Episode 607: A Top Issue to Watch in Schools: The Importance of Showing Up

Be present and accounted for in learning the strategies that address chronic absenteeism. Hear Dr. Duke Bradley III (superintendent, Newton County Schools) and Dr. Dana Rickman (president and CEO, GPEE) as they discuss how to improve student attendance.

TRANSCRIPT

Ashley Mengwasser: Good day educators. This is the platform for Georgia's teachers. You're listening to Classroom Conversations, an award-winning podcast series from GaDOE, Georgia Department of Education and GPB, Georgia Public Broadcasting. Six seasons ago, DOE and GPB designed this space for teachers, administrators, and education advocates to share and learn. Because of you, the rest is history. I'm Ashley Mengwasser. Thanks for being here. No, really, thanks for showing up. This next quote has so many attributions it's common parlance, I've actually wondered if I coined it myself. It goes, showing up is half the battle. This is true in Georgia's schools and classrooms, but so is an adapted version that others espouse, showing up is the battle. Mic drop. That's just a sound effect, I would never. Every year one organization making a difference in public education statewide puts out a report that educators clamor for. The Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, GPEE, is known for its annual Top 10 Issues to Watch, and I have it here, which began in 2005. Issue number two on this year's 2025 list is student attendance. And that's our topic today. Attendance as a top issue to watch in schools and the importance of showing up in response. We'll talk about chronic absenteeism and layout strategies that work to keep students in school. We have two heavy hitters in the studio today. Dr. Dana Rickman, president and CEO of GPEE is here to dig into the attendance issue and with her, Dr. Duke Bradley III, superintendent for Newton County Schools to talk about his system's attention on attendance. Welcome to the show Dana and Duke.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here.

Ashley Mengwasser: I'm glad you're both here. You two know each other, but this is actually our first podcast together. I'll take that as a GPB exclusive.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: I love that that's happening here. Dana, did you start as a classroom teacher? Is that how you got into education or differently?

Dr. Dana Rickman: It is not. Which is why I laughed when you said podcast for teachers by teachers. I'm like, I'm not a teacher. A dirty little secret that I have is that I've never been a teacher. I've respect them tremendously and I always say that I do this for the children and not with the children. I don't think I have the right temperament to be a teacher. But my background is in education, research policy, and I love the math and the statistics and the research and the evaluation. And so I've spent my career really trying to do good quality research, promoting best practices and making sure our education systems get the supports and services that they need to do the good work that they're doing.

Ashley Mengwasser: You're here and that very work is going to benefit our discussion today. The GPEE website says, a better future for Georgia begins with education. I love that. So what is the mission of GPEE?

Dr. Dana Rickman: Well, our mission is to inform leaders and influence outcomes. And so we're looking at what we call the full education system pipeline. We work in early learning all the way through post-secondary and adult education. We really try to connect state-level education policy with state-level economic workforce development policy because we really believe the education system is the most powerful workforce development, economic opportunity tool that we have as a state in our toolbox. And so we want to make sure that everybody in Georgia, no matter where you live, who your parents are, where you come from, has the same opportunity to participate in our really growing robust economy.

Ashley Mengwasser: A beautiful mission and you put out a wealth of information. Duke, I'll borrow a line from Lady Gaga when it comes to your origin, you were born this way. You were born into education, it's in your blood. Tell us why.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Well, my mother is a retired educator, spent 35 years in the classroom. My father is a retired businessman, but also served as a member of our local board of education. I always joke that it makes sense that a former school board member and teacher would give birth to an administrator. But I think the work that I do is really a way of honoring the influence that they've had on my life for so many years.

Ashley Mengwasser: I bet they're here in spirit right now.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: That's right.

Ashley Mengwasser: They're not clapping on the sidelines. You became Newton County School superintendent in October of 2023. Could you give us the CliffsNotes version of your ascent to this role today?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Oh wow. First of all, I mean I've had the support of so many people. Dr. Rickman is one of the people that I really credit for so much of the work that I've been able to do. But started as a teacher in DeKalb County. Had a little bit of a detour, went to law school, came back, taught at the technical college level. I was a principal for over a decade and have done some administrative work at every level. Formerly chief of staff with Henry County Schools have worked for some phenomenal superintendents. And now this community in Newton County Schools has trusted me to lead this school district and I'm really happy to do that work. I'm having a ball, the time of my life.

Ashley Mengwasser: You seem like it. You also interned with Congressman John Lewis. How cool was that?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Yeah. It was amazing. It was really at a time when I was really at a crossroads trying to figure out what I wanted to do. There was a point where I thought I wanted to go into policy work. And at the time No Child Left Behind was coming out, and so I think that was really the thing from a policy and research perspective that really gave me a desire and an interest to kind pursue this work at a higher level to have maximum impact. So yeah, I had a really interesting career.

Ashley Mengwasser: You have. And Dana actually credits you with the "turnaround" of Banneker High in College Park.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser: Why is that, Dana? Why'd you say that?

Dr. Dana Rickman: Well, you said Duke and I have known each other for years and we probably met 10 years ago. He was participating in a program that the Partnership did and he was with the Charter Schools, working with Charter Schools.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Yep.

Dr. Dana Rickman: And since he left us at the policy program, he went and became principal at Banneker High School, and you were the fifth principal in five years or something like that. And under his tenure it became just a powerhouse turnaround, excellent example of an urban school and what they can do and accomplish. And people still point to the work that was done there under Duke's leadership. And so I always say we met him when he was a young-

Ashley Mengwasser: Whippersnapper.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Whippersnapper. But now it's like his world and we just all live in it. And I'm just so proud to know him-

Ashley Mengwasser: He's looking all humble over there. He's looking all humble.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Very kind and generous remarks. But let me tell you something. There have been an army of people who have supported me and I try to give them credit every time I see them publicly and privately. But the work that we did at Banneker High School I do think was some phenomenal work. But I think it was a case study for what it means for when an entire community can wrap its arms around a school and support kids. And I have really been a beneficiary of that.

Ashley Mengwasser: And I know you optimize that where you are now in Newton County. So let's talk a little bit about the culture and the makeup of Newton County Schools. What's your district like?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Yeah. So interestingly enough, we are a district, we're the 21st largest district in the state. People don't really realize that. And I think a lot of people think that Newton County Schools is small because of our proximity to the big boys, DeKalb, Clayton, Fulton, those are the larger districts in the state, but they're really outliers. When you remove them from the spectrum. Newton County really is among one of the largest districts in the state. We are a community of about 100,000 residents and we have 24 schools, we have three comprehensive high schools. And I think what's most important is that we have a really tremendously engaged, passionate community that really cares so much about its schools. Every time I go out into the community and do engagement work, people are always telling me about things and the history of Newton County Schools in ways that I did not really realize. We are a bit of a district in transition, a community in transition. We are a school that has a rural designation, ironically, you wouldn't really necessarily think that because-

Ashley Mengwasser: Huh. Covington, right?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: That's right. The city of Covington, Hollywood of the South.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: And so, I think what's interesting about our community is that it's shifting, it's shifting in demographics and what that means is that our school district is shifting as well. And so we're really working to be responsive to the emerging needs of many of our young people.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. We're going to talk much more about your system. You're both professional education problem solvers, I would call you. What's an education issue you enjoy tackling in your work? Can you think of one, Dana?

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yes. But there's so much around, especially right now, but generally education like, oh, it's so hard and it's like, oh, the education system. You get a lot of when it's going to be fixed? And I really enjoy when people appreciate and understand that there's some great things happening in our education system and when we get a chance to tell those stories... I was at the state school board meeting yesterday and they were giving out awards to students from across the state who had won an art project award where they were doing artistic interpretations of STEM and safe practices on the internet kind of thing. So you had an elementary school, middle school, high school, a student from the school for the deaf and blind, and just their creativity and what they came up with to express themselves and to have it honored. And it was just really gratifying that being able to tell the good stories as well. It's just amazing. And I think we need a little bit more of that right now.

Ashley Mengwasser: That's such a good answer that there's so much to celebrate. What do you think, Duke?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: I agree. I used to think that this work was really all about teaching and learning, the quality of instructional delivery that was happening within the four walls of the classroom. And I think administrative positions that I've had in the past and currently remind me that it doesn't really just stop with teaching and learning. There are so many reasons why young people feel connected to their schools, why the community is passionate about their schools. And some of them are connected to a kid's abilities to do well, but they are also related to so many other things, athletics and extracurricular activities. They really represent the pride of communities in a real way. And I've also recognized that there are so many people that want to be involved in the work. When I meet with our local chamber, our local development authority, they are always trying to find ways to pour into our local school district. And they helped us to solve really complicated problems that by ourselves we're not capable of doing. And so that's one of the things that I really enjoy about this work.

Ashley Mengwasser: And you like tapping into that?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: That's right.

Ashley Mengwasser: And you've done it successfully. Well, in addition to being incredibly accomplished professionally, do you have any talents or hobbies in your personal lives? Dana laughs.

Dr. Dana Rickman: I got two little kids, and I work. So yeah, being a mom is my hobby and talent right now.

Ashley Mengwasser: It is a talent.

Dr. Dana Rickman: They're both seven and so it's a great time. It's a very energetic time. But it takes up a lot of time.

Ashley Mengwasser: And twins. Can you say the T word, seven year old twins.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yeah. Twins. 7-year-old twins. Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: What about you, Duke?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Look, during the pandemic I picked up gardening a bit.

Ashley Mengwasser: Hey.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: I'm not an expert. I'm still a novice. But my tomatoes come out pretty well every year.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah, some good tomatoes over there at Duke's house.

Dr. Dana Rickman: I'll be swinging by your house in the spring, picking up some tomatoes.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Come over. I gotcha. Multiple species of tomatoes.

Ashley Mengwasser: We need to keep the focus on career because I think you guys are much more comfortable in that department. Let's go back to this report, which is incredible. Dana, how does GPEE determine the top issues to watch?

Dr. Dana Rickman: Well, we've already started thinking about next year's.

Ashley Mengwasser: Really?

Dr. Dana Rickman: We tend to write it in the fall. We start the writing about late September, early October. And I don't know if we've mentioned or not, it comes out the Friday before legislative session starts at the beginning of the year, so usually that first or second Friday of January. So, we're monitoring is there the latest research, are there big initiatives that the state's rolling out, what's happening in other states? But then we also have a policy committee, we call it sort of ad hoc, that comes together in August or September. And I have to say it's a big tent. It's all of our advocacy friends, it's state and district leaders. It's local leaders from education obviously, but also health and community service and all of these other things and early learning, post-secondary. And there's probably 50, 60 people, we come together and we just ask them. We're like, what's going on?

Ashley Mengwasser: What's the lay of the land?

Dr. Dana Rickman: So, we try to think about the different things, and we try to think, well, what's the legislature going to be addressing in the coming session? And whenever we do that, we're always wrong, but we try because you're just never going to predict what they're going to do-

Ashley Mengwasser: Can not predict it, not that general assembly.

Dr. Dana Rickman: No. So we try to pick what we think are... The issues themselves don't dramatically change, but funding is usually a perennial kind of issue or teachers. But what's the context of the discussion this year, is always a little bit different, and how do we want to come at it? And then we also try to raise up an issue that we as a community in education and workforce think is actually really important, but nobody's talking about. And so try to raise up a couple. And so then you weed it down somehow into 10. It's usually a very long list that we then put together and put it out.

Ashley Mengwasser: And we're tackling number two today, which is student attendance. And I want you both to think back with me to the time when you attended K through 12 instruction. Do you remember being absent? And what did that feel like for you? Can you think of an experience?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Well, I think what I really remember was that there was an attendance clerk, and that attendance clerk would do a couple of things. She would process when you were absent, she would process when you were late and she would process when you weren't in school and when you met a certain threshold, your name would get forwarded to the assistant principal of attendance and a consequence would be issued. When I think about that kind of system, thinking about using that framework today doesn't work. Because we recognize that if we did that today, we would lose so many kids. So many kids would slip through the cracks. That's really how it worked and it was largely punitive by nature.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes, you make a great point and we're going to talk about a different approach to that as our episode continues. Dana, do you have a recollection?

Dr. Dana Rickman: I mean, my only memory, it was so long ago, it was Laura Ingalls Wilder days that I was in school. But I remember having to take the note and I remember lying on the couch watching reruns of Love Boat at 11 followed by Wheel of Fortune and that was about it. And my mom bringing me grilled cheese sandwiches. That's about all I really remember.

Ashley Mengwasser: Or a soup or something.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yeah. That was about it.

Ashley Mengwasser: I have kind of a funny story. So I called my mom and I asked how much school did I miss? And she's like, maybe a day a year. We did a pretty good job getting you to school unless you were sick. But one time I had mono, the kissing disease.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Fifth grade, mono.

Ashley Mengwasser: Oh, okay. Mine was in high school and I had a major AP chemistry test two days later and I snuck out on my grandma's house to go to school. I know that's kind of backwards from what normal kids do. And I got grounded for trying to go to school when I had mono and I was supposed to be resting. So, there's a fun but weird story. But it is different for kids these days. Kids these days I think have a lot more anxiety than my generation. Families have new challenges, many of them economic. So let's talk about that with our episode. And let's start with a definition of chronic absenteeism. Could you tell us how GPEE defines it, Dana?

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yeah. There's sort of a standard definition that everybody agrees on and it's 10% of the school year, which equates to, depending on how many days of school your system has, it's about 15 days across the year. And we start to worry about chronic absenteeism when you hit that 15th day and the negative impacts of it. And what a lot of people don't realize is those 15 days, it doesn't matter if they're excused or unexcused. And so when we talk about, it's important to note when we talk about chronic absenteeism, we're not just talking about the kids that just skip a lot of school.

Ashley Mengwasser: Right.

Dr. Dana Rickman: And there are legitimate reasons for not being in school, sick being one of them, and some of the other things we're going to talk about. But it doesn't really matter the reason, the impact of missing 10% or 15 days of school is about the same no matter why, and that's something that a lot of people don't understand.

Ashley Mengwasser: And what does the data look like that the report presents?

Dr. Dana Rickman: Historically about on average 15% of your student population would fall into that category of chronically absent for whatever reason. And then understandably, there was a big spike during COVID where, I mean it just blew up. But what's happened now that things have settled out in terms of schools being open and regularly attending is that it's settled back down, but it's still significantly higher than it was pre-COVID. And so we've got about, on average, 25% of our kids are chronically absent throughout the year, and that's a big chunk.

But then when, because I love data, you dig into research-

Ashley Mengwasser: A researcher.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yeah. You dig into this data, and it's not evenly distributed across especially grades, grade span. So if you look at the distribution of it in grades like pre-K or K through third, you're up to 30, 33%, about a third of kids. And then it comes down in what we think of as the tested grade. When you start getting those standardized tests in fourth, fifth, sixth grade, it comes down a little bit lower. And then when kids get to high school, it goes back up again. And so when you start thinking about what's driving that, and we can get into this, is the reasons a kindergartner or first grader are chronically absent, are usually going to be significantly different than the reasons that a 9th or 10th grader are chronically absent. So then you have to think about the remedies to that and they're going to be different.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes. And let's talk about this right now. So this isn't a simple subject. There are genuine barriers that keep families from getting kids to school. So can you talk us through some of the complexity of this, Duke?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Yeah. I mean, I think first of all, coming to some awareness that there are in fact legitimate reasons why young people miss school, I think is important to note. What we found in Newton County Schools that there are really four overriding reasons why kids miss. The first is oftentimes connected to a physical persistent or chronic physical ailment. The second is a mental health challenge that the family is struggling with. And it's really not so much about the mental health issue, it's about their lack of awareness about the resources and supports that are available either within the school or within their community. The third is that we have your run-of-the-mill truant students. But even with that, we found that there is a measure of education that parents and families need to know because sometimes they just aren't aware of the implications and impact-

Ashley Mengwasser: Of missing school.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: ... and consequences of missing school. And then really the last issue is coming to some awareness that many of our young people come from really challenging family circumstances. And so this idea of what we do around that I think drives so much of the work that we do as a school system and throughout our individual schools.

Ashley Mengwasser: Absolutely. Anything to add, Dana?

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yes. And Duke gave a great sort of overview. And then when you really, again dig into it with the data, the complexities can be overwhelming if you don't... And I'm so glad that Dr. here to talk about the community engagement. If you think about just mental health as a barrier, you immediately think about, oh, the mental health of the child, they need a mental health day or whatever. But if you've got a family where the primary caregiver has a mental health issue, maybe they can't get it together that day, especially for a younger kid to get them to school. So the younger kid could be totally fine but not able to get to school because of a challenge a family member is having.

You could have where the younger kid in the house is sick, but the primary caregiver has to go to work. So a high school kid is the one who has to miss school to stay home with the sick kid-

Ashley Mengwasser: With the younger kid.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Things like that. The people are, especially in rural areas or areas that don't have even urban or suburban, a well-developed public transportation system, if you miss the bus sometimes there's no other option of how to get to school. And so they're just home. I have friends and whatnot, all of us are very fortunate to work in companies that are pretty flexible. And so it's not unheard of that you get a call, hey, X missed the bus this morning. I'm going to be 20 minutes late because I have to wait to take her and drop her off. And so those of us who are privileged enough to have flexible work schedules and access to transportation can work around something as easy as I missed the bus, but that's not everywhere. So it's those kinds of issues in addition to the common, everybody's sick right now. It's just insane.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. You're describing the logic of cause and effect, which is why judgment does not help the situation, and punishment does not help the situation because these are valid circumstances that students are experiencing. So, let's look at Newton County and how you're addressing chronic absenteeism, Dr. Bradley. What strategies have you found to be effective and why'd you choose this focus?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Well, it's interesting that you mentioned this notion of punitive action because I think it's really kind of come for us we've generated awareness not only throughout our community, but throughout our district, really beginning with the leadership of our board that we have to work on making sure that our parents and families and our teachers understand that there are legitimate reasons why kids are missing school. So we have started to do a policy review where if in fact our policies are punitive, then we've got to adjust those to be responsive to the circumstances that our kids are coming to us with.

Some of the innovations that we've done, we've created attendance committees. There used to be a situation where if you were absent that was just between you and your family. But we recognize now that everyone within the school community needs to be engaged in the process of creating safety nets for young people, and we've seen substantial benefits from that. We also allow for school-based innovations. So, our schools' principals and their teachers understand the needs of their kids better than we do at the district office. And so, if they feel like an incentive-based program is necessary, we give them the full leverage to be able to do those things. We've also really elevated the impact of some of the specialized positions within our district. The role of social workers and counselors and school psychologists are so incredibly important now, and they have a direct impact on student achievement. And so when we have a tendency to look at reports that say students are not reading on grade level at a particular school, it takes an entire village of people within that school community to be able to address some of those things. And when you see spikes in improvement, it means that all of the people within the community and the school district have been activated in a meaningful way. We've been fortunate in our district because just over the past year using some of those strategies, we've seen a 10% reduction in the number of students who've missed five or more days, and we've seen a 15% reduction in the number of students who have been deemed chronically absent. So I think that those are some of the things that have proven useful for us, but we're constantly in a place of looking at data, developing better systems and engaging with our parents and families in a meaningful way to curb absenteeism.

Ashley Mengwasser: And trying solutions. And you know what you just mentioned there, relationships. So let's talk about relationships, partnerships, policies that support this work. You both can speak to any of those. What could systems be doing with their partnerships in the community, with relationships outside and within the school, with their policies? What do you recommend, Dana?

Dr. Dana Rickman: Well, I think it has to be done this way. I think one of the things that has happened to schools, especially since the pandemic but even before then, was the awareness that everything is being put on schools now. A kid is hungry, schools have to feed them. If a kid doesn't have clean clothes, schools have to tend to that. Kid doesn't have transportation, mental health, all of the physical health, all of these things now, the school is usually where that gets taken care of. And it tends to be the demands on the school, Duke started out talking about teaching and learning, it's down to five or six. You've got to get through these other things so that a child can even learn.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yes.

Dr. Dana Rickman: And so, in order to effectively do that, school systems and districts and individual schools, they have to have community partnership and community engagement. And so partnerships with healthcare clinics, with mental health services, with food pantries. We've seen some, especially in the more challenged neighborhoods for the older kids, they're embarrassed to come to school, they don't have clean clothes. Especially young teenage girls who are getting their periods for the first time don't have the proper products. And so they're home for two or three days not knowing how to tend to all of that. So, these kinds of partnerships through social workers and things, we have to think about the needs of the family unit that the child lives in so they can show up and learn, which is why they're there. But it takes layers to get there.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Yeah. I mean, look, community-based organizations have been a real safety net for us. Communities in Schools is one that has really been able to connect resources to families coming from the school into their homes to address many of the things that Dr. Rickman said. And if we did not have partners that are embedded within our school community, we would have so many young people that would not be able to get the kinds of things that they need just to ensure that they can remain in place in school. One of the things I'm really also very proud of is we have a strong relationship with our court system, our juvenile court judge, Judge Hillary Edgar in Newton County really understands the challenges that we have. And so when she has a young person that comes before her, she's inquiring about how are they doing in school if they are attending school, if not, why not? And then rather than issuing a punitive judgment, she is sending them back with guidance to the school around the kinds of supports that young person needs. We've seen tremendous benefits from that. And so when you are able to connect unlikely partners like the juvenile court system, like community-based organizations, that sometimes don't get out into rural communities like ours, all of those things really bode well for us and really are supportive for our young people.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah. You've said a lot of interesting things, Duke, including just, A, know that this is happening and ask why. Talk to the family, drill down and figure out what's going on so that, a key word you said, so that you can support the student. So tell me how Newton County fosters just a really positive learning environment in your school system so that connectedness with the student is foremost.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Believe it or not, it really begins with orientation. And I know that orientation every year is something that every school does, every school community does. But the messaging that we communicate during our orientation is really about the fact that every adult in our district and every student within our district is entitled to a compassionate and caring adult. So they see our kids as their own. And if there is ever some issue that a kid is having that they're struggling with that serves as an impediment or a barrier to their ability to thrive in school, they can go to any adult within our buildings. And when we hire our teachers, we communicate that expressly that, yes, your job is to teach 10th grade science, but it is also to be an extension of home for our kids. And when we do that, our kids look at school as a place of support and not just a place that if they get in trouble or if they have a mishap, then there's going to be a negative consequence that's passed down. The other thing is that, look, the programming that we have at our schools is critically important. Participation in athletics, participation in extracurricular activities are not just about the activities themselves, but about the sub communities that are created and the relationships that are generated with young people, with their peers. And when kids feel connected to something beyond themselves within their school communities, they are more likely to remain in place and they're actually more likely to do better in school. And we've seen that across the board in our district.

Ashley Mengwasser: You're creating a feeling of belonging-

Dr. Duke Bradley III: That's right.

Ashley Mengwasser: ... that communicates, we want you here. So maybe I should credit my high school for the wanting to be in school that day. I didn't want to miss it. I was anxious about missing it. And it wasn't just the test, it was knowing what my peers were doing and that fear of missing out. And I think the culture is a really big piece of that.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Culture of care, yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser: You're doing a beautiful thing there.

Dr. Dana Rickman: I can't underscore that enough, the culture of care that he was talking about. In the past decade or so in Georgia, there has been a real big shift led by the Georgia Department of Education about this whole idea around school climate and a caring community and this belonging and the sense of really training teachers about the social emotional connections and how do you feel connected to your students. From the student perspective you get that sense of belonging, you get that sense of safety, you get that sense of, oh, I have a problem, I have somewhere to go. And a lot of the things that we're discussing now in our society, the increased mental health, the shocking rise in suicide rates of our teens, especially our teen girls, but our teens in general, the increase in school violence, all of these things get dealt with much quicker, much easier, much better when you have that caring culture in place. And that's sort of a buffer or an antidote to some of this angst that we all have now. And you're more likely to show up to school if you have a good climate. And something we didn't talk about, but that's relevant here is educator attendance as well. If you have a teacher who it's not a great school, the kids aren't engaged, and this comes down to leadership in the school and leadership in the district, if your teacher is kind of always absent, I mean kids model behavior that they see.

Ashley Mengwasser: So true.

Dr. Dana Rickman: And then the support staff as well. And so I mean, you take that to, for an adult in our work environment, nobody wants to go to work if you're not appreciated. They don't notice you. They're like, oh, you're here? Sit over there. So we wouldn't stay in that job. So why would we expect students to have to show up every day where they don't feel like someone knows them, is happy to see them? I know when my daughter's missed school, we always get a note from the like, oh, the kids missed you, we can't wait... They know that they are missed in the class when they're not there, and I think that's such a small easy thing to do, but it's so important.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: And the stories are phenomenal. If you talk to young people, whether they're recent graduates or they're getting ready to graduate, they will always more often than not their success or their ability to transition through high school to some adult that at some point or another supported them, encouraged them, helped them through a difficult situation. And you'll find that it's not always related to academics either. It's about some complex family issue or home issue that if they were not connected to their school community and the way that they were, that it would've taken them under. And the other thing around this culture of care, I know that there is a culture shift within our district because inevitably whenever we do lose a kid to some difficult circumstance, we're asking ourselves, what could we have done differently or what could we have done better? And I think that that is representative of a culture shift and a mindset shift rather than, hey, these things happen and we just deal with them. That's not the case for us.

Ashley Mengwasser: No dismissiveness here. There's a lot of awareness, a lot of reflection, and a lot of improvement. What about that home space that you mentioned that kids come from that we can't always see? Does it work to encourage families to get their kids to school? What is that connection like? How do you actually reach out to a family and get them to bring their kids in?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: I mean, I think the first responsibility, we're trying to inspire trust. So we are trying to build relationship through communication and through the affirmative deployment of resources and making sure that parents and families are aware. We have literature in our district that says, look, is your kid too sick for school? Some parents just make independent judgments about whether or not their kid should be in school. And so we actually work with our health providers and say, look, provide this kind of guidance for your parents so that they are aware. When you do that, you build trust. So they see the school much differently. They're not afraid to pick up the phone and call the school because otherwise they would try to avoid the school community. They'd be afraid that the truant officer is going to show up at their door. And when they are being communicated with with multiple people within the district or with multiple people within the school community, they really understand that we actually care about the success of their young people and we care about the success and the wholeness of the family as well.

Ashley Mengwasser: So, you're engaging with the family.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: That's right. Yeah.

Dr. Dana Rickman: That's critically important. I mean, especially when we were coming out of COVID, where during COVID any cough or sneeze, you have to be locked away for two weeks at a minimum. And so how do we course correct and how do parents know, okay, this is just a cold, you're fine. You don't feel well, but you're going. It's fine. Also too, I think there's a responsibility for all of us in the community, which is why the community engagement, is to really understand the importance of attendance, especially for the younger kids. And I know there's sort of the low-hanging fruit are sort of the belief that it's like, oh, she's in first grade. She misses a couple of days, we're going grandma's, let's take an extra day-

Ashley Mengwasser: What's the big deal, right?

Dr. Dana Rickman: But it actually is a big deal. Again, relying on the research, that students who are chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade, significantly less likely to be reading on grade level by third grade because those are the foundational years. Those are foundational skills to be able to read. We've heard, people have been talking a lot about literacy and reading on third grade. This is one piece of that puzzle is to make sure kids are there. I think it's sixth grade attendance is a better predictor of successful high school graduation than your test scores or your grades. And people don't realize that. And you get to 15 days shockingly fast, even if you're just a day here, two or three days there, it adds up quick.

Ashley Mengwasser: In a school year, absolutely.

Dr. Dana Rickman: It does. And so part of it is just communicating, again, that low-hanging fruit of, oh, it actually is important no matter what grade they're in or where they're going, that they need to be there if they can.

Ashley Mengwasser: Consistency from a young age.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Yeah. And so getting parents to understand that, I know a lot of folks just don't equate that together very well.

Ashley Mengwasser: But Duke said a great thing, which was you can't take that awareness and that education for granted, you have to actually provide it to families, so they know.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: That's right. And I would say policy matters in this as well. I'll give you a very practical example. We had a student that said, look, I'm going to be out of school for a month. I just want to let you know, I'm not going to be here for 30 days. What do we do with that?

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: And so, my point here is that when you have kids who have reasonable reasons for missing school, you have to adjust your policies to be responsive to that. And it's not just your attendance policy, it's your code of conduct, it's your homework policy, it's your grade makeup policy, all of these things. And so in that instance, we were able to withdraw the kid, put them in our virtual school. That kind of infrastructure is important as well. If we didn't have that, that kid would have really been lost and immediately been deemed as chronically absent and quite frankly been set behind. And so the extent to which we're really looking at the infrastructure and the systems that we deploy are really important, and those things really matter to ultimate outcomes that we care about.

Ashley Mengwasser: Let's end with this. What key lessons here would you like to pay forward as advice to other district leaders working to improve attendance in their schools?

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Oh, look, I know it sounds wonky, but there is really no substitute for relationships these days. We've said it many times before, and that's probably not new information for most people listening in. But when kids feel connected, when parents and families think of schools as a resource, and when we are able to connect the things that kids and parents and families actually need that emanate from the school district, we know that we can get better outcomes when we do that.

Ashley Mengwasser: How would you like to send us off, Dana?

Dr. Dana Rickman: I would add that I think that's absolutely right, that relationships is everything. And where we've seen success in bringing down the absentee rate, that it's very laborious, one-on-one, going to the homes, figuring out what's wrong. But also from a general population, just really thinking about chronically absent kids are not those kids. They're not to be judged or demonized. It's like, oh, I have a headache all the time. Just give you an aspirin and the headache goes away. That's the punitive kind of thing. It's really trying to understand what's causing the headache, what's causing all this absenteeism, and how do we get at the underlying root causes of all of this. And you have kids all along the racial, socioeconomic, I mean, it's not just low-income kids that are chronically absent, it's across the spectrum. And so really think about it from a population standpoint and how important it really is.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah, it's complex and it requires a tailored response that is individualized to the student and their family. Where can we find this report, Dana? Where can we get our hands on it?

Dr. Dana Rickman: You can go to our website GPEE.org and you can download copies for free. We also have one-page summaries of each of the issues, if you just want to do a quick thing. And then if you want a hard copy, we will mail you one or two copies for free. If you want a whole stack of them, we just asked you to pay for postage.

Ashley Mengwasser: Yeah, it's beautiful.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Plus free.

Ashley Mengwasser: It smells really good. All right. Well we appreciate you showing up today. Dr. Dana Rickman, Dr. Duke Bradley III. The Dana and Duke show, that rolls right off the tongue. Maybe you guys should do that.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Hey, don't tempt me.

Dr. Dana Rickman: In this nice studio, all right.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Right, let's do it.

Ashley Mengwasser: I'm putting that in your head, come back anytime. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Dana Rickman: Thank you so much.

Dr. Duke Bradley III: Thank you so much.

Ashley Mengwasser: I'm starting to think of individual progress in school as a wheel propelled by attendance When students and their families grasp the importance of showing up student engagement increases, that's a quarter turn. Student engagement promotes positive academic outcomes, another quarter turn. Academic success buoys that student toward graduation, a quarter turn. Until finally, the student graduates to their choice of career and higher education prospects and that is a full revolution. That momentum is unstoppable, especially when maintenance by you, our educators. You're great teacher. I can't believe my good fortune. But we have actually a few more new episodes in store for season six this spring. Come back next week when Classroom Conversations continues. I'm Ashley, goodbye for now.