FORT HALL — The Fort Hall Elementary community has upended national trends by boosting attendance and creating an environment where kids know they are wanted in class and missed when they’re gone.
Now, students’ reading abilities are rising right along with their attendance rates.
And that doesn’t surprise Principal Debbie Steele: “If kids are here, they can be taught,” she said.
It’s much-needed progress at a school where test scores are generally far below state averages, and the school has been designated as underperforming — which means the state steps in to help support it — since it opened its doors.
But for the first time in school history, it might be able to shake that designation next school year due to improving test scores, Steele said.
The success story is an outlier nationally, as nearly every state still struggles with attendance since COVID-19 disrupted schools. And it’s even more so because of Fort Hall Elementary’s student population.
More than 95% of the school’s students come from low-income families, about 9% are homeless, and a quarter have disabilities. The school is part of Blackfoot School District, but is somewhat isolated on the Fort Hall Reservation, where 100 of its 103 students are Native American.
Attendance has been worse for Native American and Alaska Native students than their peers — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has since grown, according to data collected by The Associated Press.
Out of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had absenteeism rates for Native students that were at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average.
Nationally, many schools serving Native American students have been working to strengthen connections with families, who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty. Schools also must navigate distrust dating back to the U.S. government’s campaign to break up Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children into abusive boarding schools.
History “may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.
That has all held true for Idaho, too. Last school year, 15% of students statewide were chronically absent, as compared to 25% of Native American students.
As school leaders work to partner with parents and tribes, Idaho has its own troubling history of boarding schools to reckon with.
But Fort Hall Elementary is a bright spot. Its percentage of students who are chronically absent — meaning they have missed 10% of school days or more — dropped from 56% in 2022 to 16.7% last school year, according to state data.
That’s correlated with an increase in literacy rates: Last spring, nearly half of the school’s K-3 students were reading at grade level — up from about a quarter the year before.
Here’s how they’re doing it: School leaders and teachers intentionally make school fun and attendance a game rather than an obligation. Students who are on time and in class regularly earn raffle tickets, certificates and public recognition.
And school staff has partnered with parents and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes to bolster communication and understanding and — sometimes — consequences for frequently absent students.
The efforts are paying off.
“School is simply better when you’re here,” teachers tell students
In fifth-grade teacher Adam Smith’s class, students cheer when their peers arrive in the classroom — especially if they were recently absent.
Smith wants to make sure each student gets the message: “We want you to come and feel safe. We want you to be included. And school is simply better when you’re here and we miss you when you’re not here.”
Much of the school’s improvements come down to relationships — between teachers and students, and the school and community.
There is only one teacher for each grade level, so every teacher comes to know every student by name.
“Here at school, we try to be part of a family,” Smith said. “There’s a strength here I haven’t felt elsewhere.”
“It creates such a safe place for the kids,” Steele said. “That’s what I love most about out here: the teachers are just so incredibly loyal to the families.”
The competitions and incentives help, too. They include:
- Weekly assemblies where the class with the best attendance rate is recognized and reclaims the spirit stick. The class that has the spirit stick the most in a month gets a class party.
- Raffle tickets for those who are on time. They get the chance to win a small prize, like a bouncy ball, each week. The prizes are donated to the school.
- Monthly perfect attendance certificates for students who are there bell-to-bell each day that month. In September, 21 students got certificates. By November, 44 students earned them.
Tyler Wood’s third-grade students have been the reigning champions of the weekly attendance competition in December, and students encourage each other to arrive on time and not sleep in. But Tuesday, Smith’s fifth graders eked out a win, with 96.88% attendance compared to the third graders’ 96.46%.
With the improved attendance, students’ self-confidence has lifted, Steele said, because they are less likely to feel behind in class.
Partnering with parents, tribes helps boost attendance
Connection to family and culture has been important, too.
The district hosts a family engagement night once a week — at parents’ request. That could include anything from a holiday program to financial literacy classes.
The turnout has been great, with upwards of 150 parents each time, Steele said.
The school’s improved attendance “has a lot to do with really supportive parents,” she said. “Communication has been getting better every year.”
But she said that trust had to be earned. Steele is in her fifth year as principal, and said she built relationships in part by making positive phone calls home to parents.
Steele has also met with the Tribal Council and learned about Shoshone-Bannock culture and how it might impact school attendance. For example, funerals tend to last for days, so she knows to expect multiple absences when a student loses a loved one.
The school has also partnered with the tribal police, which has begun enforcing tribal law that requires students to attend school. If students miss five days of school, an officer makes a home visit. Upon the sixth absence, parents are issued a citation.
However, if parents communicate with the school ahead of time about planned absences, the consequences can be waived.
“It keeps that communication open,” Steele said.
The school also brings cultural activities into the classroom. Vanessa Arviso, the school’s Indian Education paraprofessional, leads the activities —like cultural crafts or reading Native American stories — with students once a week.
“They look forward to it,” she said. “It’s a matter of trying to keep culture in their education and trying to keep them on track.”
Together, staff, parents and the tribes are making a difference for students.
“It really does take the community,” Smith said.
Cheyanne Mumphrey, Sharon Lurye, Morgan Lee and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
