EAST MOLINE, Ill. — United Way Quad Cities is trying to find ways to tackle chronic absenteeism and improve graduation rates, so it's turning to students for help.
This week, 850 students across 13 middle schools in Rock Island and Scott counties are taking part in "Student Voices." The sixth, seventh and eighth graders are meeting in small groups to talk about their own school experiences and what improvements can help make positive change.
30% of Quad Cities middle school students are missing 10% or more of the school year, according to United Way. That's the equivalent of at least 18 days. Students at Glenview Middle School in East Moline have noticed attendance being a problem.
"Yeah, there's a lot of people," eighth grader Taylor Hambright said. "There's a few kids that haven't even come to like five days of school this year."
East Moline School District Superintendent Dr. Kristin Humphries said attendance post-COVID-19 in the district is not where they want it.
United Way says common factors contributing to absenteeism include transportation challenges, caregiving responsibilities, housing insecurity and limited access to mental health or anti-bullying support.
Higher levels of absenteeism have contributed to just 70% of last year's ninth graders demonstrating they're on track to graduate high school on time, according to United Way.
"There's a direct correlation with absenteeism and graduation rates," Marie Feehan, the Student Voices coordinator, said. "The sooner in the schools that we can address students attending school gives a better promise for them to graduate high school and move on post-graduation."
Taylor wants to see more opportunities for time in school to be fun, such as a school-wide trivia game she and another student started this year on Friday mornings.
"We talked about having more activities that people like to come to, more activities outside of school and inside of school, maybe like field trips, stuff like that," she said.
Humphries was wondering if he'd hear something like that during the sessions.
"We'd like to make sure that learning is fun, it's engaging," he said. "Not just math and science and reading all day, but we need something that feeds us. We need classes in our schools that really make us want to come to school, if it's not reading or math sometimes too. And we're working on that at Glenview. We've added some of those."
Other topics students brought up were wanting more hands-on help from teachers and concerns about bullying and student behavior.
"There's a lot of bullying that goes around, especially in a middle school, because kids aren't mature yet," eighth grader Benjamin Moyer said. "So like more hall monitors or more safety, security."
He also wants to see tougher rules for students using cell phones or playing games on their computers during class.
After all the group discussions, a team of Western Illinois University students will analyze the input to look for key themes. Those findings will be shared with the community and school districts in the spring of 2025. United Way will also use it to guide its future investments and program recommendations.
"We're going to sit down with this information, this data and try to drive some decisions amongst the Education Council and that's the Quad City area superintendents," Humphries said. "We're going to try and come together and see what we can do within not only our schools, but in the entire Quad Cities, to really drive this and improve attendance across the region."