Hedy Chang attendance consultant says real issue student suspension

Hedy Chang,  director of Attendance Works was the keynote speaker at the Attendance Summit November 8th at the Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts.
Chang presented information based on the attendance stats she got from the district earlier this year when hired as a consultant. She noted at the end of the Summit that her figures didn't include the suspension rates of students in the Buffalo Schools and warned the 400 parents, district staff and leaders this is an area they need to worry about and address.The most interesting part of the Summit were the presentations Buffalo Students shared with the participants on Tuesday about 10 students from various schools in the district.

They said students don't attend school because of:

• lack of motivation

What they offered as solutions to the barriers:

• more opportunities to express themselves to get experience with career paths to help them in the future
• There needs to be more after school programs
• more opportunities created for them to be motivated
• less detention and suspensions
• parental involvement
• and programs to address teen pregnancy
• communication, collaboration, cooperation between district, students, parents, teachers the community
• stop bullying, students get scare don't come to school, students want teachers to intervene, they need to talk to someone in the school, stop bullying at home

The students mostly secondary represented Hutch Tech, Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts, Lafayette High School, and Build Academy.
A Lafayette High School student spoke about the need for more parental involvement in the schools and programs for  pregnant teens.  The Buffalo Schools had a school for pregnant and parenting teens it closed down about  10 years ago at Fulton. Erie County has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the nation.