Grant helps Family Resource Network promote attendance in county schools

Times West Virginian - 3/25/2019

March 25-- Mar. 25--FAIRMONT -- Toni Toothman sees some children miss dozens of school days in just one year.

The loss of educational days causes these students to not only miss out on learning, but also to potentially get left behind and not develop crucial skills or get information necessary for successful educational progression.

"It's impacting achievement, it's impacting so many things," said Toothman, elementary special services liaison for Marion County Schools. "We're finding that students are missing, 20, 30, 40 -- even 50 days of school in a year, and it's just blown up and it's out of control."

Toothman and school administrators know they have to fight this problem at the source. For the past several years, the Marion County Family Resource Network has received a grant, Education Matters, from the McDonough Foundation. The grant allows them to incentivize attendance for the students who are most at-risk as well as their parents.

"We're trying to keep kids in school who are habitually truant," said Frank Jarman, executive director of the Family Resource Network. "We make contact with them, and we set up a meeting and try to talk about what the problem is, why the kid is missing so much school."

According to Jarman, the FRN received $15,000 from the grant this year, which gives the organization the power to work with Marion County students and families to advocate attendance through communication and rewards. Sometimes, this comes in the form of a professional mentor.

"We find someone in a career that a kid wants to achieve one day, and connect them as a mentor," Jarman said. "That person will walk them through how the education they're getting today is going to help build towards the career they want."

Jarman also said that the family may get a reward such as a restaurant gift card through the grant, once a student has been back in school consistently for a certain amount of days.

Already, Toothman has been getting calls referring students to the program, who may meet with Jarman to discuss the incentives they can receive through the grant. Toothman, who mainly works within the elementary schools, said students of all grades can be eligible for help through the grant.

However, she said the grant is also meant to work with parents, as she believes chronic absence of students is rooted in their parents' ideals.

"A five-year-old doesn't just say 'I'm going to skip school today,'" Toothman said. "We get that parent's permission, I forward it on to Frank and then he and his team meet with a parent and they discuss why education matters. They let them know how important it is for their child to be in school on a regular basis."

Jarman agrees, and said he has worked with families who have legitimate problems in getting their kids to school consistently.

"Sometimes it's an easy fix," he said. "A parent is working two jobs and can't wake up in the morning; sometimes there is an illness that the school doesn't know about, but the majority of the time, the parent just doesn't wake up to get the kid ready for school."

Last year when the FRN received grant money for Education Matters, the group met with up to 16 families to help with attendance. Although only a few were able to get back on track after being referred, Jarman, along with Toothman, hope to see that number increase.

If attendance remains an issue, a parent -- not the student -- may be the one facing consequences.

"Out of the kids that we had, we only had one kid that continued being absent," Jarman said of last year's grant group. "If they continue to be absent, the parents can be taken to court and get a fine, or even jail time."

Toothman stressed the importance of school attendance, and expressed a hope to see the opportunities afforded by the grant inspire students and families to get back on track with their learning.

"It's not fixing every child, but it is just one way to help school teams try something different and see if an outside agency can help parents," Toothman said. "I'm hoping that as we start to see results, that the word gets spread around that this is a good program and this is something worthwhile to at least try."

Email Eddie Trizzino at etrizzino@timeswv.com and follow him on Twitter at @eddietimeswv.

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