By Stephen Smoot, The Pendleton Times
PENDLETON COUNTY, W.Va. — It’s a common sense concept hiding a sometimes complex situation. To learn, grow, and achieve, students must go to school regularly and consistently. Taking too many days off can lead to lower levels of achievement and ability.
COVID lockdowns in some cases loosened the ties that bound students to regular attendance. Virtual school implied that the traditional model was replaceable. Also, students living in problematic situations find less encouragement to attend, or even barriers to going to school.
Carrie Nesselrodt, director of student services, has taught seventh-grade English and also served as assistant principal at the high school. Now in the central office, one of her main responsibilities lies in boosting attendance across the board.
“I find it really interesting,” she noted “how at the district level, you see the big picture of how everything connects.”
Since “free public school” evolved into a compulsory model, school systems and law enforcement have primarily used punitive measures to get parents to send children to school. During the past generation, however, the traditional family system that served as a foundation from which the school operated has declined and dissipated.
Now family struggles hamper attendance more than willful disobedience of the law.
“We have to reach students in ways we haven’t tried before,” Nesselrodt says.