Munising Public Schools is seeing more students in the classroom more often, as chronic absenteeism has been slashed in half since the 2020-21 school year.
According to a post made by Munising Public Schools Superintendent Mike Travis, the amount of students classified as chronically absent has dropped from 262 to 109. In percentage of the student body at MPS, that is a drop from 43.89 percent to 19.09 percent.
“Two years ago, Munising had the highest percentage of chronically absent students of all 13 school districts in the Marquette-Alger RESA. Now we have the third-best rate of chronically absent students,” Travis wrote. “This 20+ point drop (improvement of attendance rates) was the cumulative effort of students, parents, school staff, and the partner organizations of the Alger County Youth Services Task Force (ACYSTF) including the MPS administrators, counselors, and social workers, the Munising City Police, the Alger County Sheriff’s Department, Alger County Probate Court, and the Alger County Prosecutor’s Office.”
The growth comes swiftly for the school district, as there was marginal improvement between 2020-21 and the 2021-22 school years. Only 20 fewer kids were no longer considered as chronically absent, amounting to a 2.59 percent improvement, between 2020-21 and 2021-22.
There was also improvement in attendance for students not considered chronically absent, which increased from a low of 94.0 percent to 95.6 percent during the same two-year period. A total of 80.91 percent of the student body is now considered not chronically absent at Munising Public Schools.
Students are considered chronically absent if they miss 10 days or more during an 18-week semester. Different events are considered excused absences based on the attendance policy, outlined in the Munising Public Schools handbook. Travis wrote that any questions on the policy could be answered by contacting the office.
According to Travis, preventing too many absences can be an important factor in educational success.
“Research shows that academic failure rates drastically increase and learning significantly decreases when students are absent more than eight times per semester,” he said.
