MNPS Shares Plans to Address Student Absenteeism

September’s second Metro Nashville Public Schools board meeting on Tuesday was a relatively short one that provided housekeeping updates regarding COVID-19 and human resource matters. Director of Schools Adrienne Battle also discussed MNPS’ student attendance goals and strategies. 

Awards and Recognition

Battle started off the meeting by recognizing Glendale Elementary for being named a National Blue Ribbon School. This award is designated by the United States Department of Education to high-performing schools or those that close achievement gaps. Glendale is MNPS’ only traditional public school that offers Spanish immersion through bilingual instruction. The program was also recognized as an exemplary high-performing school by the National Blue Ribbon Schools program in 2016.

Director’s Report 

Battle started off her report by providing COVID-19 updates, noting that last week’s numbers were the lowest of the school year with 39 students and 13 staff members confirmed positive. She also discussed an ongoing HR situation that has been playing out since the beginning of the school year: Some teachers weren’t paid in the first weeks of school, and others’ paychecks were not for the proper amount. Battle provided updates on new hires, transfers, outstanding background checks and degree advancements that the HR team has been working on. “We have an update that more than 9,000 salary roll retroactive payments are on today's payroll run for Friday's compensation,” said Battle. 

The majority of the director’s report covered absenteeism and MNPS’ attendance campaign, whose slogan is “Attendance matters all day, every day.” MNPS was recently designated as an “advancing” district by the Tennessee Department of Education — the second-highest designation —and Battle said if it weren’t for the district’s chronic absentee rates, it would have been designated an “exemplary” district. During the last school year, 30.2 percent of MNPS students were chronically absent, and the district had a 91.1 percent average daily attendance rate. The director’s report provided definitions surrounding student absences, how they progress into truancy petitions and how the district responds to absent students at various levels. MNPS’ attendance-related goals include increasing the ADA from 91 to 92 percent and decreasing chronic absenteeism from 30 to 25 percent.

“A school is successful when students are attending regularly and performing [at] academically high levels, so we don't deal with those two things in isolation,” said Battle. “There are no separating those two.”

School board members discussed the need for community support and wraparound services that can provide students with the resources they need beyond the classroom, and the ways in which a positive school culture can contribute to less absenteeism. 

Because of fall break, there will only be one MNPS board meeting next month — on Oct. 25.