Data on attendance and disciplinary referrals will help the Mount Markham Central School District bring those numbers down.
Mount Markham Superintendent Joe D’Apice gave a presentation to the MM Board of Education last week on those two areas, showing data from the last six years. D’Apice said the newly-formed PBIS committee - Positive Behavioral Interventions Support - started with those two areas to see how changes can be made.
Of the data for disciplinary referrals, 2016-17 brought about the most with 604 in all three buildings. Most of those - 439 - came from the Middle School.
That trend is continuing this year, D’Apice said, with the Middle School have more referrals than the High School.
But of those referrals, the 10th grade by far, with 54, has more than the other six grades in the first two months of the 2021-22 year. Sixth grade followed with about 30, with the seventh grade barely registering any.
D’Apice said the main reason for a referral is not following school rules, followed by an issue on the bus.
Students in fourth and sixth grades have collected the most bus referrals; starting at eighth grade those numbers drop. At the Elementary School, the fourth graders have by far the most, although that number dropped from September to October.
Attendance data, which has to be reported to the state, shows chronic absenteeism at 22 percent at the High School, 21 percent at the Middle School and 18 percent at the Elementary School. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10 or more days.
Board members asked how mandatory quarantining counts in the data. D’Apice said it gets complicated because while marked as absent, the students could be receiving virtual instruction by the teacher.
Under the four school identifications on performance - with blue being the best, followed by green, yellow and red - Mount Markham two years ago was identified as in the yellow zone. D’Apice said the goal is to get to blue by reducing the absenteeism, increasing test scores and increasing the number of students who take state assessment tests.
D’Apice did point out one positive note in that last year’s fourth grade had the highest test results in all of Herkimer BOCES district.
At the beginning of the one-hour meeting, Board members…
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