Student outcomes: the need to get your kids to school

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/09/2024 (360 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The debate about how to improve student outcomes (Better options in education, Think Tank, Sept. 6) is an ongoing one, and one with many potentially contentious options.

The latest debate is about the usefulness of provincewide student testing. Whether or not provincial testing at Grade 12, or any other year for that matter, is useful depends upon the questions you want answered.

Such provincewide testing may provide some important data about the effectiveness of the educational system as a whole, but it provides little direction to teachers, and tells us precious little about how students will fare beyond the classroom.

Although the discussion about the importance of class size, particularly at the K-3 grade levels, seems more important in terms of student outcomes, even the impact of class size fails when compared to a more fundamental approach to student success.

Get your kids to school.

We know this. It doesn’t matter how smart your kids are, how good your teachers are, or how up-to-date the curriculum is, if you attend school only one-third of the time, by the time you graduate you will be a Grade 9 student at best. And you will have missed perhaps the most important part of the school experience, participation and engagement with your peers and the adults in the school.

There are literally thousands of studies that confirm school attendance matters in almost every aspect of a student’s academic life, and in the most important variables in the life after school. There is no debate about the importance of attendance in student success.

Governments have tinkered with the compulsory age for starting school. After making school attendance compulsory up to age 18 in 2011, the government then moved, in March of 2024, to lower the compulsory attendance requirement to age 6, down from age 7.

This is an important change because it recognizes that student success is made more certain if we do things right when children are young, when the possibility of building capacity in children is greater.

Notwithstanding the intent to support early years learning by getting students to school earlier, this latest legislative change, reducing the age of compulsory attendance, will not in itself change the trajectory for some students. That is because it doesn’t matter whether the Public Schools Act requires attendance at age six or seven, if school divisions, or the government, ignore the statutory obligation of parents to send their kids to school every day until they are at least 18 years old.

Attendance is one thing that will make a difference in student achievement.

It doesn’t require more teachers or more schools, it simply requires that parents send their children to school. It is the law and has been for more than a century. In 1916 the province made attendance compulsory from age 7 to 14. Not much has changed.

For some reason, while we consider some ways to improve outcomes for students, we ignore the obvious. We ignore mountains of research that tells us that school attendance is fundamentally important.

Of all the factors that affect student outcomes — and life outcomes — regular school attendance offers the best and clearest way to achieve better student outcomes academically and in life. Attending school is critical, if we want the best for our students.

Although the PSA requires parents to send their children to school until they are 18 years of age, that requirement is seldom enforced in any meaningful way. Despite it being an important and universal obligation. The PSA says: “260(1) A parent or legal guardian of a child who is of compulsory school age must ensure that the child attends school.”

More importantly, the Public Schools Act makes failing to send your kids to school an offence under the act. The PSA says, “Subject to section 262, any person who fails or refuses to comply with subsection (1) (to send your kids to school) is guilty of an offence.”

It has been observed that if you want people to do the right thing, make the expectations you have of them clear.

Have both expectations and consequences for those you want to influence. From the minister’s office to the school, what we expect of parents needs to be clear and unwavering — students need to attend school — it is part of the social contract society made with parents when public education was made a common good.

The fact is, ignoring this principle leaves most of the consequences of absence from school on the students who struggle and fail.

The Public Schools Act requires teachers to report absences from school, it gives school boards all the powers they need to promote and support school attendance. The PSA includes a requirement that school boards appoint an attendance officer to enforce the attendance requirement if necessary. School attendance should frequently be a topic of conversation at school staff meetings, at school advisory council meetings, at school board meetings, and meetings with the minister of education.

As a community, we should spend more time considering how we can improve school attendance at every age, and on a system-wide basis.

Although parents, particularly single parents, face many challenges getting kids to school, it is simply too important a responsibility to ignore.

Perhaps we need to spend more time thinking about how we can help parents meet their obligations to send kids to school as opposed to tinkering with pedagogy or curriculum. Conversations with parents and guardians about the importance of sending their children to school can make a difference. Finding new ways to help make it happen is part of the education communities challenge.

The truth is, children don’t know the consequences of not going to school, but adults are supposed to know. While parents have rights, they also have responsibilities.

Our apparent unwillingness, at times, to address the issue of attendance with parents, whether as family, teachers, trustees or the minister of education is unfortunate.

When necessary, not reminding parents of their obligation to send school-aged children to school is a failure we are sharing with too many students, and the consequences of that neglect will be ours to bear as a community.

Jerry Storie is an educator, parent and grandparent and lives in Winnipeg.