I appreciate Karla's characterization better "I am not making an assumption as to why our attrition is higher, but I do think it is worth investigating."
But, I don't even think it's necessary to argue if it is high, or low, or higher or lower compared to this town or another town. I think it's perfectly reasonable to just ask the school committee to make an inquiry to the administration, "Are students / parents currently asked when they leave the district, why they are leaving? If not, how can we support putting a process in place to track where students are going, and why, so we can better understand flows out of the school system". I imagine there are some privacy laws in place that would prevent all data from being released, but aggregate data could be useful. I also imagine some data is available given that we probably transfer school records to at least know disposition, if not the reason. - Andy On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 1:04 PM Peter Speert <[email protected]> wrote: > Excellent point, Barb. Would it be feasible to send questionnaires to > families that have recently left the school system to ask what motivated > them? > > Peter Speert > > Sent from my iPad > > On Mar 22, 2023, at 10:28 AM, Barbara Low <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Without exit interviews, we don't know why that is taking place. And if a > child is removed from the Lincoln School for whatever reason, it is very > easy for the rest of the children in the family to follow even if they lack > the precipitating issue. Different vacation schedules can be a very strong > reason for the family's convenience. How do we not lose the first child? No > one should object to gathering more information so school actions are not > taken or avoided due to ignorance. > ------------------------------ > *From:* Lincoln <[email protected]> on behalf of Bob > Kupperstein <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Wednesday, March 22, 2023 10:23 AM > *To:* Karla Gravis <[email protected]> > *Cc:* Lincoln Talk <[email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [LincolnTalk] Lincoln School attrition data going back to > 2016 > > I've been in Lincoln for over 30 years now and parents have been moving > kids out of Lincoln schools ever since I can remember. They do it for a > variety of reasons and academic excellence is often *not* the main > reason. At different times I remember parents being concerned about > discipline in the schools, lack of structure, lack of desired > extracurricular activities, etc. Very often, many parents want their kids > to go to schools similar to the ones they went to, whether that means > private schools, parochial schools, more structured, ..., whatever. > > I'd caution against taking *this* data as a sign that Lincoln schools > aren't performing well enough. > > -Bob > > On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 9:13 AM Karla Gravis <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hello, > > Since the topic of trends has come up, I pulled together attrition data > for previous years, straight from the DOE website: > > School 2016-2017 2017-2018 2018-2019 2019-2020 2020-2021 2021-2022 > 2022-2023 > Lincoln 6.2 6.8 7.1 6.8 7.8 5.0 8.5 > Carlisle 2.7 3.7 4.0 2.9 4.3 2.3 3.5 > Dover/Sherborn 2.7 3.0 3.1 3.1 4.8 4.1 3.0 > Lexington 3.7 3.0 4.0 2.5 6.2 5.9 4.2 > Going back as far as 2016, Lincoln School consistently has the highest > attrition in this group (with only one single exception in 2021 where > Lexington was higher, but we were still higher than Carlisle and > Dover/Sherborn). Getting this data is a very manual process, which is why I > focused on our similar districts plus Lexington that was used as a > comparison, but I am happy to add other towns if people are interested. > > It's not a difference of 1 - 2 students. Carlisle has a similar size to > ours (383 in grades 2-7 versus our 356). If we had had their attrition > coming into 2022-2023, we would have lost 18 fewer children. I am not > making an assumption as to why our attrition is higher, but I do think it > is worth investigating. > -- > The LincolnTalk mailing list. > To post, send mail to [email protected]. > Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/ > . > Change your subscription settings at > https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. > > -- > The LincolnTalk mailing list. > To post, send mail to [email protected]. > Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/ > . > Change your subscription settings at > https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. > > -- > The LincolnTalk mailing list. > To post, send mail to [email protected]. > Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/ > . > Change your subscription settings at > https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. > >
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