They Stayed In School

Daleska Zeas worked hard not to miss a day of school this year. Now she’s trying to teach her friend Alexa to do the same.

Zeas, a student at Bishop Woods School, was one of several students honored Tuesday night at the Betsy Ross Parish Hall, where New Haven’s Office of Youth, Family and Community Engagement hosted its third annual ​“Attendance Matters” spring celebration.

Gemma Joseph Lumpkin, chief of Youth, Family and Community Engagement, called it a chance to show that attendance is ​“a partnership” between schools, parents, and community organizations. Around 200 parents, students, and community partners attended; students walked away with awards, certificates, and brand-new books for summer reading. 

The event honored students with perfect or near-perfect attendance during the just-completed academic year.

A report from the state’s Department of Education earlier this year showed that the New Haven Public Schools were able to cut down significantly on chronic absenteeism between 2014 and 2016, bringing the overall rate from 25.6 percent in 2014 – 15 to 19.9 percent in 2015 – 16. The high school rate dropped from 30 percent to 22.9 percent. Lumpkin said Tuesday night she didn’t yet have the latest data from the just completed school year.

Lumpkin the school aims at continue focusing especially on high schoolers in the coming year, stating that chronically absent high schoolers have only an 18 percent chance of graduating. She and others at the Office of Youth, Family and Community Engagement introduced a ​“Rising Ninth Grader Initiative” during the 2016 – 17 year that targets students with records of chronic absenteeism as they transition from eighth grade into high school.

In preparation for the 2017 – 18 academic year, she said that ​“around 330” new students with records of chronic absenteeism have been identified, and the department will be working with them throughout the summer to help them stay in school. She said that the initiative takes a multifaceted approach involving students, parents, teachers, and community organizations. 

Lumpkin said she also plans to do more with the (Comer Method — based on work by Yale Child Study Center psychologist James Comer — to strengthen emotional and social support for students in the coming academic year. 

Lumpkin’s pitch to have the community work to lower chronic absenteeism was echoed throughout the evening, as speakers praised students and asked parents, grandparents, local health centers, arts organizations, and community groups to help keep kids in school. Recalling the importance of school in her own upbringing, Mayor Toni Harp told students that an education ​“is the one thing that no one can take away from you,” and promised that ​“we will do everything that we can do” to keep them in school.

As Wyman asked who would commit to the assignment to support students in schools, Zeas raised her right hand high, using her free hand to help her younger sister Barbara do the same. After receiving an award later in the evening, Zeas said she attributed her near-perfect attendance record to her mom’s insistence that she wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything without school.

“It impacts where and how you grow up,” she said of attendance. ​“You can only learn by going.”

Now, she’s trying to teach her friend Alexa the same lesson. Early in the year, Zeas noticed a pattern: Alexa was missing school. Often. So Zeas followed up. She told Alexa that if she came to school, Zeas would ask the teacher to let them sit next to each other. It’s been a work in progress, Zeas said. But it’s given her a chance to set an example for both a fellow student and her younger sister, who nodded vigorously when asked if she liked going to school. 

Board of Education student member Jacob Spell, a rising senior at Dr. Cortland V. Creed High School, may also be a model for students like Alexa: he hasn’t missed a single day of school in 13 years. Accepting an award Tuesday night, he urged peers and younger students in the room to do the same, asking them to jump into their studies ​“instead of seeing school as a burden.”

Looking around at young faces that stared back at him, he told students that they can be ​“the next doctor, lawyer, teacher, Barack Obama, or even Martin Luther King.”