absent because they don’t feel as sense of belonging or are if they absent because the culture of our region makes it okay to miss school?

I appreciated the Ministry of Education for providing us with some questions to consider as we engage in these dialogues:

We need to remember that students gain a sense of belonging to the school and engagement in their learning when they are at the  center of this learning, when they “own” their learning, are active participants, seeing the relevance and having some control over their own learning and to achieve their own success.  Might some students want come to school if our classrooms were increasingly student centered?  What if we help our communities to understand that all student MUST be in school every day?  

Until next week:  How are you engaging in your students’ attendance data to further this conversation with staff, parents, students and community?

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.

Babe Ruth

My blog thinking from last week focused on the need to define our schools and system as a whole using a strength based approach – whereby we all adhere to the Learner Mindset rather than the Judger Mindset.  I have written about this in the past, however I continually return to it as our growth requires us to focus on the positive, to give up on “gripes” and to see challenges as opportunities (thus modelling a growth mindset).  This has me returning to and reflecting on Our Conditions for Learning – specifically to Collaboration, as genuine collaboration is one of the key actions whose existence ensures that we continue to move forward. As Shelley, our Board Leadership Development Lead states, “Who is smarter than one of us…? ALL of us!”

Collaboration (vs. Cooperation):  I know I am collaborating if I work interdependently, engage others, actively listen, constructively contribute, respectfully challenge ideas, and share knowledge to build on others’ thinking to arrive at a desired goal.

As Ontario educators, we teach our students to actively engage in positive Collaboration as a Learning Skill:

…a Learning Skill that we provide feedback for on the Ontario Report Card:

As professional educators collaboration is one of expectations that defines our profession – as evident in the Leadership in Learning Communities Standard of Practice:

Leadership in Learning Communities 
Members promote and participate in the creation of collaborative, safe and supportive learning communities. They recognize their shared responsibilities and their leadership roles in order to facilitate student success. Members maintain and uphold the principles of the ethical standards in these learning communities.

Within our schools, there are some powerful models of collaboration currently taking place among the professionals and thus our students are witnessing this 21^st century skill in action daily.  From this modelling, these students are understanding that, to achieve a goal, adults work together, as learning is constructive. The level of this professional collaboration can be assessed by the following rubric (from Edugains Professional Learning Cycle Collaborative Inquiry Continuum) in the context of our learning:

The need to engage in collaboration was reinforced recently by educational leaders including Fullan, Hattie, Robinson, and Munby (to name a few), who discussed the essential nature of “leading from the middle’ as a powerful method of transforming education systems.  “Leading from the middle” describes a system network whereby “all schools, 100%, should be involved in focused, proactive networks within which leaders, teachers and students challenge, support, innovate and learn from one another in ways that measurably improve outcomes.” (Fullan and Munby, 2016).  These networks are led from within, not by central office, but by the individuals sitting at the table. They involve outside knowledgeable others when necessary, but the belief that the most powerful work comes from those who are at the table, is paramount. Also key is the notion that the success of the network depends not only on their sense of moral purposeful (improved outcomes for students) grounded by measurements of impact, but by their ability to collaborate and eventually, to reach “a position of shared professional accountability”. This is the way of the future for our profession. We need to think about the implications of this research on  our future decisions.

When I consider our school board, our vision is to have 100% of our staffs working collaboratively towards the achievement of our collective goals – those articulated by our Strategic Plan and operationalized by our Board Learning Plan for Student Achievement and Well-Being. These are important goals that address not only student achievement and well-being, but the responsible stewardship of resources and the building of positive relationships.  To truly work collaboratively, we know that we need to work as a team, acknowledging that we each have a vital role to play in our success.  Each and every one of us needs to do our part – we need to assume responsibility for ensuring that our schools and board as a whole are student-centered environments where everyone feels a sense of belonging and are motivated/persevere in learning.  Some believe that this is the work of “the board”; I would like to suggest that we are all in this together – from Manitouwadge to Nakina, from Longlac to Dorion – regardless of our role – we are all educators who comprise and define our district school board.  We are all “our board”.   We define our board with our amazing work – work that, when focused on fostering a sense of belonging through a truly collaborative, strength-based approach, can increasingly make a positive difference. My new motto…”make it a positive day together”.

Until Next Week:  Make it a positive week…together.  

I captured my Thought of the Week in my blog this week, instead of in the Information/Updates.   

Thought of the Week:

Who am I as a Leader?  A focus on the Ontario Leadership Framework, School Level Leadership,2013

For a school and board leader, Setting Directions is a core domain in our work. As we all know from reading School Culture Rewired by Gruenert and Whitaker, this is strategic work that takes a significant amount of time, and involves Managing Emotions (a Personal Leadership Resource from the OLF).  As we Build A Shared Vision, the OLF outlines the need to “encourage the development of organizational norms that support openness to change in the direction  of the school’s vision”. As we Build Relationships and Develop People, the OLF reminds us of the need to “exemplify, through our actions, the school’s core values and its desired practices”. As we build this shared vision, it is essential that we maintain a strength-based, positive outlook, or we are doomed to fail.

https://education-leadership-ontario.ca/media/resource/SCHOOL-LEVEL_LEADERSHIP.pdf

During a recent school visit I witnessed a principal very carefully and positively outlining his expectations at his staff meeting – he called them “gripes” however what he was doing was clearly and honestly reinforcing his expectations through a positive approach…one that even involved a bit of humour while maintaining the urgency around what he was saying. Each day in our schools, as we measure the “climate”, we must ask ourselves if we have communicated our core values and our expectations around those core values, if we are modelling the core values that we aspire to see,  and how we are holding everyone accountable to these core values. Without this in place, the re-culturing process will take a significantly longer period of time that we are able to afford.

Of the many core values that we must see occur in our schools daily, the notion of maintaining a strength-based, positive outlook, is crucial.  We are working with young, impressionable minds who need to see us a pillars of hope who recognize their strengths no matter the circumstance!  Our students needs to know that we believe in them, regardless of the circumstance…that when things go awry, it is the behaviour that we are working to correct, that our feelings for the student have not changed.

One way to shift the climate of your school to become increasingly strength-based is extinguish complaints by turning them into conversations.  I was reading a blog this weekend that reflected the work of Will Bowen’s A Complaint Free World.

In his blog, William Parker summarizes Bowen’s tools for positively dealing with individuals who may have a GRIPE (which is an acronym for the strategy). He states, “Honest feedback provides you with information for making better decisions. Complaining simply discourages the attitudes or motivations others may have to take risks or achieve new goals. All of us are guilty of forgetting the difference between the two.”  (Parker, A Complaint Free World: 5 Ways to Respond Blog). I appreciated the tools that this book and blog provides as we increasingly develop our skill set in how to respond to complaints – so that we turn the complaint around, and do not enter into the “blame game” but into an honest conversation.  Remember, it is our role to lead our staff to understand how the work aligns with our school vision and our board vision.  Try out one of the following!

5 Reasons People Gripe and How You Can Respond

1. Get attention.
   Everyone wants to be noticed even if it is for something negative. Unfortunately, if we use negative “attention grabbing” (by even complaining about the weather, work, family, or our health), we suck the life out of others.

Obviously, there is a difference between honest reflection and complaining. But complaining is when we express an idea for the purpose of selfish appeal or ego. So what if we get a handle on this bad habit ourselves, but others still drain us with their complaints?

Bowen suggests that when someone complains to get attention, ask them, “So what is going well with _____________?” For instance, if a team member is consistently complaining about his students, ask him, “So what is going well with your classes?” Redirect a person’s thoughts to thankfulness instead of misery, and then you can begin finding solutions.

2. Remove responsibility.
   People also complain as way to try to get off the hook. Perhaps we believe our protests mean we will not have to perform to expectations. Let’s say, for instance, when someone is being corrected for being habitually late with deadlines, he may want to point out that others are missing their deadlines too. Or perhaps he’ll claim the solution is beyond his control.

Bowen suggests asking this question: “If it were possible, how might you do it?” Again this question removes the excuses and opens the door for solutions.

3. Inspire Envy (or the Humble Brag)
   Sometimes people complain about others because they want to appear superior. For instance, if you’re in a meeting, and Mrs. T sees Mr. A coming in late, she may say, “Here comes Mr. A. Late again.” Her comment is less about his tardiness as it may be to draw attention to her own timeliness.

Bowen suggests this counter: compliment the opposite.

You could say to Mrs. T., “Yes, Mrs. T. It is great that you are always on time.” Although this may be perceived as slightly sarcastic, drawing attention to her need to inspire envy may be the quickest way to stop her complaining about others. Changing the subject is also a great way to ignore someone’s appeal for a “humble” brag.

4. Power
   Sadly, people who are unhappy often find a sense of control in sharing their opinions through the means of complaining about others. Bowen’s counter? If someone comes to you because they want to complain or gossip about another person, you might say, “It sounds like the two of you have a lot to talk about.” If they persist, “Would you like me to arrange a meeting?” This response may either point them toward reconciliation or it may motivate them to find a way to move past the offense.

4. Excuse Poor Performance
   Much like removing responsibility, complaining is the quickest way to divert a moment of honest confrontation or accountability. In team sports, athletes who are not easy to coach are usually weak teammates. Our educational teams are no different. We are often tempted to begin complaining about what we perceive as obstacles beyond our control.

But instead of complaining as a way to excuse poor performance, Bowen says to ask, “How do I plan to improve next time?” Again, excuses are exchanged for brainstorming solutions when you replace complaining with ideas for change.  (from A Complaint Free World: 5 Ways to Respond, by William Parker, Connected Leaders, February 13, 2016).

As you think about the re-culturing of the deficit mindset that may exist in your school, I wonder if this way of approaching the complaint may help to shift towards a learner mindset?  I wonder what the function of the “complaint” behaviour is?  Finally, I wonder how beginning every formal meeting with the Learner Mindset Chart might support this work as well?

Until Next Week…as per the OLF, are your school’s core values and associated expectations clear for everyone? 

“One percent of the work is stating the mission and 99 percent is living it.”