Staff attendance in the red

A review of Creston Community School District’s goals showed low numbers of attendance for all staff members, an issue the district has been struggling with for a number of years.

In September, the school board discussed techniques and plans to increase both student and staff attendance. Superintendent Deron Stender acknowledged the absence of staff doesn’t encourage students to attend.

“When our staff is gone, that’s going to impact somebody else,” Stender said. The average staff attendance sits at 57.65%, with licensed staff at 55.5% and non-licensed staff at 59.8%. Licensed staff includes teachers, while non-licensed staff includes transportation, custodians and food service, among others. Stender explained licensed staff are able to take professional leave along with sick or personal leave, leading to 13.5% of absences.

“What’s included in professional leave is coaching, which I would say that’s a big chunk,” Stender said. “We have coaches that are leaving early, anybody that’s doing an assignment, activities, FFA, when they go with kids.”

While Stender said professional leave is acceptable and even encouraged, the issue is with sick and personal leave. Non-licensed staff are not eligible for professional leave, meaning the more than 40% rate of absence is purely from personal leave. Licensed staff are slightly better, with about a 35% rate of absence due to personal leave.

Student attendance is at a much higher rate of almost 85%. However, this is still much lower than the district would like. School Board President Galen Zumbach said there is a connection between the two rates of absences.

“When you start putting the whole picture together, administrators are dealing with a third of the staff not there. You have almost 20% of your kids missing, so some teachers are not connecting because they’re not there; they don’t know which kids missed,” Zumbach said. “If you’re not there, you can’t learn, and if you’re not there, you can’t teach, and if you put the two together, you have issues.”

Despite the low numbers, Stender said he feels confident they will get better. In fact, he said attendance rates are already better than last year.

“It’s getting better. We are so close to getting it on the right track,” Stender said.

The district will continue updating attendance records and other goals on a scoreboard throughout the year. The scoreboard is a way for the district to share quantifiable data regarding their goals.

In addition to attendance issues, the district has an estimated decrease in 55 students, more than originally anticipated. The decline in students also will result in almost half a million dollars less in government funding.

While the decline is partly due to larger graduating classes and smaller incoming classes, the district also believes it is partly from more families pulling their children for either homeschooling or online schooling.