The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley Randolph County Attendance Director Rochelle Chenoweth gave an attendance update to board members during the BOE’s regular meeting this week. Chenoweth also announced the winners of the county’s poster contest for the ‘Attendance Matters. Each School Day Counts. Every One’ campaign.

ELKINS — Randolph County Attendance Director Rochelle Chenoweth gave the Board of Education an update on attendance in the county and announced the winners of a poster contest during this week’s BOE meeting.

During the Informational Reports/Recognition section of the meeting, Chenoweth handed each board member a print-out of data she had gathered concerning attendance.

“We are a county that’s on watch (for attendance), so the state is making sure we are doing what we can to get our attendance up,” said Chenoweth. “As you can see, we are not horrible… I broke down each school’s attendance rate. Your goal is to be in the green, you don’t want to be in the red. And if you look, we have several schools that are in the yellow, which means they are working on trying to get their attendance up.”

Chenoweth told the BOE that the county’s year-to-date attendance rate was 94.7 percent, which has the county currently in the yellow. 

“I’m hoping we can get that up at least 2%,” she said. “I feel like that’s a pretty manageable goal since we are still dealing with some of our COVID issues and things along that line.”

Chenoweth said one of the things that stands out to her when looking at the data is the amount of unexcused absences. 

“Those can be for several reasons,” she said. “It can be that your absence is unexcused, or that you’re not turning in your excused notes.”

Chenoweth said a solution to students not turning in excused absences may be solved by allowing parents to send excuses to schools online.

“Schools have a QR Code and a URL where families can electronically submit their parents’ notes and also submit their doctor’s notes,” she said. “We have found in our attendance meetings, parents will tell us that they have turned in notes but for some reason they are not getting to the teacher. This is our way to maybe help with that. It gives us another option for parents to turn in their absences.”

Board member Rachel Anger then asked Chenoweth if every school in the county has the ability to issue excuses online. 

“Not every school,” said Chenoweth. “The schools that want it, have it. Elkins Middle School is in development, Mr. Lawson asked for it before break, but I haven’t created his yet. But I believe almost every other school has adopted it.

“All of them are around the table. And we have noticed that Elkins High has had close to 100 that have already been turned in that way, and George Ward has a lot and Beverly School is starting to get more.”

Sherri Collett, Tygart District board member, asked Chenoweth how parents were being informed on how to submit excuses online. 

Chenoweth said the information was given to the schools to send home, adding that some teachers have added information to the school’s websites and have provided the necessary information during attendance meetings. Chenoweth said information on how to issue excuses online would soon be on the BOE’s website.

Chenoweth said she has also formed school level committees as another step to help with attendance.

“The state wanted us to have a county meeting and then they wanted us to develop school level committees, and we are at that process now,” she said. “The school representatives met and we are going to meet quarterly to discuss what we are doing, what’s working, and to share ideas. And then they take that back to their schools and they are doing things there.”

Chenoweth said she would continue to update the board with attendance numbers throughout the school year. She also announced the seven winners of the “Attendance Matters. Each School Day Counts. Every One” poster contest.

Randolph County students of all grades were encouraged to participate and create a poster that captures the theme for the attendance campaign. 

A total of 107 posters were entered into the contest and the seven winners were: Arthur Godwin (George Ward – Kindergarten), Ellie Darling (Beverly Elementary – First Grade), Aubree Mahanes (Beverly Elementary – Second Grade), Greyson Gilbert (Jennings Randolph Elementary – Fifth Grade), Lila Mahanes (Jennings Randolph Elementary – Fourth Grade), Madison Thompson (Harman – Eighth Grade), and Kala Mullenax (Harma – Ninth Grade).

“We are recognizing the students for how they are helping us with the attendance matters campaign,” said Chenoweth. “We appreciate everyone who participated in the contest and I hope they all continue to showcase their talents.”