MPUSD tackles high rates of absenteeism, especially in Marina schools.

The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District will start a campaign this fall aimed at increasing student attendance rates in the district. MPUSD will provide additional resources to its three Marina elementary schools, because they are facing the highest absentee rates – 18 percent – in the district.

Students chronically absent are those who miss 15 or more days of classes in a school year.

Those students could fall behind in school, and “it’s much harder if students develop learning gaps to try to catch them up later,” says Deneen Guss, Monterey County Superintendent of Schools. She says such students are more likely to drop out of school than those with better attendance records.

During the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years, chronic absenteeism rates in California increased slightly, from 11.1 percent to 12.1 percent. During the same school years, Monterey County reported 11.3 percent and 11.1 percent, respectively, for chronic absentee rates. More recent data is not available; due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the state wasn’t required to submit these reports.

“We had to adjust quickly to that new model [online learning] so quickly, and how to account for that was quite challenging for both the state and local districts as well,” Guss says.

MPUSD sent surveys to find the reasons students are missing school. Some of the challenges families are facing are lack of transportation, child care or financial issues that lead to housing instability. David Diehl, coordinator of student support services at MPUSD, says they want to use this data to create strategic interventions and reduce students absenteeism.

Diehl says they do an attendance awareness campaign every year, but this time they have a “task force” that includes people inside and outside the district, including Marina City Council Member Cristina Medina Dirksen, city recreation and cultural services Director Terry Siegrist and MPUSD Trustee Jeff Uchida.