Every school day begins the same way: a teacher calling attendance and asking a simple question \u2014 Who’s here?<\/p>\n
In the Oakland Unified School District, too many students have been missing from roll call. While attendance numbers have improved since the pandemic, chronic absenteeism remains a challenge, particularly among Black students.<\/p>\n
But at McClymonds High School this week, one Oakland senior was celebrated for always showing up.<\/p>\n
When Hannah Jenkins heard her name called during a school assembly, it came with a surprise: a $5,000 check for nearly perfect attendance.<\/p>\n
“I was a little bit shocked,” Jenkins said. “I thought somebody else was going to win.”<\/p>\n
The recognition comes as Oakland Unified continues working to reduce chronic absenteeism, which peaked at nearly 53% during the pandemic, according to Dr. Cheryl Ingram with the Silicon Valley Equity in Education Institute, which aggregates school data. Districtwide, chronic absenteeism has since improved to 29%, but Black students continue to be disproportionately affected, despite shifting demographics.<\/p>\n
“We’ve seen reports of the Black population leaving Oakland,” Ingram said.<\/p>\n
Research from the institute found Black students accounted for more than 41% of chronic absenteeism in the 2024-2025 school year. According to the district, however, that number dropped by 4.7% this school year.<\/p>\n
Ingram still feels there is room for concern, and said she believes it’s in some ways a reflection of the economy and poverty in particular.<\/p>\n
“They can’t afford, like, the basic needs that they have to have in order to go to school,” said Ingram.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, against that backdrop, Hannah’s consistency stood out.<\/p>\n
“She won $5,000!” one school official announced during the surprise presentation, as classmates cheered.<\/p>\n
Jenkins said her motivation to show up every day came from her family.<\/p>\n
“I was just coming to school because that’s how my mom and grandparents raised me, to go to school even when you don’t feel like it,” Hannah said.<\/p>\n
The award was funded by Oakland Natives Give Back, a nonprofit founded by Dr. Nyeisha DeWitt, who says her own educational journey inspired her mission.<\/p>\n
“This has been my life’s mission,” DeWitt said.<\/p>\n
DeWitt dropped out of Oakland Tech in the 10th grade and says she experienced firsthand the consequences of missing school.<\/p>\n
“If you don’t show up, it’s harder to have post-secondary success,” she said. Asked if she experienced that personally, DeWitt replied: “Yeah.”<\/p>\n
Despite setbacks, DeWitt earned two master’s degrees and a doctorate. Now, she hopes programs like this encourage students to stay engaged.<\/p>\n
“All you got to do is show up,” she said. “That’s, like, literally half the battle.”<\/p>\n
District leaders say they are also working to improve attendance by strengthening relationships with families and addressing barriers that keep students out of school.<\/p>\n
“A broken-down car can hinder you from showing up to a place that might be farther away,” said Dwayne Bartholomew, who oversees attendance for the district. He said OUSD’s goal is to, “build a bridge with families, communicate with them, and know what’s going on.”<\/p>\n
Jenkins now plans to invest her prize money toward college \u2014 and hopes classmates follow her example.<\/p>\n
“Continue coming to school guys,” she said, addressing a crowd of her peers. “Even when you don’t feel like it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every school day begins the same way: a teacher calling attendance and asking a simple question \u2014 Who’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-335542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}