This information is being provided in an effort to address some questions both students and parents have had about the High School’s position on classroom field trips.
Last year, when we looked at attendance in our school, administratively, we determined that we had to make some changes to improve what seemed like an inordinate amount of class absenteeism. We performed an audit of our attendance which indicated high tardiness and high class absences. Based on this information, we determined that we needed to cut down on hallway traffic, reel in tardiness, cut down on class cuts, pay close attention to our absence rate, regulate field trips differently, and cut back on early dismissals for a variety of co-curricular activities.
Last week we completed an audit of the first quarter, and I am pleased to share with you that we have achieved a much higher rate of daily student attendance.
I believe that the most important factor in student learning is instruction, and I want to always take care to protect instructional time. That said, the improvement in student attendance has been so significant, that it makes it much easier for me to approve of teacher requests for field trips. While we will continue to look closely at field trip requests to ensure their value to the course competencies and learning objectives of the units being taught, I want to reward good performances by allowing more of the requests that are submitted in the second quarter. As long as we continue on this positive path in student attendance, behavior and involvement, I will gladly endorse enrichment activities that relate well to our coursework.
Principal Donald Woodworth
