Since the start of the attendance initiatives in October, the attendance rate has improved significantly as of January, with administration giving credit to the students’ for their ongoing efforts. 

Attendance initiatives include follow ups on missing absent notes, such as email reminders sent to parents and guardians, students being conferenced with by the attendance office, and an increased understanding of the importance of getting absences excused. 

“We’ve been consistently about 3-4% better than this exact same time last year,” Gant said. “[The absenteeism rate was] at 13.4% at the end of last year, but today we’re at 8.6%. So we’re doing much better, but I think the end game is just making incremental gains. Understanding that if we were below 10% regularly, I would be pretty happy, even if that number fluctuates a little bit.” 

The decrease in absent rates is primarily due to the timely return of students’ absence notes. 

“The students deserve a lot of credit because they’re really doing well with their side of it,” Assistant Principal Eric Gant said. “These numbers wouldn’t be [going down] if students weren’t still bringing the stuff we needed them to bring.”

The initiatives have also lowered the number of students being denied credit because of unexcused absences.

“No one had denial of credit because they had too many unexcused absences or in their class in general,” Attendance Clerk Lordis Depiazza said. “So it has definitely helped. And I know the percentage that Gant always tells us every day that it’s getting better every year.

Despite the positive impact the school has seen, some students are expressing negative feelings towards being called down to the attendance office for their absent notes.

“I usually get pulled out in my history class, which is very notes and working bell to bell heavy, so when I get pulled out I lose a lot of time to do what I need to,” junior Sydney Philips said. “It just makes me really nervous having to talk to a whole group of people who are pulling me out over and over again.” 

Teachers have also noticed a change in the amount of students present in a class period. 

“It feels like more kids are more present now than at the beginning of the year,” English 9 teacher Kristina Haley said. “I’m all for getting the kids to turn in notes and being on top of that. We only have 180 days in school so every second matters”

Despite the increase in students being present, some teachers have expressed concerns about lost class time to help follow the initiatives

“I feel like the classes where we’re not interrupted go much more smoothly,” English 9 and AP Seminar teacher Corrina Terry said. “The classes where we are interrupted, especially if it’s more than one time, it is very difficult to keep that class on track and to keep things going smoothly and to stay on my lesson plans.” 

In response to the concerns from staff, Gant assured he has been trying to make the process as smooth as possible for teachers. 

“I’ve tried to modify notes that teachers can send students at their convenience, instead of right now,” Gant said. “If it’s for tardies or something like that, I switch it for teachers to send [the student] at your convenience. Unfortunately, it has to happen, but I’m trying to make it least disruptive as possible” 

Efforts are ongoing to continue lowering the absentee rate.“We’re in a spot where our attendance is so much better than our surrounding schools,” Gant said. “We do so much better here than [Desert Oasis] or Sierra Vista when it comes to this kind of stuff. I really compare us to other CTAs, but I’m always trying to find a better way to do things.”