GUSD lost $90,000 in ADA funds when students didn’t show up
Monday
Gilroy – More than 2,100 students or 21 percent of the district, failed to show up to school on Monday, translating to a loss of at least $90,000 in average daily attendance funds.
Principals and attendance clerks at sites throughout the Gilroy Unified School District, said few parents called to say their children were sick or that they were stuck in Reno or Lake Tahoe and would be absent the first day back from winter break.
Attendance rates during winter, particularly the day back after break, are traditionally lower than the rest of the year because students are ill more often and families often take extended vacations. Still, Monday’s rate was much higher than usual, Superintendent Edwin Diaz said.
School districts receive ADA funds everyday for every student sitting in the classroom.
Most schools had more than 140 students absent. A whopping 600 students or 25 percent skipped class at Gilroy High School but South Valley Middle School topped the charts with the undesirable rate of 27 percent.
“I’m disappointed,” SVMS Principal John Perales. “I think we have to be proactive in situations like this to realize that things like this will happen if we don’t make adjustments to the calendar.”
Perales said he only received a handful of calls from parents saying they weren’t bringing their children to school but some left him messages over the weekend wondering if and why school was in session on a legal holiday.
The principal visited each classroom Monday to thank the students for showing up. Perales said he thinks the district needs to make it even more clear to parents that their child’s absence is a tremendous burden, both on the budget and in the classroom.
“It makes it tough for us because of the revenue we lose and the instruction (time),” he said. “It impacts everything. It’s a bummer.”
New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday this year, making Monday the legal holiday. But instead of following the lead of the majority of Santa Clara County Office of Education school districts, when the GUSD calendar committee drew up the schedule three years ago they decided to start school on the day the rest of the country is spending hunkered on the couch watching the Rose Parade and numerous bowl games.
Of the 32 SCCOE districts, only nine went back to school yesterday. Santa Clara Unified School District and GUSD were the only unified school districts to start Monday, along with five elementary and two secondary school districts.
Morgan Hill Unified School District didn’t begin its break until the Friday before Christmas and they won’t go back until Jan. 9.
When the committee designs the schedule they have to consider many factors, including how to work 180 days of instruction and 186 work days around holidays, weekends and teacher training and labor contracts from all three unions.
And when the committee, which consists of district management and representatives from the unions, put together the calendar three years ago, they had to face the additional complication that both Christmas and New Year’s Day fell on a weekend.
Despite the district’s assertions that they considered all angles, Nora Kounanis isn’t impressed. It wasn’t until last week that the stay-at-home-mom realized that, although her husband had Monday off, her two children were supposed to be back in the classroom.
“They just weren’t thinking when they made that schedule,” Kounanis said. “Somebody obviously just didn’t have their brain switched on.”
Kounanis wrote a letter to the Dispatch saying she was going to protest the districts flawed logic by keeping her children at home.
“I’m trying to send a message to Edwin (Diaz) and his posse over there,” she said.
Kounanis said she was thinking about calling other parents and asking them to follow her lead and boycott Monday but it turned out that she didn’t even have to lift a finger. Her third and fourth grader were among the 143 students absent at Antonio Del Buono Elementary School.
Sal Tomasello wasn’t particularly surprised that parents, such as Kounanis, decided to stay away from campus Monday. The Ascencion Solorsano Middle School principal, who sat on the calendar committee, expected a low attendance rate because of the legal holiday.
“We as a district made a decision to have this (as a school day) and we’re paying the price,” he said. “I think we had an idea that it was going to have an impact.”
Tomasello said they had a lot to work around, including contracts and shuffling other holidays, and the current schedule is the one that was selected.
The district’s attendance officer is currently analyzing the post holiday break absentee rate, comparing winter break from last year to this year and analyzing the financial impact, said Diaz. The analysis should be complete today.
GUSD Attendance Clerk Frank Valadez will sit on the calendar committee to help develop a schedule that’s less likely to have such an adverse effect on attendance rate, Diaz said.
The district recently sent out schedule surveys to parents and staff and will use them when they draw up the calendar this year. The committee will meet today at 3pm.
Elementary Schools
Absent Enrollment Percentage
Luigi Aprea: 120 746 16
Eliot: 86 429 20
El Roble: 160 606 26
Glen View: 144 570 25
Antonio Del Buono: 143 720 20
Rod Kelley: 158 700 23
Las Animas: 133 522 25
Rucker: 104 488 21
Middle Schools
Brownell: 156 749 21
Ascencion Solorsano: 131 720 18
South Valley: 206 774 27
High schools
Gilroy High School 600 2400 25
Mt. Madonna N/A 180 N/A
* enrollment numbers are based on previous estimate as they change frequently
