Oakdale Elementary participates in “making every day count”
TOLEDO – Public school attendance has dropped nationally since the COVID-19 pandemic and, for most schools, has never returned to pre-COVID levels. Toledo Public Schools (TPS) decided it was time for that to change.
TPS started an attendance incentive program in elementary schools, called Let’s Make Every Day Count, which rewards students for consistently showing up to class.
These incentives range from tickets to professional basketball games and ice skating trips to prizes, like drones.
Let’s Make Every Day Count is provided by a grant partnership program that uses outside funds rather than district tax dollars.
“I’m not going to turn down an incentive program for any kid. And if the district wants to be a part of it and it helps us save funds, we’re going to be a part of that process here at school because we are always looking for funds here at East Toledo,” said Oakdale Elementary principal Robert Yenrick.
Yenrick said these programs have occurred for the last two years but have picked up significantly this past year.
Chronic absenteeism, characterized in Ohio as missing 15 or more days of school, has many negative outcomes for a child’s learning experience.
Rates of illiteracy and dropping out of school greatly increase for chronically absent students, the AP News reports. Oakdale’s 35 percent chronic absenteeism rate is caused by many factors.
“Homelessness is a big issue for some schools and families,” Yenrick said.
With homelessness and poverty often comes a lack of transportation. Oakdale has worked to fill this need with a behavior partners group called New Concepts, which helps impoverished students and/or students who lack transportation get to school. But without community support, programs like New Concepts cannot succeed.
“There are all kinds of needs people have. And we have needs as a school, too,” said Yenrick.
Community members can get involved by making meals for food-insecure families, participating in the New Concepts program, tutoring, moderating recess, or making meals for Teacher Appreciation Week.
Without community support, extra work and financial burden falls on Oakdale teachers.
“We had a Lego club with no Legos,” Yenrick said.
Lego purchasing was left to the Lego Club teacher’s own dime.
Yenrick encouraged community involvement, saying it could help support student education and well-being and alleviate some of the burden that falls on teachers.
While community involvement can be increased with a little encouragement, some factors of absenteeism, such as illness, are a little harder to control.
Yenrick said that for students who get multiple viruses during the academic year, those 15 absent days add up quickly. Despite the challenges, Oakdale works to make learning fun for students and encourages them to attend class.
One way Oakdale has done this is by implementing Lü Interactive Systems, a learning game system that projects onto the gym wall.
“It [Lü] is the first one in an urban school in the northern part of the state. All the others are [in] suburban schools,” Yenrick said.
Students can play games on Lü that have learning or exercise benefits, such as interactive math games and dance games that can be played during gym class.
Oakdale gym teacher Steve Thurn said he watches the kids come alive when they play the Lü dance game.
Thurn said tutors also use the game to help children struggling with particular school subjects, such as memorizing multiples of five. Lü’s interactive math games help students have fun while also improving their education.
Oakdale also encourages the balance of learning and fun by sending kids to camp through a YMCA program.
“We’re looking to get businesses to do sixth-grade camp,” Yenrick said. “I’m trying to raise money for the majority of the Eastside schools to go to camp through sixth grade. I want these kids to experience a portion of life that’s just different than what they see every day, and give them the chance to say ‘Hey, there’s a different world out here that I don’t know.’”
