by Tessa C.

Did you know that last school year our school district lost over $1.4 million due to students being absent?

This is because students are starting to think that attendance does not matter—but it in fact does. When students are not in school, it doesn’t just affect them; it affects the students around them too.

Alamo Heights superintendent Dr. Bashara attests to that in stating that kids who miss school for non-health reasons, like to extend their break, actually hurt their peers. Over time, this will become a bigger problem because schools will lose a lot more money than they already have, and not just that, but it will affect the way students learn.

The assistant superintendent, Dr. Alfaro, states that in the Fall and during flu season, students miss the most school. The people who are affected the most by missed days are the teachers, fellow students, and the school itself. The assistant superintendent says, “Everybody else—and this might be hard to believe because I think kids are more humble than this—but people miss you. When you’re not in class, the rest of the class suffers because they don’t hear your questions, they don’t hear your perspective.”

Every student who misses a day of school costs the school $50. Dr. Bashara says that it isn’t always the student’s fault for missing; it’s most likely the family. In her own words, “Families are deciding, parents are deciding to add an extra day to vacation, or to a three-day weekend, and so I think students are just, you know, going along with that, of course.” Most families do not do so maliciously, but rather out of a lack of knowledge about how absences effect the campus.

“The way schools are funded, they take the total number of kids that you have enrolled, and then they compute all the kids that could be in school one day—what percentage are in school—and that’s called daily attendance,” our assistant superintendent said. The more students who are absent, the more money that is lost.

When you miss school, the school loses money, and that means we can’t fund teachers for materials, improved technology, and many other important resources. This directly effects the learning outcomes of the school community.

When you don’t come to school, you are affecting way more than just the school’s funding. You are affecting everybody else around you—students, teachers, and your community. This is why attendance does indeed matter.