Action Research Draft
Jason Botos
Childress High School
– Childress Independent School District
Increase student
attendance through participation in extra and co curricular participation.
Since the
implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) school districts around Texas are
held to state standards. These standard
declare if your campus and school district are meeting Adequate Yearly Progress
(AYP). One of the components of AYP is
attendance and graduation rate. The
Texas Education Agency (TEA) has assigned a 90% rule in section 25.092 of the
education code (Anderson, 2012). This section
describes that a campus must have a yearly attendance rating of 90% of the days
classes are offered to receive credit or more than 75% but less than 90% can
receive credit with an administrators approved plan to make up the hours i.e.
Saturday school.
Childress is
located in the Southeastern panhandle of Texas with a total population of
6,200. Our school district, which is
classified as a Title 1 school, services over 1,000 students, 316 at the High
School campus. We are considered a rural
school district with an ethnic distribution as follows: 53% White, 37.2%
Hispanic, 5.8% African American, 2.2% two or more races, 0.9% American Indian
and 0.9% Asian. In 2011, our campus had
seen its lowest absenteeism rate since the school opened the doors in 1988. Childress High School had an overall
attendance percentage of 93.71%, with a break down by grade level as such
95.61% for 9th, 95.52% 9 for 10th, 93.66% for 11th,
92.68% for 12th. Even though
CISD met AYP and was well above the 90% attendance requirement set by TEA,
93.71% is well below the standard that our local Board of Directors has set for
our high school campus, which is at 96%.
The purpose of
this study to determine the extent of the relationship between students
participation in school based extra and co curricular activities and their
attendance rating. Extracurricular
activities have long been recognized for contributing to the overall education
experience of students. The way students
choose to spend their free time can affect their school performance. Being involved in school based activities not
only promotes school culture, it has been found to have a relationship with
students’ academic performance, help develop individual responsibility, discover
interests and abilities, leadership skills and self-discipline. It was not until recently that “Educational
practitioners and researchers have taken a more positive arguing that
extracurricular activities may have positive effects on life skills and may
also benefit academic accomplishment” (Marsh & Kleitman, 2002)
There have been
many studies done to show the importance of extra curricular activities in the
overall scheme of a student’s educational journey. Extracurricular and co curricular activities
are activities performed by student that fall outside the realm of the normal
curriculum of the school. These programs
are also known as enrichment programs, which are courses offered by educational
facilities to help promote skills and higher level of thinking for
students.. Stephen and Schaben (2002)
noted that there is a variation in educational and absenteeism results obtained
for students who participate in co curricular activities and those who do
not. Simon (2001) also revealed that
regardless of student background and prior achievement, various parenting,
volunteering and home learning activities, extracurricular activities
influences a student’s grade. Hamm, Pierce and Vandell (1999) found that
academically at risk children who attended after school programs more
frequently than others developed better work habits in their classroom and
attended school more often. I believe
the study will show that a student's awareness of time management,
responsibility, and aspiration to succeed all benefit from being in class on a
daily basis. Broh (2002) revealed that
students’ participation in extracurricular activities in general is associated
with an improved grade point average, higher education aspiration, and increase
attendance while reducing absenteeism.
In a meeting with
our attendance committee during the summer of 2012, concerns were brought forth
on how to increase our attendance rating at the high school campus. The committee brainstormed many in-house
solutions to help increase our attendance.
I brought up the idea of how increasing our students’ participation in
extra curricular activities could help raise the attendance rating at our high
school. The committee, which is made up
of our Campus Site Based Decision Making Team (SBDM), PEIMS director and all
campus administrators, agreed that it might help foster better attendance but
needed data to prove that our attendance issues were a result from students
that were not involved in any activities.
I explained that through the use of special symbols on our attendance
system, which would delegate a student that is involved in an activity, we
could track the data of attendance and tardiness of all students on our
campus. I provided all stakeholders in
the attendance committee with background information, data, multiple sources of
evidence, and the overall purpose as to why there be a need for this study to
transpire. Major emphasis was placed on
the success of all students through increased attendance and participation in
an activity that is offered by our campus.
At
the first official meeting in August 2012, the committee collaboratively
determined what duties and responsibilities would be assigned to ensure that
the vision and goals of our attendance study would be a shared
responsibility. This was an easy process
to begin with for each committee member’s daily job fit into the realm of the
study. Campus attendance clerk along
with assistance from our principal incorporated the special symbols into our
attendance system. The campus counselor
and students will be responsible for assigning the symbols signifying they are
involved with an extra curricular or co curricular activity. Our secretary will
handle in the daily input of the data into our attendance system.
The data will be
printed off weekly and presented to me with only student ID’s, no names,
gender, or race will be used in the dissemination of this data strictly
participation or no participation in extracurricular and co curricular
activities coupled with their absences and tardiness. The data will be disaggregated and compiled
into a spreadsheet that will keep a running total of weekly, monthly and six
week grading period absences. The column
will be marked for participant or non-participant and will keep a running total
to show at the end of the semester if there is a correlation between
participation and non-participation and students absent rates.
Pierce and Vendell
(1999) found that academically at risk children who attended after school
programs more frequently that others developed a better work habit in their
classroom and attended school more often.
Leadership is a skill that is learned and sought by employers in our
community. Extracurricular activities
encourage the development of leadership skills by providing a chance to begin
to understand diverse attitudes, skills, and talents as well as how to interact
effectively with a diversity of
people while working towards common goals. Harris (1995) commented that social
activities teach students to work in teams and work cooperatively, skills that
will help students’ be successful in school as well as attain jobs in the
future.
References
Anderson,
D. (2012, August 02). Re: Attendance, admission, enrollment records and
tuition.
Retrieved from http://www.tea.state.tx.us
Broh,
B. (2002). Linking extracurricular programming to academic achievement: Who
benefits and why?. Sociol., Edu(75), 69-96.
Hamm,
P., Pierce, K., & Vandell, D. (1999). Experiences in after school programs
and
children's adjustment in first grade classrooms. Child
Development, 70(3)(EJ 595 706), 756-767.
Harris,
J. R. (1995). Where is the child's environment? a group socialization theory of
development. The American Psychological Association, 102,
458-489.
Marsh,
H. & Kleitman, S. (2002). Extracurricular activities: The good, the bad,
and the
nonlinear. Harvard Educational
Review, 72, 464-512.
Stephens,
L. J., & Schaben, L. A. (2002). The effect on interscholastic sports
participation on academic achievement of middle school
students. NASSP Bulletin, 86(630), 35-41.
