Staff Reports news@times-journal.com

Historically, November brings a drop in school attendance. But the DeKalb County School System is launching a new incentive program to prevent that history from repeating itself.

DeKalb County Schools Instructional Supervisor said this month brings the launch of Flip the Dip in November – a program that rewards the homeroom class at each school that has the highest number of perfect attendance days with an dipped ice cream party.

Year-to-date, the school district has maintained the goal of a 95% average daily attendance rate, Mayfield explained.

“Historically, DeKalb County Schools experience a significant dip for attendance during the month of November,” he said. To support the effort to “flip the dip,” parents, guardians, grandparents, and friends connected to school age students are asked to encourage and support good attendance habits. 

The system invites people who see the message online, to share the digital Flip the Dip flyer on social media, and businesses or other public places are welcomed to print the flyer and display it.

“Encouraging improved school attendance is an outstanding way we can take steps to improve our community,” Mayfield said.

A variety of things may contribute to the dip in attendance. 

“ November is certainly a time when some illnesses can manifest based on the changing of seasons and shifts in temperature,” he said. Other factors may be involved. “The excitement of the start of school has worn off. Families and students may seek to extend Veteran’s Day or Thanksgiving holidays. Families may face circumstances that we are unaware of and need support,” Mayfield said.

“However, some absences are preventable,” he said. “We encourage families to have students at school each day possible. Whenever possible, schedule appointments and vacations at times when school is not in session

“Have a plan to make sure your child makes it to school each day,” he said.

“At the same time we recognize that some absences are unpreventable. Everyone involved understands illness and other life circumstances can prevent attendance,” he continued. The campaign is aimed at eliminating those preventable absences

“Beyond eliminating the preventable absence where students that should come to school choose not to come to school, we also want to help families,” Mayfield said.

“When families have obstacles to attendance, we want to help them remove those barriers. If transportation or access to community resources prevent attendance, schools want to connect families to resources that make regular attendance possible.

“When parents are facing circumstances of challenge, we encourage families to communicate those circumstances to the school,” Mayfield explained. “We want to help.”

Attendance was not where it should be prior to COVID, in DeKalb County – or in the state, or in the nation.

“ People talk a lot about how COVID changed the workforce,” Mayfield said. “Many businesses suffered after COVID due to not being able to get workers to come to work after the shutdown. To some extent, the same is true of our students.

“The COVID shutdown created a participation challenge in many aspects of life and society. The state board of education and our local school district are charged with taking steps to improve attendance,” he said.

“The Flip the Dip in November incentive program is a part of that action. We identified November as the first significant dip across multiple years of data. We have other points in the year that we will address as we move forward,” Mayfield said.

In the school setting, attendance is a leading indicator of a student’s opportunity to learn, he explained. Missing just 2 days a month means a child misses 10% of the school year.

Missing 10% over the course of a school year, can make it harder to learn to read, keep up with math, and make progress in content areas across the board.

“Regular school attendance improves your chances of graduation, completing college and succeeding in life,” he said.

“The best part of our attendance improvement actions is that our parents and students appear to be responding. The goal for Average Daily Attendance (ADA) is 95%,” Mayfield said. “As a district, for the month of August we maintained 95.7% ADA. During the month of September, we maintained 95.2% ADA. We do not have the calculations for October yet, but for the year we remain above the goal at 95%.”