Ralston Middle School cuts chronic absenteeism rate by more than half
RALSTON, Neb. (WOWT) - It’s a problem across Nebraska — students not showing up to class.
Ralston Public Schools are focused on putting chronic absenteeism behind them, and so far their approach is paying off.
At Ralston Middle School, the number of students missing too much school has dropped from 34% just after the pandemic to about 15% today.
Teachers at Ralston Middle School say it comes down to one thing: making kids want to come to class.
Walk into a Ralston Middle School classroom, and it’s easy to see why students show up. Teacher Ms. Fleischman goes desk to desk — smiling, hands-on, checking in with every student.
“She’s a really good teacher, and she taught me a lot in science. She was always energetic,” said McKenna Leveau, an eighth grader at Ralston Middle School.
Leveau said Fleischman’s energy in the classroom made a difference for her.
“She teaches science very well. She explains stuff very well, and she’s really nice…She was always energetic and she would, when we would play games in class, we would earn stuff like candy,” Leveau said.
Four years ago, one third of students at Ralston Middle School were chronically absent.
“The first full year that we were back in session…we were actually at about 34% chronically absent,” said Andy Parizek, principal of Ralston Middle School.
Today, that number is down to about one in seven.
“School became required, and then it became optional over the course of the pandemic. Now we’re back again to where we think what we have to offer in our schools is very important,” said Jason Buckingham, superintendent of Ralston Public Schools.
So how did they get here? Ralston Middle School says it took a few specific changes.
The school has rolled out daily attendance incentives — raffle tickets for showing up, prizes for hitting school-wide goals.
“We currently do daily attendance checks, where every kid that shows up gets a ticket. We put their name in the bucket, and we do random weekly drawings,” Parizek said.
Staff say the biggest driver is simpler than that — relationships. Ralston Middle School says that kind of connection is by design. Staff have started giving up their own lunch periods to mentor students at risk of falling behind.
“We set up a mentoring program throughout staff and our lunch…having lunch with them once every two weeks,” Parizek said.
“What are we doing every day to make a difference in the life of students? Well what this does is not only is our students excited, but then it gets our staff a little bit more excited about building those relationships,” Parizek said.
And when a student doesn’t show up at all, the school picks up the phone.
“As we make those phone calls at five-day absent or ten-day absent, we’re starting to track that data and find out what are the reasons why,” Buckingham said.
Whether that be a parent’s shift change, car troubles, or food insecurity, staff say they’re working to help students with individual struggles so they can get back into class.
The district says this is a top goal district-wide — and the payoff is showing up not just in attendance, but in test scores.
Ralston’s superintendent also tells First Alert 6 the middle school is opening a new food pantry this year. That’s because they’ve found one of the barriers for parents trying to get their kids to school centers around food insecurity. The district is working to pinpoint why parents might struggle to get their children to school.
Buckingham says the district still wants to get chronic absenteeism rates even lower. He credits the progress so far to everyone in the school, at every grade level, pushing for the same goal.
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