We are nearing the end of the second six weeks of school and soon the end of the first semester. Fall colds, allergy and flu has begun to impact many of our kiddos. On behalf of San Saba ISD I want to encourage you to keep up your strong effort in getting your kids to attend school each day. So much is demanded of our students in today’s school environment that it is almost impossible for our students to do well if they miss school regularly. Students cannot master the demanding curriculum when they are not at school with their teachers each and every day. Research from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) reports that students with poor attendance are likely to fall behind and miss the curriculum requirements needed to pass the state assessments that are required for promotion at grades 3, 5, 8 and 11.

Poor attendance by students is a difficult problem for the school to tackle. However, it is a very important issue to deal with because if students are not in school, they are not learning what is being taught and the school is not meeting accountability and funding measures. Our schools get a positive or negative report card from the State of Texas and the federal government on our attendance rates. Furthermore, the funding that our school district receives from the state of Texas is based on the number of days that our students attend school. Basically, our school receives approximately $30.00 a day for each of the 176 days that your child is in school. Just imagine if every student attended everyday of school, not only would our students do well academically but our schools would do well financially.

The State of Texas requires students to attend school under what is called Compulsory Attendance. This law requires children who are at least six years of age, or a child who is younger than six years of age and has previously been enrolled in 1st grade, and who has not yet reached the 18th birthday shall attend school. As the parent, legal guardian, or person in a parental relation to a child, it is your duty to monitor your child’s school attendance. Students must attend 90 percent of the days that school is in session to receive credit for the classes/courses attended or be promoted to the next grade level. San Saba ISD provides a monitoring system called GradeSpeed to assist you in monitoring your child’s attendance and grades. If you are not familiar with this service please call the campus where your child attends school or go to the San Saba ISD website at www.san-saba.net to gain more information about this service. Attendance recovery will soon be offered at each of the three campuses, thus if your child has missed many days, please contact the campus principal where your child attends school to see about attendance recovery days.

Please remember that our website is the key to keeping up-to-date on school happenings. Please visit www.san-saba.net to view events and find information you need to know about SSISD.

Don’t forget to support your ‘Dillos! See you at Rogan Field and at Armadillo Arena! Go Dillos!

If you have any questions about this article or any other question about school happenings please contact me at 325/372-3144.