The Elk Run Express
August 23rd, 2023
Dive into learning at Elk Run!!
It's been an amazing first week!
Dear Parents and Carers,
We have had a great first week at Elk Run. It is wonderful to have our building full of the hustle and bustle of learning and growing! Our students and teachers have made the transition to a new school year beautifully and things have settled right down. There is a lot of learning happening every day!
The Importance of Attendance
Attendance at school is critical for student success. This year we have added an attendance component to our Extraordinary Elk Award that is given at the end of the school year. To receive Extraordinary Elk, students may not have more than 7 absences, tardies, and checkouts in the year.
There is a quote that says, "Attend today, and achieve tomorrow." According to the US Department of Education, school attendance is a powerful predictor of student outcomes. In fact, irregular attendance is a better predictor of whether students will drop out of school before graduation than test scores.
The correlation between attendance and dropout rates has important ramifications that go beyond the classroom. Compared to their peers who graduate, students who fail to complete high school education are more likely to live in poverty, suffer poor health, and become involved in the criminal justice system.
Last year, 38% of our students at Elk Run were chronically absent. This means they missed more than 10% of the school year. Every day a student misses, results in 3 hours of missed Language Arts and 1 1/2 hours of missed math instruction. Students who miss 10 days miss 30 hours of language arts and 15 hours of math instruction. Teachers cannot make up that lost instruction and that results in loss of learning for students.
In addition to absences, tardies are a big problem at Elk Run with up to 50 students every day arriving after the first bell, many of those arrive after 9:00 am. We start instruction by 8:45 so if a student is tardy they miss instruction.
Let's try to get into good habits of being at school on time every day!
Drop off and Pick-up
Please follow all traffic and posted rules when dropping students off at school and picking them up. Go slow! Be patient!
Do NOT park in the lane in front of the school that says NO PARKING, that is for the bus. The bus has the right of way in our parking lot. Cars will NOT be permitted to pass the bus in our lot.
The faculty parking lot is NOT a student drop off or pick up location. It is clearly marked as such and violators may be ticketed.