The Numbers that Made a Difference
Celebrating at a quarterly attendance party
Metrics. If I’m being honest, it is a word that would send chills down my spine. I tend to love the individual stories about changed lives. I want to hear how one life was changed and what it meant for that individual. The thought of creating metrics to measure those stories has always been harder for me to wrap my mind around. Perhaps this is because I wonder how you capture stories in numbers. However, I have changed my mind. I have some metrics, some numbers, that tell a story well.
When Riverside Church began the partnership with Edgewood Academy, we asked Principal Nader what her first big challenge was at the school. She immediately stated that attendance needed to be addressed. We asked how she planned to tackle increasing attendance. She talked about creating a culture where students and teachers wanted to be. A place that they would love to come to and a place where they would fear missing something good if they were not there.
We asked how we could possibly help with something like that. She said she had some programs they were going to do but wanted more resources to carry it out. We could help with that. So, we supplied simple things: ingredients to make a gingerbread house, prizes for a Bingo party, or small items for a store. We asked how else we could help. We started providing weekend food bags for food insecure kids. We started partnering with some classrooms. We started to help with snacks for teacher meetings. These things seemed too simple to help change a big thing like attendance and culture, but I was wrong.
I was thrilled when I heard the news! A school that was averaging 150 students absent every day became a school that was averaging 19 students absent every day. And even more amazing, was the fact that this was during COVID. At a time when attendance was in decline in other schools, this school was making significant strides in getting kids to school.
But wait, that’s not all! A few months later we got the news that the school, who had received a C grade for the past several years had received a B grade that was just 4 points from an A! Edgewood Academy had the largest percentage increase in the district.
The students, teachers, staff, and administrators worked very hard for these big improvements. They have so much to be proud of in both attendance and school grades. I like to think we had a little part in making that happen. It turns out when you feed kids, they can pay attention to learn. When teachers feel supported, it changes the work environment. When programs are resourced, those programs make a difference.