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At Schiller school, staff and students are overcoming the chronic absence trend
Seven years ago, Pittsburgh Schiller 6-8 had a major problem with chronic absenteeism.
More than one-third of the students — about 36% — at the school located in the North Side’s East Allegheny neighborhood were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10% of days during the school year.
“To be honest, I didn’t know how we were going to dig out from that,” Paula Heinzman, principal of Schiller, said in an interview at the school Tuesday morning.
The school brought in a guidance counselor who has worked hard with Ms. Heinzman since then and implemented various initiatives in order to improve attendance. Pittsburgh Public Schools officials now hold up Schiller’s work as an example of what the can be done to combat chronic absenteeism.
Chronic absenteeism has become a growing concern for city school officials as the rate has increased district-wide over the past few years. Officials point to the fact that students who do not show up to class don’t have the same access to educational opportunities as their peers.
District data at the halfway point this school year showed that the chronic absence rate was at 28.1%, up from 25.4% in 2018-19 and 23.8% in 2017-18.
The chronic absence rate at Schiller so far this year is well below the district at 5.83%.
So what did staff do to alleviate the issue at the school?
“Anything and everything,” said Lana Shaftic, Schiller’s guidance counselor. “We just start with individual students, with what’s going on with them. Why are they missing? What can we do to help?”
Read more at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, At Schiller school, staff and students are overcoming the chronic absence trend