Monday morning. 9:42 a.m. Six minutes until every chair occupied is tallied and totaled… but this week, with a twist. On Sept. 23, 2024, classes across campus began the newly implemented attendance tracker.
Texas High School’s Leader-In-Me, in collaboration with campus administration and students, formulated a new way to keep students accountable for their attendance. In each A2 class, teachers selected one student to mark in the calendar tracker to determine whether or not 95% of the class was present.
Not only will this be used for recording attendance to administrators, but the information gathered will be collected by Leader-In-Me for their goal-setting initiative. Assistant Principal, Dr. Jacquelyn Smith gave her insight.
“It’s really more or less just to get in the habit of tracking and setting goals,” Smith said. “Looking at our progress, we’ll run our report at the end. This is just more of a visual reminder.”
The developers of this expressed their desire for the continuation of this project every six weeks and eventually organizing competitions between clubs, athletics, cheer and other organizations on campus.
“There will be prizes or incentives at the end of the second six weeks when we run the report,” Smith said. “Each class that has met the 95% attendance goal for this six weeks will be rewarded in some way.”
Students who are absent for extracurricular activities are in the clear and will not be counted against their classes’ daily scores. Freshman Natalie Debenport is a member of the varsity girl’s golf team and misses classes for tournaments.
“I email my teachers before all [of] my absences and I ask them where my work’s going to be,” Debenport said. “Right after I get done with my tournaments, I catch up on work.”
Athletics isn’t the only way to get behind in one’s studies. Students with jobs are often impacted by juggling working late and homework to be completed by the next day. Students leave school frequently for early shifts or unexpected changes in work schedules. Seniors Donald Ford and Nyjia Stokes have learned through experience how to balance work and education.
“I do all [of] my work ahead of time,” Ford said. “I’m normally gone [for football]. I work, I lay tile on my own time when I’m not doing school work or at football.”
Even without sports involved, employment among the population of high school students causes them to miss important aspects of education. Stokes, like many others in her position, finds it difficult to keep up with homework while working,
“Since I work, it’s hard for me to catch up with everything, and sometimes I take my schoolwork with me to my job, [so] I’m able to catch up. I have learned to manage my time better,” Stokes said. “I have to be in a class physically unless it’s something I know how to do, but if it’s hard, I have to be in class.”