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August 25, 2005
Dear Parents:
The purpose of this letter
is to share with you the importance of your child's daily attendance
at school. Consistent school attendance positively impacts our
ability to prepare your students for the academic demands of the
future and assists us in dealing with the financial reality created by
the state's attendance policies. Recent changes in law only
allows us to count "positive attendance". This means
that when a student is absent, the state does not reimburse the
district for that day. We appealed to parents last year to be
aware of both the educational and financial impact of attendance loss
and, we are pleased that we reduced our losses by $175,000, from the
$1,000,000 in 2003-2004.
However, student absenteeism in
our District still resulted in over $825,367 in lost revenue last
year! Even a small improvement in our K-12 daily student
attendance would generate thousands of dollars for our District.
At the secondary level, the District loses state funds if a student
misses even one class period.
We encourage you to bear in
mind the implications of this state policy when making a decision to
withdraw your student early from the school day or to keep your
student at home for the day. Of course, we understand that
students must miss school when extremely ill and/or infectious;
however, we request that you carefully consider the impact of an
unnecessary absence, especially for discretionary reasons such as
family excursions, trips, vacations, doctor visits, etc. We ask
that whenever possible, parents schedule appointments at the end of or
outside of the school day.
Should an absence be necessary, parents are
encourage to support our schools by contributing $35.00 per day to
cover this lost revenue. This check should be made out to
Manhattan Beach Unified School District, Attention Stephen McMahon,
Deputy Superintendent of Business, 325 S. Peck Avenue, Manhattan
Beach, CA 90266.
Daily attendance boosts
academic achievement for our students and is the major source of
needed school funding. Thank you for doing all you can to insure
maximum school attendance.
Sincerely,
Gwen E. Gross, Ph.D.
Superintendent of Schools |
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