Bound for the second semester, Trigg County Schools officials closed up shop just before Christmas with positive and negative news about the district’s population.
On the rise? Average daily attendance.
On the decline? Good behavior.
James Mangels, director of personnel and student services, noted that over these first four months, campus-wide attendance is just above 94%. That’s an increase of nearly 3% over the 2022-23 academic calendar, and very close to pre-COVID-19 measures.
This is despite recent onsets of respiratory and digestive ailments, and Mangels said a 1% increase in ADA roughly equates to an $80,000 recovery in lost SEEK funds.
Efforts, however, will continue through and after the winter break, in order to keep attendance at, or above, marked standards.
Attendance was at 93.5% for Trigg County Primary, 94.6% for Trigg County Intermediate, 94.6% for Trigg County Middle and 93.7% for Trigg County High.
With more kids on campus, though, does bring a higher percentage of behavioral issues.
And in it’s in these first four months, Mangels added, that 205 students generated 345 office referrals — all stemming from a wide variety of events.
More than half of them naturally occurred in the classroom or the bus, because it’s the two locations spend most of their time. However, 31 incidents happened in restrooms, 31 happened in hallways, 27 were in the cafeteria, 12 were labeled as generally on campus, six were on the playground, three were in the gym, three were on an athletic field, and one was in an office.
Of those 340-plus referrals, five involved sexual offenses, eight were caught skipping, five were thefts, five were assaults, six were abusing teachers, one was for alcohol use, 14 were for drug possession/use, two were for terroristic threatening, 12 were for profanity.
Two issues, Mangels said, loom large across the Commonwealth.
Punishments doled in the first half of this year include 199 in-school suspensions, 59 detentions, 54 out-of-school suspensions, 18 student/parent conferences, 14 bus suspensions, 13 bus warnings, 11 alternative placements, 10 warnings, two restraints and one order of restitution.
Mangels said that several teachers and administrators have coded actions as “disorderly conduct” and “disruptive behavior,” which he said are common codes for demerit systems.
These codes, however, need to be more specific — in order to better diffuse certain repeated, linear behavior patterns.
The most common days for “bad” behavior: Wednesdays and Thursdays, which again, Mangels said, is a common theme in west Kentucky. The most common time: 11 AM, right before lunch. Is this because of recess? Lunch? Too much downtime? Mangels said the district would explore why.
Mangels said more than 85% of TCMS and 93% of TCIS were set to receive their first-semester Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports rewards — put in place to promote good behavior efforts.
