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- In a surprise to no one, apparently, Dayton City Schools’ pricey national search for a new superintendent landed on the candidate right under their noses. Again. (Dayton Daily News, 2/20/24)
- It is noted in the piece above that former interim and now proper Superintendent David Lawrence has already had a positive impact on Dayton City Schools’ ongoing student absenteeism problem. There’s no information on how he’s managed this, but I’m sure the data and the details will come to us in time. In this piece, we learn that Delaware City Schools reduced its chronic absence rate for students by nearly 9 percent during the 2021-2022 school year. It’s a short piece, but there are a couple of things to note: First, this feels like old data. How was it last year? This year so far? Still going good? Second, while we do get a little detail on how it was done
way back then, those details seem somewhat contradictory to me. The superintendent says that family involvement is key (“Ensuring that they know they're not in trouble, that we want to work together, and we want to partner. And the most important piece is their students and their child being successful in school.”). The bottom line is to “eliminate barriers” to attendance, which is great, but it is “largely driven by the juvenile court mediation process with families.” Seems like a mixed message to me. (Public News Service, 2/20/24)
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