MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
For two years, the school community battled with in-person attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, there's a renewed effort to push those attendance numbers back up. USD 428 Public Information Director Andrea Bauer said the Great Bend district has started a new campaign to incentivize attendance in all schools.
"The campaign we're sharing with the community is that Showing up matters for REAL," she said. "We're providing families and students with information about building routines, positive engagement, access to resources, and other ways to support learning."
The letters in REAL stand for those routines, engagement, access, and learning. Research indicates that starting as early as preschool and kindergarten, chronic absence, or missing just two school days a month, can lead to reading deficiencies by third grade and lead high school students off track for graduation. Over the course of an educational career, missing 20 days a year is the same as missing an entire academic year.
"Missing just two days of school a month adds up quickly to that number," Bauer said. "That's what we're communicating to families is that your absence has a real negative academic impact on your education as well."
Great Bend High School has incentivized good attendance with several activities, including a first-hour challenge where Principal Tim Friess will buy breakfast for a few classrooms. Attendance Coordinator Karla Martinez said the school has also reached out to several GBHS coaches and local businesses for donations as part of a raffle.
"We are so excited they are willing to support us," she said. "We've had businesses donate sweatshirts, gift cards, gift certificates, everything you can imagine. We did want to say thank you to all of them because we're going to be able to raffle off about five items a week. Every single Friday, we'll be having those raffles. Our kids are excited. It is truly amazing how Great Bend continues to show support for our kids and our community."
To enter the raffle, students must be in the building on time by 8 a.m. to sign up in the commons area. Students can sign up daily to win prizes ranging from gift cards of up to $50 to Panther merchandise. Winners and donating businesses will be recognized on the GBHS Facebook page each week.
"The targeted efforts and strategies look very different in all of our buildings," Bauer said. "But you'll notice from preschool, elementary, middle school, high school, everyone is putting a renewed effort on it's important to be at school."