Attendance at Lake Shore High School has been an issue for years and after Covid hit, it only made attendance worse. Many students are missing school because they don’t have the motivation necessary to come to school. 

Going to school has become something most students dread because they think it’s the same boring thing every day, all of the work isn’t fun or remotely interesting. Robert Couck, a social studies teacher, here at Lake Shore High School, gave his opinions on our attendance problem. 

“I don’t take it personally, I don’t think a kid doesn’t show up because of me. It just makes it hard to track. I think there’s been one day this semester where I had a class with everybody here,” Couck said. 

Students skipping class is a part of the issue. Many students don’t want to go to their class so they go to another class or the gym so they can be with their friends. 

“School isn’t seen as a priority, I think, and there’s no real consequence for not showing up. You can still get your work, you can still pass the class, you can still get credit even if you miss every day,” Couck said.

Since students can succeed in classes with dismal attendance, numerous students have made it a habit of not coming to school. The more that students can get away with not coming to school, the more they want to do it.

¨I think it has become a habit, and truthfully, life happens and some students need to be out and that unfortunately will leave them not benefiting from a compassionate policy, with a lot of students being absent a majority of the time,¨ says Sheila Titcombe, a Lake Shore High School English teacher. 

Within her classroom, Titcombe has faced challenges with frequent poor attendance. While she is only sharing what it’s like for her, some if not all of Lake Shore High School’s teachers relate to the attendance problems. 

“Unfortunately, the way things are, we aren’t able to do any of the fun projects in class because, in the time leading up to it, I am missing huge chunks of students from the class.”

Sara Roberts, junior, who has average school attendance, said, “Attendance is important to me so my school work doesn’t get backed up and because I get to see my friends.” 

When you miss school, you have a responsibility to your own education to complete the work you miss. The more school you miss, the harder it will be for you to catch up in a class.

Genny Zielinski, a sophomore, said, “When you miss so many days of class, it can cause you to be behind which can be stressful, but I do think it’s okay to miss when you need to.”

There are so many students that miss school just because they don’t want to go to classes without their friends. Not all students miss school because they want to, some have things going on in their personal lives. It is truly unknown why students don’t like to come to class. 

Christina Johnson, junior, said, “ I don’t go sometimes for a day because it’s easy for me to catch up on one day of missing work. As for changing things to get more of the class to show up, I don’t really think there’s much that could be done to change that because if students don’t feel like going to school, they’re not gonna go regardless.”

The only way it seems possible to up the attendance rates would be to have kids want to come to school. Each student has different reasons for missing school but overall attendance is a bigger social issue; if students don’t have the mindset of wanting to go to school, at the end of the day there is truly only so much that can be done to get them in the classroom.