MARFA — Attendance at the Marfa Junior High and High School has been on a downward trend as of late, according to numbers shared in a school board meeting this week.
Junior high attendance is 92.7% for sixth grade, 91.01% for seventh grade and 90.07% for eighth grade. High school attendance was down for every grade level compared to attendance figures calculated at the end of February, with particularly troubling figures for ninth and twelfth graders.
Attendance at the high school is 87.48% for ninth grade, 91.98% for tenth grade, 91.97% for eleventh grade and 85.99% for twelfth grade.
The average attendance for the elementary school is 94.56% while the average for the entire district is 91.87%.
School board members expressed dismay at the low attendance rates, with Stela Fuentez asking Interim Superintendent Arturo Alferez how the district is planning to increase attendance particularly for ninth- and twelfth-grade students.
Alferez said seniors no longer have “open campus,” where they were allowed to leave school grounds for lunch but that school policy states students who are 18 years old can check themselves out. He said district leaders are trying to be proactive by delivering letters to homes and pursuing truancy cases with the local justice of the peace. But illness, including COVID, the flu and stomach bugs, were contributing to low attendance.
Athletic Director Linda Ojeda said the district recently started preventing junior high and high school students from participating in sports and extracurricular activities if they are not showing up to class before, the day of, and after events. “If a student does not attend school the day after an event, we are revoking their opportunity to compete in the next event,” she told The Sentinel.