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Truancy

Anna Romo

South Texas College

ORGL-4341-KV1: Management

Romeo Benavidez

June 19, 2022

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Truancy

Truancy has become a substantial problem for school districts around the nation.

Managers tasked with trying to curb the problem must be equipped with a plan that can effect

meaningful change. Visualization of operations is a technique utilized by many organizations to

improve leadership decision-making. This structure would begin by selecting a leader whose

professional objectives align with the changes. Leaders will organize meetings with parents and

inform the community of the significance of attending. In addition, they will ensure that anyone

who violates the rules is held accountable for their actions. Administrators will also keep

workers in line by enforcing moral and ethical standards and ensuring that employees carry out

their duties. This paper will discuss the significance of school attendance and strategies for

reducing classroom absences. Time and surveys have shown that small classrooms help students

learn more and that early intervention is essential.

 Leaders make better decisions when they use democratic decision-making—the choice-

making process. Leaders use "let us leave it up to fate" to make decisions. In making the

decision, the leader gives the least amount of help and involvement to make a choice. Schools

would be able to qualify for grants to make plans for preventing and dealing with student

truancy. Students, faculty, and staff can participate in rehabilitation and outreach programs—

people in the community. Schools would fall in line and follow the new rules—strategies,

policies, employees, and outside help to assist the academic community more during this time.

The school's mission and service values during the next three years. This strategy would help

students attend school, thus increasing their chances for success in the future. In the United

States, it is mandated that school-age children K-12 attend school. When students are absent

from class, learning can be challenging. “Any absence, whether excused or not, denies students
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the opportunity to learn by the school's instructional program, but students who miss school are

sometimes further excluded from learning opportunities due to chronic absenteeism” (Adelman,

2009).

Students who attend class daily have better academic success because students are more

attentive and retain information better in a classroom setting. Creating a survey that would log

significant data relating to absenteeism and academic performance could help would help

administrators come up with solutions and plans to ensure tremendous success for the student

(Texas 90% Attendance and Truancy Rules, 2022).

In many cases, the students are extremely intelligent. However, they do not like to attend

school. Administrators need to create internal policies and procedures that would promote further

investigation to discover the root cause of why they do not want to come to school. There are

many factors as to why students are not attending school, whether it be because parents do not

stress the importance of school, they do not like the environment, or any other underlying reason

that must be explored. High attendance is linked with an overall better outcome for students,

such as better social skill development, opportunities to build on their interests, and furthering

their education in institutions of higher-level education (Nelly & Adams, 2002).

Most students in K-12 need to be engaged by their peers and educators in a classroom

setting for optimal results. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, educators struggled to

keep the students' attention while attempting distance learning. Due to the unforeseen significant

impact, the pandemic caused on traditional learning styles; many students failed to learn at their

full potential while the schools were closed. Many parents found themselves having to take on

the role of the teacher with little or no experience in education. The education system needs

reform that promotes student success in both academic and social circles. Gaining control of
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truancy issues is the first step school districts must take to ensure students are being given the

highest quality of education. Students need to look forward to attending school (Huselid, 1995).

Incentives and contests take advantage of the fact that students often respond better to

positive recognition and peer pressure than to lectures from parents and teachers. Incentives do

not need to be costly. Simple rewards—recognition from peers and the school through

certificates or assemblies, extra recess time, homework passes, or even dancing in the hallways

—go a long way toward motivating students” (Tepia, 2018).

Although children are at the mercy of their parents providing them with a means of

transportation, some may also be absent due to being homeless or abused, making it harder for

students to attend school. Criminal and civil penalties for truancy are a great way to hold parents

accountable for students not attending school. Attendance begins at home. If students are

motivated and have a reason to attend school, they will request that their parents take them to

school no matter the situation. These schools had a few things in common: Scores on

standardized tests for reading and math were far below the city averages. Moreover, many of the

students lived in deep poverty with high rates of homelessness, child abuse reports, and male

unemployment” (Tepia, 2018).

Many educators have boasted about the positive effects that attendance has on the

student. Leadership within the schools has also begun to incentivize students by offering rewards

for perfect attendance. Small tokens such as toys, stickers, and raffle tickets are often used to

encourage regular attendance at school. These methods have shown to be very effective and are

becoming more popular in schools around the country. By creating better attendance habits at a

young age students will often have a better chance of success when entering college. “The rate

of chronic absenteeism in elementary schools declined from 23 percent in 2009 to 19 percent in

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2013. The report went beyond student data to identify 130 schools where more than a third of

students” (Tepia, 2018). were chronically absent for five straight years. More federal funding for

underprivileged populations should be sought to curb the cycle of truancy.

Mandatory school attendance for students also demonstrates the significance of education

and how many people value education's role in preparing children and teenagers to be productive

adults. Students who attend school every day are shown to have greater retention of academic

material than students who miss school frequently. A missed school day is a lost opportunity for

students to learn. In this era of increased accountability for states, districts, and schools, the

connection between student attendance and learning is being studied more than ever. “As a

result, education agencies are asked with increasing frequency to report attendance data in a

standard manner to allow comparisons across organizations and jurisdictions” (Nauer, 2018).

Enforcing student attendance ensures that each student is given an equal opportunity to learn.

Furthermore, absenteeism means not going to school without a good reason, even if

parents or guardians know about it. School absence is a big problem that significantly affects the

success of large urban school districts. For most school districts in Texas, a student's absence

must be marked by 10 a.m., after which the front office plans to call the parents to let them know

their child was marked absent. The front office needs to be involved to ensure all attempts are

made to make contact with the parent or child. Districts with low-income schools often go to

great lengths to help kids that are homeless attend class. Most schools have created programs and

teams to specifically target truancy. There is even a unique program that provides them with

clothes, tutoring, free lunch, and even counseling. Students who do not attend school are more

likely to get into trouble and do risky things.

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Truancy can be classified into four categories. Family factors, school factors, economic

influences, and student variables are among these categories. The overall environment of a

school, such as its size and the attitudes of administrators, teachers, and other students, as well as

the degree to which a school is open to bringing together students with diverse cultural and

learning styles, are examples of school factors. Parents who have children with disabilities or

delayed speech may often not send their children to school because they feel that the teachers do

not support or understand their children. Leadership staff who support an unhealthy culture in the

school setting are often unprofessional and unempathetic when approaching these types of

situations. Teachers/principals may contact parents about a child whose behavior is distracting to

other students, however, they fail to recognize that the child may have a learning delay or

disability. This type of miscommunication or understanding is often confusing for the child and

leads to disengagement and the parent transferring to another school that is conforming to their

needs. Districts need to invest in properly training their staff to handle these common

occurrences.

Another essential factor to consider is how a school handles student truancy. Certain

questions need to be asked to get a thorough understanding of what is truly occurring. For

example: Would you know if obvious techniques are in use and if they are consistently enforced?

Do such strategies result in meaningful and equitable outcomes for students? According to the

article Just a Moment, “The rules help your child get extra time and support to make up work.

Moreover, others, like the 90% rule, may mean that you need to work with the principal or a

team from the school so your child can get credit for their classes” (Texas 90% Attendance and

Truancy, Rules).
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Family factors contribute to absenteeism or truancy, poverty, substance abuse in the

home, domestic violence, a lack of knowledge about school attendance laws, and various

educational priorities. One example that I have noticed is that economic factors include students

who live in single-parent households or have parents who work multiple jobs and whose families

lack adequate transportation and childcare. Substance abuse, a lack of social and emotional

competence, mental health issues, poor physical health, and a lack of familiarity with school

attendance laws are all factors. Leadership within the attendance department needs to address all

these factors to combat ongoing student attendance problems. The attendance team's primary

goal should be to review attendance data, reduce or eliminate truancy, and meet the ADA

standards of 90 percent in the next three years. Giving up on our students is not an option. For

this reason, schools need to be more aggressive in creating a functional plan to curb truancy

(Texas 90% Attendance and Truancy Rules, 2022).

Schools are eligible to receive federal/state funding to develop programs that are

preventative, intervention-based, or rehabilitative. By applying the strategies to help with truancy

in the school system, outreach programs are available to all students, faculty, staff, and

community members. Our school will implement new policies, strategies, policies, employees,

and outside assistance to assist the academic community during this transition period to maintain

the school's mission and service values. The transition period will consist of a new team with

well-trained managers and colleagues to help keep truancy to a minimum.

Decision-making abilities develop action plans by expanding and evaluating ideas and

demonstrating moral and ethical behavior. The new truancy team will only be able to form our

team if we use the P-O-L C framework as a guideline to achieve the goals and objectives that our

organization has set for itself to help students for better success. The school’s mission and
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service values during the next three years. Setting clear operational policies, goals, and

employee requirements that tell workers what to do rather than limiting what they can do are

examples of controls. Proper strategy improves performance if an organization's controls are

well-designed and implemented. In an ideal world, well-established rules enable managers to

ensure that various processes and people stay on track with their objectives. Organizations

should have the ability to quickly detect fraudulent activities through adequate controls before

they become embarrassing scandals. Schools should bring awareness to substance abuse in the

home, domestic violence, school attendance laws, and various educational priorities. One

example that I have noticed is that economic factors include students who live in single-parent

households or have parents who work multiple jobs and whose families lack adequate

transportation and childcare. Controls aid in creating solutions to problems, such as not being

able to complete specific tasks or taking too long to achieve them. Controls also enable

management to monitor how well employees perform their duties and how satisfied they are with

the organization's goals and objectives (Radtke, 2022).

As a member of the attendance department, staff should demand leadership to combat

this ongoing problem. This year, the attendance team's primary goal will be to review attendance

data, reduce or eliminate truancy, and meet the ADA standards of 90 percent in the next three

years. Three types of decision-making styles were studied. In authoritarian decision-making, the

person makes decisions alone without necessarily involving employees in the decision-making

process. When leaders use democratic decision-making, the person utilizes others’ opinions in

the making of the decision. Finally, leaders use laissez-faire decision-making lead decision-

making to make the decision; the leader provides minimum guidance and involvement in the

decision.
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Based on past performance, feedback control maximizes the system's output, making it

more efficient. Employee expectations are set by the part of feedback control known as

"comparison," in which performance is compared to a set of goals. When feedback controls are

used, planning, factor analysis, and positive effects that align with the company's strategy are at

their peak, resulting in the best results. Feedback control also ensures that a company stays on

track in the future. Management in feedforward education can show what patients want so that

the best services can be provided. It can also predict how many patients will be present, so it can

hire enough staff to help with the truancy issue. With feedback control, our well-trained team can

take the feedback to improve the truancy program (Nauer, 2018).

Also, counselors and teachers need to establish corporate goals for staff and students to

follow and strive to achieve. The social worker and counselors at the school should take lead on

prevention awareness. Intervention and outreach programs, which work with outside groups to

help students who are at risk, may provide the first step of the plan to get every student to show

up every day. The teacher can help by coming in earlier and calling the parents to ask if the kids

can drop off later. Those who have never missed a class can get prizes from the teacher. Schools

can remind students how important it is to go to school and give them rewards to keep them

going—something to motivate the students. Teachers should also make teaching fun for the kids.

Some kids, for example, learn best when they sing and repeat. Education is a treasure that can

never be taken from our students (Askeland,et al., 2020).

A balanced scorecard looking at the school's past performance would be an example.

With feedback control, the balanced scorecard will show how to improve school attendance and

reduce the number of kids who do not attend school. The main goal of the scorecard is to help

students' attendance and help by keeping detailed absents and creating a plan to do well. District
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policy allows the superintendent to set up procedures for recording absences at a different time

or unless the students whose attendance is being taken are enrolled in and taking part in an

approved alternative attendance accounting program. Some good results would be a high number

of students at school and meeting our goal of 90 ADA percent for the next three years with an

excellent plan to get students to school, starting with cleaning up the school and encouraging

students to come to school to learn. Getting parents more involved is another thing that could

help students be present in school. This plan will help the school get the best results. Even

though the team and school will work hard on this plan, there will always be room for

improvement based on what students are doing and how well they work together (Texas 90%

Attendance and Truancy Rules, 2022).

ADA for 3 years

Years to Date
Allowed
Absences
Campus ADA

Target ADA

Absences

Attendance
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

2022 2023 2024

Figure 1: ADA rates funding estimated for the next three years. The organization is to see the

three-year graph analyses of countries with data to monitor progress toward the sustainable

development goals for learning by the end of primary and lower secondary school with the

distributed organization structure and an action plan created.

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Figure 2: Annual Grants The graph depicts the organization's donations to the

organization to aid children's education over the next three years when the distributed

organization structure and action plan are in place.

Overall, the new team created with new managers out the most critical issues regarding

students being absent. The leaders of each department were given the power to solve problems

by creating programs that help students and involve the community. Because strategic planning

is very detailed and consists of all team members, everyone was inspired and motivated to reach

all goals and objectives. Most people at school agree with the new rules and will accept the

change. In addition to learning how important it is to go to school; students will also feel better

about their health and well-being. They will have access to essential resources at school that will

help them prepare for life and set them on the path to a successful life. The above charts show

the programs the school has made through the new team's effort to work together with each other

and families to create less truancy in the school setting. For students’ success, reducing absences

and increasing learning opportunities are critical. For student success is essential to reduce

absences and expand learning opportunities. By incorporating a balanced scorecard schools

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could have a better understanding of where they need to improve when trying to bring awareness

to absenteeism.

References

Askeland, K. G., Bøe, T., Lundervold, A. J., Stormark, K. M., & Hysing, M. (2020). The

association between symptoms of depression and school absence in a population-based

study of late adolescents. Frontiers in Psychology, 11(June), 1–12.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01268

Adelman (2009, February). Every School Day Counts: The Forum Guide to Collecting and

Using Attendance Data - Why Does Attendance Matter?

https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/attendancedata/chapter1a.asp

Huselid , M. A. ( 1995 ). The impact of human resource management practices on turnover,

productivity, and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal ,

635 – 672

Neely , A. & Adams , C. ( 2002 ). Performance Prism: The Scorecard for Measuring and

Managing Stakeholder Relationships . London, UK : Financial Times/Prentice Hall .

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Nauer, K. (2018, April 11). A Better Picture of Poverty: What Chronic Absenteeism and Risk

Load Reveal About NYC’s Lowest-Income Elementary Schools. Attendance Works.

https://www.attendanceworks.org/a-better-picture-of-poverty/

Student Services - Mason County School District. (2022).

https://www.masoncoschools.com/Administration/2

Radtke, L. (2022, August 25). 2.2 Case in Point: SAS Institute Invests in Employees – Principles

of Leadership & Management. Pressbooks

https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/leadershipandmanagement/chapter/2-2-case-in-

point-sas-institute-invests-in-employees/

Texas 90% Attendance and Truancy Rules (2022). Navigate Life of Texas.

https://www.navigatelifetexas.org/en/education-schools/texas-90-attendance-and-truancy-

rules#:%7E:text=Some%20of%20these%20rules%20help,get%20credit%20for%20their

%20classes.