According to the non-profit group GreatSchools, “third grade is the year of reading mastery”. Third-graders are expected to learn from books they read, and to use their comprehension skills to build a “knowledge bank”, as it were. Third-grade reading focuses on teaching children how to think and talk about what they read. For this reason, it was considered by Opportunity Santa Fe to be important to track reading proficiency by the end of third grade.

The data that were reported to the New Mexico Public Education Department for PARCC testing assessed at five different levels. According to the New Mexico Public Education Department website, the rubric for proficiency is as follows:
· Level 1: Did not yet meet expectations
· Level 2: Partially met expectations
· Level 3: Approached expectations
· Level 4: Met expectations
· Level 5: Exceeded expectations
Per the New Mexico Public Education Department website: “A student earning a performance level of 4 or 5 on the PARCC assessment means the student meets or exceeds expectations for their grade level as determined by the New Mexico State Standards for all public school students.”


According to data gathered by Santa Fe Public Schools (SFPS) and the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED), statewide reading proficiency (levels 3-5) has remained generally flat (varying between 48.5% and 50.5%) since New Mexico transitioned to PARCC testing. By way of comparison, SFPS have improved from 45.3% to a high of 54.6% since the PARCC transition.












Students at levels 4 or 5 in New Mexico as a whole ranged between 24.2% and 31% after the PARCC transition. Students attending SFPS at proficiency levels 4 or 5 improved at approximately the same rate, from a low of 25%, to a high of 31%.

By: Santa Fe Data Team

​According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), early childhood “is defined as the period from birth to eight years old, is a time of remarkable growth with brain development at its peak. During this stage, children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them.” With this in mind, it is essential that babies are born healthy, and that children are healthy, safe, and nurtured. Since that definition extends to some school-age children as well, educational development is also a key to lifelong wellbeing.
 
The World Health Organization (WHO) has found that regular contact with a doctor, nurse, or midwife during pregnancy allows women to receive services vital to their health and that of their future children. The WHO recommends a minimum of eight prenatal care contacts (visits) to reduce issues such as mortality during pregnancy, during birth, and immediately after birth, as well as to improve women’s experience of care.  
 
According to data gathered from the New Mexico Department of Health (Citation: New Mexico Department of Health, Indicator-Based Information System for Public Health Web site: http://ibis.health.state.nm.us), the percentage of women in Santa Fe County who received prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy has slowly decreased from 75% in 2013 to 66% in 2017 (the latest year available for reporting). This trend falls behind the US national averages (74% in 2013 to 77% in 2017) but remains slightly higher than statewide averages (63% in 2013 compared to 64% in 2017).
 
Another measure that is used to determine the relative health of a community’s babies is whether or not a baby is born at a low birth weight. According to the WHO’s definition, low birth weight babies are defined as a child whose birth weight is lower than 2500 grams, or less than 5.5 pounds. In an article entitled “Risk factors of low birth weight and effect of them on growth pattern of children up to sixth months of life: A cross-sectional study” published in the Journal of Education and Health Promotion (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4456878/) researchers note that low birth weight is responsible for 70% of newborns’ mortality, especially in developing countries. Further, low birth weight is also responsible for increased risk of infections, hematological and nutritional diseases, and can result in disability.
 
The article continues: “There are several causing factors for [low birth weight, abbreviated as LBW]: Nutritional status and pattern of weight gaining on mother during pregnancy, history of obstetric complications […], chronic underlying diseases in mother, alcohol use and smoking. Other factors are prenatal care, hemoglobin (Hb) and hematocrit (Hct) level of mother during pregnancy, socioeconomic situation, mother's activity during pregnancy and demographic factors (age, weight,[etc.]) and so on.” Therefore, ensuring that babies start out life healthy means that is important to work towards making sure that babies are born at a healthy weight.

In Santa Fe County, some demographic populations are more prone than others to have low birth weight babies. As the article mentioned, other external factors – such as socioeconomic status – are in play as well, and can affect some demographic populations in a disproportionate manner. All of these factors combined make some of Santa Fe’s most vulnerable populations at risk for low birth weight babies.

One place where the community of Santa Fe has made progress is in the category of early childhood education. Between 2013 and 2017, the percentage of three- and four-year-olds enrolled in preschool has gone from 43.2% to 66.4%. This enrollment rate represents a higher improvement rate, as well as greater enrollment rate to begin with, than the state of New Mexico as a whole (39.8% to 44.1% in the same time period).
 
Likewise, Santa Fe has a greater proportion of pre-school children who are ready for Kindergarten (as assessed by the New Mexico Public Education Department’s Early Childhood Observation Tool) than their counterparts statewide. In school year 2013-14, 54.4% of Santa Fe’s preschoolers evaluated were ready for Kindergarten; in school year 2017-18, that percentage rose to 87.9%. This compares favorably to New Mexico as a whole (51% in 2013-14 to 62% in 2017-18).

By: Santa Fe Data Team
​
​As a part of the redesign of the Santa Fe Birth-to-Career website (opportunitysantafe.org), we are starting a new blog. The first few entries in this blog will give a high-level view of where we are versus where we were in 2015. It would be difficult to simply say, “we’re doing better”, “we’re doing worse”, or “we’re about the same” without some sort of context; therefore, over the next few weeks, we’ll be presenting a few highlights regarding progress we as a community have made in making Santa Fe a safe and healthy place for kids to grow up.
 
In a 1990 speech to the students of a Boston-area high school, Nelson Mandela said that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” We believe that a good education can make all the difference in the world to an individual person; therefore, several of the metrics that the Data Team track relate to education. How are students in the public school system faring now when compared to students in the school system in 2015? How are students attending our institutions of higher education in Santa Fe faring?
 
There are other measures that can give some context as to the past and current conditions of the community. For example, what does the employment market in Santa Fe look like? In what sector or sectors are the high-wage jobs? How many disconnected youth – young people ages 16-24 who are not employed and not in school – are in Santa Fe? How large a role does homelessness play in this community?
 
The purpose of tracking these metrics is to help everyone make the best decisions on how to tackle the issues our community faces by using the information available to us. This process is called “data-informed decision making”. The Santa Fe B2C Data Team gathers data from multiple sources, including the New Mexico Department of Health, the US Census Bureau, New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department, New Mexico Public Education Department, New Mexico Higher Education Department, and other trustworthy governmental and non-governmental entities. By utilizing data available to us, we aim to help others understand how these different dimensions influence what’s going on around us, and, if possible, identify how we can help make things better for our community.

The 2017 Reconnecting Youth Survey (RYS) shed a light on a group of young Santa Feans at extreme risk of low academic achievement, poor connection to the job market, and engaging in behaviors endangering their health. These youth, known as opportunity youth or reconnecting youth (sometimes referred to as disconnected youth), were between the ages of 14 and 26 years, and were not working or enrolled in school. For more information on this group of young people, see the Data Spotlight from October 4, 2018 (Data Spotlights, Focus on Education and Employment Among Disconnected Youth). As the previous Data Spotlight pointed out, opportunity youth of Santa Fe have great potential, and it is critical that our community makes a big effort to reconnect them to school and to employment leading to future careers. The current Data Spotlight focuses on one of the many risks these young people face – homelessness, or housing instability.

The McKinney-Vento Act defines homelessness as lacking a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. The RYS assessed housing stability with a single question, “During the past 30 days, where did you usually sleep at night?” Respondents who answered that that usually slept “In a home that I own or rent” or “In my parent’s or guardian’s home” were considered to be in stable housing, and those who gave any other response were considered to be in unstable housing. More than one-third (35.5%) of RYS respondents lived in unstable housing. Youth ages 19-26 were more likely to be in unstable housing than ages 14-18; nearly half the surveyed population (47.1%). In the younger age group (14-18 years), 24.0% were in unstable housing, a rate 3-4 times that of public high school students of a similar age group. According to the NM Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey, 6.0% of high school students were in unstable housing in 2015, and 7.4% in 2017.

During the past 30 days, where did you usually sleep at night?

In most cases , only a minority of youth in unstable housing reported that they actually got help with housing. Among 14-18-year-olds, almost half (49.1%) indicated that they needed help with housing, but less than one-third (29.1%) got the help they needed. Almost two-thirds of 19-26-year-olds reported they could have used help with housing, but less than a quarter (23.5%) got the help they needed.

The RYS also indicated that housing instability may interfere with efforts among young people to reconnect to school and/or work. Youth in unstable housing had significantly more challenges with school compared to those who were in stable housing due to:

• Not having required personal documents (reported by 8.9% of those in unstable housing, vs. 2.1% of those in stable housing)
• Not having transportation (27.4% vs. 13.4%)
• Being unable to afford school (22.3% vs. 11.0%)
• Needing to work instead of go to school (28.0% vs. 17.0%)
• Having other family responsibilities (24.8% vs. 18.7%)

Areas where youth in unstable housing had significantly more challenges with jobs compared to those who were in stable housing included:

• Did not have required personal documents (10.0% vs. 4.1%)
• Did not have transportation (28.8% vs. 14.4%)
• Had to take care of children (15.6% vs. 8.6%)
• Had other family responsibilities (20.6% vs. 13.0%)
• Had poor physical or emotional health (16.3% vs. 5.8%)
• Could not pass drug test (16.3% vs. 5.8%)
• Had a criminal record (9.4% vs. 4.1%)

 

Youth in unstable housing, of all ages, were at higher risk for factors associated with behavioral health, including substance use, suicide attempts, and sexual violence victimization.

​In spite of increased risks associated with behavioral health, and increased job-related challenges associated with drug use and poor physical and emotional health, youth in unstable housing had more difficulties accessing behavioral health services. Compared to youth in stable housing, youth in unstable housing were more likely to report these difficulties in accessing behavioral health services:

• Did not have transportation (13.8% vs. 4.8%)
• Could not afford services (13.8% vs. 5.5%)
• Did not have health insurance (10.7% vs. 3.1%)
• Bad past experiences (22.6% vs. 10.9%)
• Hours services were available (20.1% vs. 5.1%)
• Location of services (18.2% vs. 8.9%)
• Services not available (19.5% vs. 9.6%)

Why does this matter?

Approximately 1 in 10 young adults ages 18-25 experience some form of homelessness each year, and 1 in 30 adolescents ages 13-17 experience homelessness annually (Voices of Youth Count, University of Chicago). Young people who are not working or in school are already at heightened risk of homelessness. They are already vulnerable to exploitation, lack of services, substance use and other behavioral health risks, and without fixed, regular, and adequate housing, they can only see their risks multiply. Opportunity youth present have great potential for leading healthy and productive lives, but housing instability and it’s associated risks represent missed opportunities to help this population in their transition to productive adulthood.

The data collected indicates that youth are looking for these services but are unable to access them. If we as providers listen to their voices, we can work together to provide greater access to housing, behavioral health services, education supports, and job training and support.

See the Full Data Brief on Housing Instability

Measure of America defines youth ages 16 to 24 who are not in school and not working as Disconnected Youth, but here in Santa Fe these same youth have redefined themselves as “Reconnecting Youth”. This redefining moment has come because these youth are saying they are here and by making their voices heard, our community can assist them in going back to school or finding a job. Whichever term is used, it is important to recognize that this is a critical segment of the population, and that there is great potential in the Santa Fe Community to come together to help these youth either return to school or find an appropriate career pathway.
 
According to Measure of America's most recent report, Nationwide 11.7% of young people in this age group are not connected to either school or employment, while 16.4% of youth are disconnected in Santa Fe County. Locally, a survey called the Reconnecting Youth Survey was conducted in Fall 2017 at locations where opportunity youth tend to congregate within the greater Santa Fe area, as well as select locations within Santa Fe County. This survey included respondents between the ages of 14 and 26 years of age, and data was gathered based on the responses that the interviewees provided. The survey included questions on housing, employment, income, drug and alcohol use, challenges related to school and employment, and several other categories.
 
With regard to education, 61% of the respondents surveyed were not enrolled in school, nor were they taking high-school equivalency coursework. Of this subpopulation of interviewees, 26.9% were between the ages of 14 and 18.
 
Of respondents aged 19 to 26, those who were enrolled in schooling of some sort (e.g., high-school equivalency courses or courses offered at a post-secondary institution) were 1.77 times as likely to say that obtaining a diploma was “very important” when compared to their non-enrolled counterparts. The largest challenges related to school for respondents aged 19 to 26 were inadequate transportation, other family responsibilities, poor grades, or having to work rather than going to school.

​When considering employment among disconnected youth, it was reported that respondents without at least a high-school level credential (a diploma, HiSET, or GED) were 1.35 times as likely to be unemployed rather than employed. Respondents who had a high-school level credential reported higher yearly earnings than those without a high-school level credential. Respondents who had a certificate or degree from a post-secondary institution (such as a community college, trade school, or four-year institution) tend to earn more, with 47.8% of these making more than $15,000 a year. 

​Why does this matter?
 
The effects of being disconnected ripples through the community. There is a social cost which impacts the community in multiple ways including though social services, the criminal justice system, and employment. Financially, young adults who are not in school or working cost taxpayers $93 billion annually and $1.6 trillion over their lifetimes in lost revenues and increased social services. The information collected in these surveys comes directly from the voices of the youth we as a community are trying to serve; they know what they need. Moving forward we hope this information is used to improve the outcomes for these youth.

 See the Full Data Brief on Education Statistics by Age Group 

The Collective Impact approach is based on the idea that no single organization or program can tackle the complex problems our society faces alone. As budgets shrink and problems get bigger, it is more important than ever for multiple sectors, agencies, and entities to align efforts toward shared aspirations. One of the key elements of collective impact is shared measurement - collecting data and measuring results consistently to track our progress and learn.   Toward this end, we have published  Santa Fe Community Baseline Report on our shared outcomes and indicators and recently announced our 2020 Targets and Aspirational Goals at the 2017 Opportunity Santa Fe Summit. Throughout the year we will share progress and areas in need of focus through these Data Spotlights.
 
As we continue to move toward our aspirational goals with collective actions, including through partnership with several Collaborative Working Groups (click here to learn more about CWGs and the current invitation for proposals), it is important to recognize areas where we have seen success so far.  This Data Spotlight examines the achievements of our community over the past several years and provides some context for how that momentum can be carried forward.
 
Increases in High School Graduation Rate
 
One area our community’s efforts have led to positive results is high school graduation.  In 2010, the graduation rate in Santa Fe fell almost 7 percentage points, with only 53% of our high school students graduating on time that year.

Since that point, Santa Fe Public Schools redoubled its efforts to reduce a dropout rate that had peaked at 7.1% in the 2010-11 school year.  While those efforts led to almost a 60% reduction in the dropout rate by the 2013-14 school year, the graduation rate increased by more than 10 percentage points in 2014 from its lowest point as more kids stayed in school and graduated.
​

Improvement in graduation rate has continued since then at an average of almost 3 percentage points per year, leading to a 71% graduation rate in 2016 that matches the statewide rate.  Our earlier Data Spotlight in 2016 highlighted particularly strong improvements for certain subpopulations including female, Hispanic and Native American students.   By focusing on equity gaps in graduation rate among various subpopulations and with community-wide commitment, we believe we can continue to move the needle through 2025 when we hope to achieve the GradNation national target of 90[KC1] %.
 
Post-Secondary Success
 
Another area where we have seen tremendous success as a community is the production of post-secondary degrees and certificates.  Previous Data Spotlights have shown how valuable education, especially in the middle-skills areas of associate’s degrees and 1- or 2-year technical certificates, is to the economic empowerment of our community, and between 2012 and 2015, local degree production increased by almost 50%, largely in those areas.

The number of associates degrees and certificates awarded by Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) has increased by more than 75 percent over the last five years.  By aligning its strategic plan to meet the community’s needs, SFCC has worked to increase the impact of each individual award as well.  For instance, as part of SFCC’s commitment to collective impact through its participation in the Santa Fe Birth to Career Collaboration (SF B2C), SFCC aligned its strategic plan to B2C career success goals by including the number of healthcare certificates and degrees awarded as a key performance indicator, and the approach has been paying off.
 
While our institutions of higher learning deserve praise for serving the community’s needs in this way, other data from SFCC suggest external circumstances including Great Recession of 2007-2009 may have played an important role in the success shown in numbers.   Likely prompted by the economic downturn when high unemployment can reduce the perceived opportunity cost of attending school full-time , the student population shifted to being much more full-time than it ever had been previously.
 
At the start of the Great Recession, only 16% of SFCC students were attending school full-time.  By 2013, twice as many students – or 32% of the college’s population – took 12 or more credit hours.  More students aggressively pursuing their degrees or certificates certainly contributed to the exceptional growth in the number of awards produced in that time period.  Since 2013, which is also the high-water mark for student credit hour enrollment at SFCC, the full-time enrollment trend appears to be reversing itself.
​

​​Though it might seem less ambitious than our goals for high school graduation, the aspirational target to produce 1,400 degrees and certificates annually by 2020 recognizes both the uncertainty in enrollment trends as the economy continues to improve and slow population growth rates for Santa Fe County.

Expected closing of University of Arts and Design and resulting loss of graduates in its bachelor’s degree program is another factor to consider.  To maintain and even modestly increase the high levels of local post-secondary awards by 2020 will take continued commitment from our community.  
 
Interdependency of Birth to Career Outcomes across the Continuum
 
Outcomes across the birth to career continuum are interdependent with each other, with successes or failures in one area having considerable effect in other areas – sometimes immediately in numbers or ratios and other times in the long term or even intergenerationally.    
 
Take, for instance, one of our other aspirational goals to increase the rate of high school graduates who enroll in college or certificate programs.  The flat trend in the number of high school graduates enrolling college coupled with rapid increases in graduation rate has resulted in the decline in the rate of college enrollment rate over the past several years.  If we are able to reverse this trend and meet our aspirational goals in college enrollent rate with continuing increase in our high graduation rate, we could see twice as many students going on to college in 2025 than we do today.  If those students were then successful in completing their associate’s degree on time at SFCC or another local institution, we could see degree production increase by up to another 282 awards per year by 2027 or 2028.   This perspective highlights the importance of not just focusing on high school graduation rate as an indicator for student success as community, but making sure that the graduates are ready for the next phase in their lives and transitioning into college or certificate programs that set them on track for future career success.    
​

In the current Data Spotlight, we turn our focus to the relation between income and educational attainment.

Why does this matter?
Educational attainment is a pathway to increased personal income. Particularly for young adults in Santa Fe’s workforce, data shows that spending even a single year in college increases earnings by 24% on average, and the jump in earnings between an associate degree and a bachelor’s degree is over 42%.  Those with a bachelor’s degree on average have an annual income twice as high as those with a high school degree or equivalent.  Apart from increasing the standard of living at the individual level, higher familial income is often related to improved outcomes for children and helps strengthen the overall economy.  

How are we doing?
While education advances economic mobility for individuals and families, what is concerning is the fact that younger adults in Santa Fe have increasingly lower rates of educational attainment when compared to older adults.

​
​Lower educational attainment for younger adults in Santa Fe
Data indicates that 1 in 5 or 20% of adults ages 25 to 34 in Santa Fe do not have a high school degree.  80% of adults ages 25 to 34 are at least high school graduates or equivalent compared to over 90% for adults older than 45.  Moreover, only 25% of adults age 25 to 34 have a Bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 45% of adults age 45 to 64. Nationally, 36% of adults in the 25-34 age range have a Bachelor’s degree or higher.

Given the strong relationship between income and education attainment, it is important to help our youth and young adults enter and successfully complete higher education programs.  Santa Fe has many great programs to help encourage young adults and undereducated adults looking for skills training to pursue higher education – even for those who may not be on a typical college track or do not have a high school diploma, including the Early College Opportunities (ECO) school (see VISTA blog) and the I-BEST Programs for Health Care and Early Childhood Hood Education that integrate basic education and skills training at the Santa Fe Community College.​

​In this month’s e-news we are focusing on post-secondary success. Santa Fe is served by seven different local area institutions of higher education.
 
Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) is the largest of these in terms of degree and certificate production, and the data below illustrates SFCC’s recent successes and ongoing challenges.

 How are we doing?
 
The number of associates degrees and certificates awarded by SFCC has increased by almost 75 percent over the last five years. By aligning its strategic plan to meet the community’s needs, SFCC has worked to increase the impact of each individual award, as well.  For instance, as part of SFCC’s commitment to collective impact through its participation in the Santa Fe Birth to Career Collaboration (SF B2C), SFCC aligned its strategic plan to B2C career success goals by including the number of healthcare certificates and degrees awarded as a key performance indicator, and the approach has been paying off. 

​Even with this success, there are more opportunities for improvement. By focusing on its student demographic data, SFCC has started to identify and target equity gaps, notably for Hispanic males. Not only are Hispanic males underrepresented on campus relative to the surrounding community, once enrolled they face challenges to the successful completion of their programs of study.  As a result, Hispanic males have until last year consistently made up a smaller share of graduates than might be expected from enrollment figures.
 
Recognizing this demographic trend, SFCC began tracking Hispanic male enrollment as one of the key performance indicators used to inform the success of its efforts to bridge the equity gap.  There is also an opportunity to examine the extent to which recently-improved graduation trends address an existing gap between local job openings and qualified applicants in middle-skills fields with potential for high starting wages.

​Why does this matter?
 
Focusing on equity gaps in higher education attainment recognizes the vital role each segment of our population plays in creating a vibrant and strong community. Bridging this gap directly impacts the individuals we reach by decreasing the chance and length of unemployment and increasing lifetime earnings. Indirectly, the benefits extend much further within the community, both through the positive economic feedback of those increased earnings and an increased likelihood of post-secondary success for the individual’s children or family.
 
In addition to other initiatives targeting the equity gap, Santa Fe is part of My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative designed by the Obama Administration to address opportunity gaps for young men of color and ensure that all young people can reach their full potential.

In this month’s e-news we are focusing on youth between the ages of 16-24 who are not in school, and are not employed. This group is also sometimes referred to as “Opportunity Youth”. Nationally, they are often referred to as “Disconnected Youth,” a term which has been defined by Measure of America as young people ages 16 to 24 who are neither working nor in school.  Whatever term is used, it is important to recognize that this is a critical segment of the population, and that there is great potential in the Santa Fe Community to come together to help this population either return to school or find an appropriate career pathway.
 
According to Measure of America's most recent report, Nationwide 13.8%  of young people in this age group are not connected to either school or employment. In Santa Fe, these numbers are even higher per capita. Approximately 16%, or 2,600 youth ages 16-24 are neither in school or working in Santa Fe in 2009-20013. (See Figure Below).  The percentage of youth who are not connected to school or employment increases with age. For 16-18 year olds 10% are not connected. This percentage almost doubles for 19-21 year olds (19%) and 22-24 year olds (21%) in Santa Fe.

Nationally, rates of disconnection are much higher for blacks (21.6 percent), Native Americans (27.8 percent), and Latinos (16.3 percent) compared to rates for Asian Americans (7.9 percent) or whites (11.3 percent). *more here  Although we do not have ethnicity rates for Santa Fe specifically, we do know that the youth living in poverty in Santa Fe are almost three times more likely to be disconnected than those not in poverty.  For those youth who are already disconnected from school and work, the poverty rate is twice as high than those who are connected to either school or work at 47% (see chart below).  These rates are higher than national rates, in which 39% of “disconnected” youth are in poverty.     

Why does this matter? 
​
The effects of disconnected youth ripples through the community. Nationally, it costs taxpayers $93 Billion annually for lost tax revenue and social services for an estimated 6.7 million youth who are not in school or employed. Beyond the financial cost, there is a social cost as well which impacts the community in multiple ways including though social services, the criminal justice system, and employment.

On the national level, the issue of youth who are not in school or employed is gaining momentum, and this is also true in Santa Fe. Many local organizations and programs such as YouthWorks, Youth Shelters, Santa Fe Mountain Center, and Santa Fe Public Schools are working to engage and support disconnected and at risk youth. Santa Fe is part of the Presidential My Brother’s Keeper Initiative which is designed to address opportunity gaps for young men of color and ensure that all young people can reach their full potential. Additionally, the Santa Fe Birth to Career Collaboration and the City of Santa Fe are working with many partners to improve, expand, and coordinate efforts. 

Useful Resources: 

• SF B2C Disconnected Youth Dashboard 
• Notes from Opportunity Santa Fe Community Summit 2015. Disconnected Youth Breakout Session
• National Resources  
  • http://www.measureofamerica.org/disconnected-youth/
  • http://www.aecf.org/resources/opportunity-road/
  • http://www.serve.gov/sites/default/files/ctools/12_0604whccs_finalreport.pdf
  • https://www.gradnation.org/report/don%E2%80%99t-quit-me
  • https://opportunitynation.org/disconnected-youth/
  • http://aspencommunitysolutions.org/the-fund/opportunity-youth-network/

September is Attendance Awareness Month.​  Campaigns are underway nationally, recognizing the importance of attendance in student success and the role that everyone can play in ensuring that students attend school regularly.

​Why Does It Matter?
​
Research indicates that regular school attendance is associated with student achievement.  When students are chronically absent (missing 10% or more of school for any reason - unexcused and ​excused), they miss out on learning opportunities critical to school success. According to Attendance Works, a national initiative focused on promoting regular school attendance: "Absenteeism and its ill effects start early.  Nationally, one in 10 kindergarten and first grade students are chronically absent.  Poor attendance can influence whether children read proficiently by the end of 3rd grade.  By 6th grade, chronic absence becomes a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school.  Low income students are four times more likely to be chronically absent than others often for reasons beyond their control, such as unstable housing, unreliable transportation and a lack of access to health care."

​How Are We Doing?

​The attendance rate in Santa Fe Public Schools has been below the state average with a relatively flat trend in the recent years.  ​The chronic absenteeism and habitual truancy rates (10 or more unexcused absences within a year) are also alarmingly high, particularly in high school, where more than one in three students are habitually truant and chronically absent.   

However, Santa Fe Public Schools has made significant efforts to address its attendance issues with the launch of the district-wide Mission Attendance initiative a few years ago.   ​

Chronic Absenteeism Decline in Most Grades. ​While still at quite high rates, improvements have been made over the past few years in chronic absenteeism and habitual truancy.  

Chronic absences declined slightly from 30.6% in 2014-14 school year to 27.9% in 2014-15 (as of May 21, 2015).   The rate decreased in all grades except for in 8th grade.  The decline was particularly substantial in 6th grade where the rate decreased by half from 18% to 9%. 
​​

Habitual Truancy Rates Improve for Elementary and Middle Schools But NOT High School. Approximately 24% of students in Santa Fe Public Schools were habitually truant in the 2014-15 school year, significantly higher than the state's 14.3%.  The overall rate has improved over the past few years for Elementary School and Middle School.  However, the truancy issue is particularly prevalent in High School where 34%, or 1 in 3 students, had 10 or more unexcused absences in the 2014-2015 school year with no improvement in the past few years. 
​

What Would It Take?

Santa Fe Public School District has recently set a 95% attendance rate  target, a near 4 percentage point increase compared to 91.1% in 2014-15 school year.  As part of the Mission Attendance initiative, the District has implemented a comprehensive strategy led by Truancy Taskforce, including an early warning system with rigorous data tracking, a strict attendance policy with parent engagement and follow-ups on absences, placement of  "Truancy Coaches" in priority schools with NM PED grant and, in the worst cases, involvement of the Juvenile Probation Office or court-ordered compliance requirements to work out critical concerns.

But, improving attendance, especially reducing chronic absences, requires broad, community-wide support beyond school-enforced rules and interventions.   ​Many of our community partners recognize this need and a number of early efforts are underway to help raise awareness of the importance of attendance, as well as to help remove barriers for students who are chronically absent (see this blog article highlighting relationship-based support for students and families by Communities in Schools).  Santa Fe Birth to Career is currently also working with the Santa Fe Public Schools, Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, and New Mexico PBS on a public awareness campaign which will include posters and information in school as well as social media campaigns driven by student participation. 

Visit Attendance Works to read the report released by Attendance Works and Everyone Graduates, Preventing Missed Opportunities: Taking Collective Action to Confront Chronic Absence to learn more about how we can all play a role and work together to ensure that our students attend school regularly and have a better chance at success. 

Do you have success stories and strategies to share? Contact us at info@santafeb2c.org or post a comment below. 

​Sources: Attendance Works, SFPS, NM PED​