Polk County Public Schools has a new message for parents and students: "Strive for Less Than 5."

  • Campaign inspired by similar campaign in Michigan
  • Pilot program in 5 Polk schools
  • Goal to make parents aware of consequences of missed days

The message is front and center of a pilot program that encourages students to not miss more than 5 days of school.
 
The district is partnering with Polk Vision to help spread the message throughout the community. The campaign was inspired by a similar program happening in Grand Rapids Public Schools in Michigan.
 
Polk County has implemented the pilot program in five schools, including Griffin Elementary. That  school’s new principal, Melissa Durrance, said 50 of her students missed more than 18 days of school last year.

That number accounts for 15 percent of her students.
 
“You’re looking at kids that, you know, are having 18 or more absences during the school year," said Durrance. "That’s almost 4 weeks of instruction. If they’re missing that much time, of course they’re going to perform lower, and that affects the entire school with the school grade. “
 
Digging into the data, she found that many of those students had failed a grade in the past.
 
“Fifty percent have been retained at least one time in their elementary school career," Durrance said. "To me, that’s very alarming because I know the statistics with retention. The more times a child is retained the smaller the chance they have from graduating from high school."
 
She also found that many of these same students performed poorly on the state reading exam.
 
“I discovered out of the 19 4th and 5th graders that were identified "high risk attendance" 68 percent of them -- so 13 out of 19 of them -- were not proficient on their standardized reading test last year,” Durrance explained.
 
Durrance said that means they’re not prepared for middle school.
 
These are some of the reasons why Griffin Elementary was selected to be a pilot school in the program. The goal is to make parents more aware of the consequences of not getting their children to school everyday.
 
As a whole, Durrance said the school has received an F letter grade the past two years. If it doesn’t get a C or better this school year, she said the state has threatened to close it, convert it into a charter, or take control of it.