With a chronic absentee rate of 10.8 percent, BKW is working to get more students to class

March 4, 2020

The National Center for Rural Education Research Network's work with Berne-Knox-Westerlo and other rural districts in New York is covered by The Altamont Enterprise.

Chronic absenteeism, or missing 10-percent of total school days in a school year, is one of three critical metrics tracked by Harvard in its study of Berne-Knox-Westerlo and 29 other rural districts; the other two are college readiness and college enrollment.

In February, Berne-Knox-Westerlo superintendent Timothy Mundell met with Harvard’s National Center for Rural Education Research Networks, which monitors BKW among a pool of several other school districts in New York and Ohio for research, to review the network’s attendance and achievement data.

“Through that data analysis we learned that … in our district, pertaining to math,” Mundell said at BKW’s Feb. 24 school board meeting, “that one day of absence in math by a student is equivalent to three-and-one-half days of lost academic growth. Process that.”

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Read more at The Altamont Enterprise.