DETROIT (WXYZ) — An initiative paying students for perfect attendance is appearing to pay off after its first two weeks for Detroit Public Schools Community District.
"Right now, the incentive is working. So apples to apples, we've had an increase at least for the first, call it the first five days of school, an increase of 1,800 students having perfect attendance the first week of school back in January because of the incentive. Now obviously, we'll continue to track that," Superintendent Nikolai Vitti explained in Tuesday's board meeting.
Hear more from the board meeting in the video below:
The goal is to boost attendance and combat chronic absenteeism, which the district has struggled with.
The district will provide high school students with the opportunity to earn a gift card valued at $200 every time they have perfect attendance during a two-week cycle, or 10 school days in a row.
The two-week cycles will run through March 21, giving qualifying students an opportunity to earn up to $1,000 in gift cards.
"I mean, it sounds like why should you have to pay them but in actuality, this district got over $1.27 billion in COVID funding," parent Aliya Moore said. "I feel like it’s a long time coming to just give the students some incentives to come to school."
Moore's daughter is a ninth grader who rarely misses a day.
"She was talking on the phone with her friends and she’s told me some things she’s planning on buying,” Moore said.
Parent Danny Foster hopes for a more long-lasting approach to tackle students not wanting to attend.
“If it works. It’s not just about coming to school, but it's also to complete it and get something out of it," Foster said. "If you're just gonna pay them to come, that's not going to achieve anything. So I think it has to be you come to school, you work on your grades because that’s what the bottom line of it should be."
Moore added that long term, she also thinks addressing transportation issues will help with chronic absenteeism.
"I think the district needs to focus on providing more reliable transportation," Moore said.
It does have nearby districts like Warren Consolidated Schools paying attention.
"You have to give Dr. Vitti and Detroit credit for raising awareness on this issue. Absenteeism is really something I think a lot of districts have really been struggling with over the last couple of years. In Warren Consolidated Schools, we've seen more chronic absenteeism in the last couple of years than we have really in years before the pandemic. So the idea that they've taken this initiative to raise awareness and folks are talking about the importance of going to school. I give them a lot of credit for that," Superintendent John Bernia said."Certainly, education research is mixed when it comes to incentive programs for the purposes of attendance. In the short term, they seem to work, but in the long term, it's a mixed bag as to how effective it could be.”
Bernia added that coming to school is one the most important skills kids can learn.
