New attendance system puts heat on parents to get their kids to school

Friday, 27 September 2024

The Government has released more information about its attendance system required at every school except charter schools by 2026.

Associate Education spokesperson David Seymour announced its Star, or “Stepped Attendance Response”, system to boost low attendance rates on Thursday.

Each school would have its own Star plan, with more intensive responses the longer the child was absent.

If a student was absent for five days in a term, the school would contact their parents to find out why and “set expectations”. After 10 days, senior leadership would be involved, and after 15 days absent in a term parents could be prosecuted.

Under current legislation, parents can be fined up to $30 a day for every school day the student is truant. They can be fined up to $300 for a first offence and $3000 for a second or subsequent offence.

The Government aimed for 80% of students to attend school regularly which was more than 90% of the time.

On Friday, Seymour released the new template for the introduction of the Star system in every school.

It included schools assessing the attendance history of new students, for parents and teacher meetings to be held outside of the school day, for the Ministry of Education to convene meetings each term for school leaders and relevant agencies to discuss students with serious attendance concerns and contracting supports and services that are effective at returning students to regular attendance.

When students were missing 15 days or more in a school term, the ministry could undertake ministry-led prosecution if supports were offered and not taken up. It could support schools to undertake school-led prosecution as and when requested by schools.

When students were missing fewer than five days, the ministry was encouraged to support schools to be inclusive and safe.

It could also facilitate multi-agency responses and support schools to implement and monitor improvement plans, promote resources and services to support schools to return students to regular attendance and identify and respond to localised barriers.

Parents could also be required to attend meetings at school, follow the attendance plan and engage in supports offered.

Schools were to clearly communicate attendance expectations to parents, support students back to regular attendance, send warnings to parents if children continued to be truant, develop and implement a plan tailored to the diagnosis and circumstances around the child’s absence and escalate to a multi-agency response when absent for 15 days or more.

Seymour said each school would develop its own Star system to suit the community and school. It would be mandatory for all schools to have an attendance management plan from the beginning of the 2026 school year.

The document would act as a “best practice template for schools”, outlining the different roles parents, school and the ministry would play.

Charter schools would not be forced to have an attendance system in place because they were contracted to reach attendance targets or otherwise risked interventions or being shut down, Seymour said.

“It’s expected they will need something like Star in place to achieve those targets, but due to the increased accountability measures they face it isn't imposed on them.”

Seymour said the response after his Thursday announcement was “hugely supportive” with a mixture of teachers – both active and retired – principals, attendance officers and parents getting in touch to express their support.

“It gives me great hope that we’re establishing a culture where school attendance is essential,” Seymour said.

But schools said they were already working hard to try and raise attendance rates, including principals going to children’s homes to bring children to school.

Many pointed to socio-economic barriers including poverty, housing insecurity, violence, bullying and discrimination, as underlying reasons leading to children not going to school which were complex issues punitive measures would not resolve.

“If you’re going to start fining the parents, you’re going to be fining that bottom echelon of society, again, causing even more social issues,” Birchville School principal Robyn Brown said.

Seymour would be holding hui with frontline people including school leaders, attendance officers and youth aid police across the motu in the coming weeks.

“I look forward to engaging with them on the Star system and how we can continue working to get more children in school,” Seymour said.

“If we want better social outcomes, we can’t keep ignoring the truancy crisis. This Government has set itself bold targets to address attendance, and it’s a bold approach that is needed for the future.”