Truancy in High School

The main focus of this project is to analyze students’ poor attendance in order to understand the applicable factors as to why upperclassmen tend to miss more school than students in younger grades. We will be focusing on how students relationships with parents and teachers affect upperclassmen attendance. An anonymous ten question survey was given to five Junior and Senior Civics and U.S. History classes at Steinmetz College Prep high school. The questions were geared towards the students days absent during the school year, and their relationship with teachers and parents. Majority of the students surveyed missed more than 20 days of school. Also majority of students claimed that their teachers cared about their academic achievement, yet for those students that decided to miss a class, the reason behind their action was boredom. Our results also indicated that majority of the students claimed that their parents were supportive towards their education, yet many also said that their parents had never attended a parent teacher conference, nor did they have access to parent portal. Even though many students described their parents attitude toward their education as supportive, it seems that students lack interest in their own education. One is left to conclude that parents are supporting students’ educational decisions even if they might not be the right ones. Few studies have examined teacher-student relationship, it has been said that if there is not a good relationship between them, student’s truancy increases. Teachers should focus on creating positive relationships with students who have low attendance rates. Not only are students that do not attend classes affected, but so are students that attend classes, because according to studies, they take away lecture time from students that assist class because teachers tend to stop and review for at least twenty minutes