Beaufort Co. kicks off community meetings aimed at addressing student attendance

BEAUFORT COUNTY, S.C. (WTOC) - The Beaufort County School District is working to educate parents and students on the importance of attending class.

They are holding community meetings over the next two months to emphasize the importance of attendance and the resources available to help.

The first of six meetings was held at Beaufort High School on Monday night.

A way for the district to try to fight the nationwide challenge of chronic absenteeism, which is students who miss 10% or more of the school days in a year.

Nationwide, chronic absenteeism is linked to a lack of student engagement, lack of access to student and family supports, and student and family health challenges.

“This has become its own epidemic,” Chief Student Services Officer for Beaufort County, Scott Cox said.

In South Carolina, 24% of students miss 10% or more of the school year.

That number in Beaufort County is 22%, lower than the state average, but a number the Beaufort County School District wants to be lower.

And they believe it can be lowered through education.

“The more we educate people about it, the more that we inform the families about it, I think the better outcome we will have,” Cox said.

This belief sparked the idea for these community meetings.

“We have a series of things planned, and this is kind of our base for that,” Cox said. “Being able to not just educate our families, but our school staff and our students on why it’s important and making sure that everyone has access to all the resources we provide.”

The district says each meeting will be an informative, supportive, and welcoming environment, where the district will talk with parents and students about attendance policies, share resources that can support families and students, and walk through how parents can keep up with attendance.

Parents can keep track of their student’s attendance through a program called PowerSchool.

“If our kids want to accomplish their goals, if our families have goals for our kids, then every day matters to accomplishing those goals,” Cox said.

If you or you and your student are unable to attend this one, there will be a meeting at May River High School on Tuesday night, and at area schools throughout February.

All those meetings will also start at 6:30 p.m. and will last about an hour.

The district says that if a high school student attends one of these meetings with their parent, they will be given a one-hour credit to their “seat time”.

In the state of South Carolina, each high school student is required to get 120 hours of “seat time” in all of their classes in order to pass them.