Youth task force looks to make attendance a priority among students, parents

Nevada Daily Mail

Vernon County's youth task force met to talk about future goals and restructuring.

With the understanding the group needs to be "driven by what drives the youth," Trish Bridgewater, president of Vernon County Youth Task Force said changes were made to its construction. The new section of the task force is compiled of five sections: YES, a student based program led by Tom Greeding of Nevada R-5 schools; Activities, led by Dana Redburn of the Parks and Recreation; Fundraising, led by Jennifer Gundy, Community Issues and Communication.The board members decided it was best to restructure the groups because they felt they had too many groups sharing duties, Bridgewater said.

At the meeting, Jodie McNeely of Nevada R-5 Schools, said she hoped the task force would focus on a new program, "Minutes Matter." McNeely said attendance is a big goal this year because "making an awareness that kids need to be in school on time" is important.

"Missing five minutes everyday adds up to hours, which add up to years," McNeely said. McNeely said attendance in Vernon County was at about 88 percent, and while that statistic may not be awful, she said it's a figure that can be raised.

The state of Missouri sets an expectation with school districts to have 90 percent attendance 90 percent of the time.

"We are just slightly below that threshold," McNeely said. "So again, this is a very attainable goal."

McNeely also said there are programs in place such as Renaissance, which gives students motivation to succeed in school.

"What we have found over the past several years is kids give us little ideas that motivate them -- in middle school they just want to be first in the lunch line each day. So, little things that are so insignificant to us can have a big impact on them. We'd like to give kids input on that to see what motivates them. We're not taking a negative approach at all. We have looked at consequences, but we are also looking at what motivates kids and families."

Bridgewater said she liked the idea of "Minutes Matter" and she thinks the new project is a good way of keeping students in school until graduation.

"This is taking a step deeper than graduation matters," Bridgewater said. "We all know the significance of kids graduating from school. If they don't graduate from school, then they have higher pregnancies, more likely the use of alcohol and drugs, more likely they'll be less employable. There's a high correlation with that and this is digging down even deeper."

Members from the task force discussed how attendance is a life skill. Geeder, a councilor at Nevada schools said he has spoken with students after they had been fired from their part time job.

"They just don't understand," he said. "They have that deer in the headlights look when they tell me they were fired for missing work to many times even though they were looking for their dog."

Other issues brought up with attendance were doctor appointments and sleeping in.

Geeding said students are so busy throughout the week with school, extracurricular activities, and jobs that students feel to tired to make it to school on time. The task force saw no easy remedy for this issue.

"Attendance is first and foremost," McNeely said. "If we are going to have students who are truly college- and career-ready, then we are going to teach them punctuality and it starts with attendance. You have to be at work to get the job done, and you have to be at school in order to be successful academically. It doesn't matter what kind of programs or people we are putting in classrooms if we don't have [students] there to take advantage of what we are offering."