Spotlight: Arthur P. Schalick High School

Arthur P. Schalick High School – Pittsgrove, NJ
Title: Acknowledge
Grantee: AtlantiCare
Team Leader: Leah Benson
Content written by: Leah Benson
Following the first marking period, a bulletin board was created outside of the main office to spotlight the individuals that qualified for perfect attendance. Qualifications for perfect attendance in our school include all activities where students are actively present throughout the entire school day. Many students feel that having excused lateness’s or excused absences do not penalize them toward discipline, but not being physically present throughout the school day is still causing them to miss out on academic learning.
Attendance has been an area of concern in our school and one that we have focused on for the Sustainable Health Grant. We are not just focusing on absences but lateness’s as well. The purpose of our bulletin board was to allow students to see where they stood amongst perfect attendance. The bulletin board was divvied up by grade and many students noted that the higher the grade, the lower the number of students that qualified for perfect attendance. At this point, one hundred and thirty-eight students of the five hundred and seventy-nine have maintained perfect attendance in the first marking period. This equates to thirty-three percent of the freshman class, twenty-six percent of the sophomore class, twenty percent of the junior class and thirteen percent of the senior class. At the end of the second marking period, another bulletin board will be created to give us quantitative insight on the affects the first marking bulletin board made on our students.
Our school will be implementing the Renaissance Program at the beginning of the second semester. This acknowledgement was implemented to provide the students with the qualifications for perfect attendance, giving them an idea of where they stand following the first marking period. By doing so, it is our hope that numbers will begin to improve with the implementation of a rewards system.

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