The School District of Mystery Lake (SDML) board of trustees hosted a large delegation of choir students from Westwood School at their Feb. 26 meeting and were treated to a rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.”
However, co-superintendent Lorie Henderson later revealed in her educational services and programming report that SDML students in general had a tougher time showing up to their classes throughout the month of January.
Henderson said that none of their institutions managed to crack the 90 per cent provincial attendance rate during this time, including Riverside (89 per cent), Deerwood (88.5 per cent), Westwood (88 per cent), Burntwood (81 per cent), R.D. Parker Collegiate (78.3 per cent), Juniper (76.8 per cent) and Wapanohk (72 per cent).
This represents a step down from her previous report about district-wide attendance in November 2018, when Riverside and Deerwood managed to stay above the 90 per cent threshold.
In a follow-up conversation with the Thompson Citizen, Henderson said this low attendance rate in January could be attributed to a variety of factors, including increased bouts of extreme cold and illnesses that pop up at this time of year.
However, low attendance was a recurring problem for the district throughout 2018, since Henderson reported that they registered 255 students who had over 50 absences back in April.
The SDML’s transfer rate is also quite high for their total student population of around 3,100. Now that they are halfway through the school year, Henderson said they’ve transferred a total of 362 students into and 298 out of the district.
After Thursday's school budget meeting at 7 p.m., the next SDML board of trustees meeting is March 12 in the district office at 408 Thompson Drive North.
