Specific plans will be implemented at H.M. King High School this 2010-2011 school year to increase attendance rates to encourage students to come to school so they can learn and graduate from high school, according to school officials.

Truancy, not only, prevents students from obtaining an education, but also causes revenue losses for the Kingsville Independent School District that already has a tight budget. Facts and figures on truancy and attendance update along with a preliminary budget were presented at a workshop meeting of the KISD board of trustees July 27.

“We have major opportunities for improvement,” said Jennifer Kent, KISD Chief Academic Officer. She emphasized the main focus is to make sure that students are in school so they can receive a high school diploma and be ready to work in a career or attend college.

“We want to help students to ensure academic success,” she stated. She noted that tracking attendance at the high school had not been systematic.

“We are losing more revenue in attendance,” Kent revealed citing figures from the 2009-2010 school year. The attendance figures were specifically from H.M. King High School.

“We are losing $20,000 a week in lack of attendance at the high school,” she revealed The state funds each school district based on students average daily attendance, referred to as ADA.

The current student enrollment at the high school is 1,100 students. KISD receives $5,041.66 annually per student. Based on the last school year data KISD had 93.3 percent attendance district-wide, and 91.5 percent at the high school.

“Normally, high schools state-wide have a lower percentage,” Kent said.

The last school year figures reported about 83 high school students absent on a daily average.

Kent explained the two plans of assisting students to attend school and curbing the truancy problems at the workshop. First of all, school staff will continue to call parents and conduct home visits when students are absent. The second plan will be designat- ing one KISD administrator, Martha Ramirez, to coordinate a new systematic plan to track attendance at the high school and district wide.

“We are making sure we have a great system that follows the student,” Kent said.

Emilio Castro, KISD superintendent, also explained that Ramirez would be the individual coordinator and central cog that everyone will report the data to her.

“That coordination create transparency,” Castro said. He believes these plans will be successful for attendance and obtaining ADA per student.

“We can recoup $400,000 in revenues,” he said, referring to the losses ADA from the last school year.

Kent noted that sometimes students are counted absent when they are on school-sponsored events such as University Interscholastic League.

“A school sponsored activity counts and KISD receives ADA for that student,” she said.

She also cited that poor attendance for some students often begins with elementary school children becoming at-risk students with the district.

Melissa Windham, the newly elected KISD trustee who has children in the district, related that she monitors her children’s attendance online. Parents can check their children’s attendance on the KISD website.

“There were miscoding of absences,” she said. Her children were sometimes marked absent when they went on school related activities, and it took weeks to have the attendance errors corrected.

Kent agreed that coding the absences could sometimes be incorrect. The new attendance coding system will align and streamline the data, according to her. She said everyone, teachers, principals, counselors, directors and the superintendent, will be involved in getting the students to school.

This also includes the four Kleberg County justices of the peace who hear truancy cases.

“We have already had a meeting with all four of them and all were very receptive,” Kent said.

“We can improve attendance by being positive and creating an environment that makes them welcome and accepted,” she stated. “We do not want them to be missed.”

During the workshop meeting, Karen Griffith, Chief Administrative Officer, presented the KISD 2010-2011 preliminary budget projections with estimated taxes.

She said she also agreed the enrollment ADA opportunities would bring in revenue to the district.

Eighty percent of the budget will be spent on salaries. KISD is one of the biggest employers in Kingsville and will have about 640 employees this coming school year. Some of the cost savings this year have been through attrition and 13 employees who left the district were not replaced. Employee overtime has also been curtailed.

“We have held steady as far as employment is concerned,” she said.

Because of budget constraints, the question remains whether the district can afford to give teachers pay raises this year. However, the state mandates that school districts give a step increase raise to teachers.

The revenue that comes from local, state, and federal funding has been projected to be $29.3 million. Griffith said the bare-bones $29.6 million figure she presented for the 2010- 2011 preliminary budget projection did not include raises. The projected ending district balance will be $4.9 million.

Corando Garza, board vice president, asked how much money was received from federal funding. Griffith replied $5 million.

Trustee Annabelle Garza asked about the status of the food service. “We had talked about outsourcing,” she said.

Griffith said that it would not be cost effective to outsource. “We would lose a lot of control with the labor and cost of the meals,” she said.

“We are healthy in that area and have a good program,” she said.

At the end of the presentation Larry E. Garza praised, Kent, Griffith and Juan Diego Vasquez-Cruz, who also reported on the technology update.

“With challenges come opportunities that are exciting for our students,” he said. “We have a lot to look forward and involve more people with the new initiatives.”

A regular school board meeting will be held Aug. 3. The next public budget workshop will be Aug. 10 and the budget will be adopted Aug. 26. The KISD fiscal year ends Aug. 31.