NASD ATTENDENT RATES

Last week the NASD stopped reporting on the number of flu cases (the last report 10/16, indicated there were 221 reported cases and 49 were currently out of school) and began reporting on the attendance rate per building (read the latest report here). Previously, Dr. Lesky noted (September Board Meeting) that for extreme measures to be taken, the Commonwealth of PA suggests at least 10% of the total enrollment should be out sick.

The new report provides information on the past five weeks so one can see the trend, and it indicates that last year the average was between 92 and 96%. The district has 4715 students. I attempted to chart this out in excel, hopefully the full page graph will be readable.

The first reported week using the new system is the week ending 9/25 with the buildings ranging from 88 – 93%. This past week it ranged from 80 – 87%.

The HS has been the most consistent fluctuating from 85 – 88%, whereas Bushkill showed the sharpest decline from 93% to 82% last week.

Shafer had the highest percentage of students out last week at 80%, a full 20% or one-fifth of the student population at the building.

Since building enrollment information is no longer included in the Board Agenda packet, I took figures provided in planning for this year, and found what percent of the total population was allocated to each building. I then applied the recently released total enrollment of 4715 to get numbers.

For last week, my guesstimation is that nearly 15% of the entire population was out of school, or roughly 690 students per day.

The graph clearly indicates that the past two weeks have seen more significant increases in student absences.

Also of interest is the fact that the HS is comparatively unaffected. Previously, there were questions raised regarding the buses being disinfected regularly enough during the week and even throughout the day (due to different students coming on and off for the different bus runs during the day). Considering the large number of HS students who do not have to be transported by bus because they walk or drive/carpool to school, this might be the impact we are seeing. Alternatively, it could be that the flu hit the HS earlier, which it did, and that resulted in more students being out earlier and therefore the lower baseline.

As a parent, I’m concerned with 20% of Shafer’s students being out sick and 15% of the entire school population. If these buildings continue to trend with lower attendance again this week, it would seem something more should be considered.