Berkeley High School students skip class for various reasons, such as academic gaps, substance use, and mental health, according to research conducted by Dean of Students and former Dean of Attendance Cassandra Tesch and other school staff. In the 2024-25 school year, 24 percent of California high school students were categorized as chronic absentees, meaning they missed 10 percent or more of the school year, equivalent to 18 days of class.<\/p>\n
The Berkeley Public Schools website published data connecting class avoidance to lower graduation rates and academic struggle. Similar trends are seen as early as in elementary school years. Chronically absent kindergarteners and first graders are much less likely to read at grade level by the end of third grade. By sixth grade, chronic absenteeism is a warning sign for dropping out of school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
BHS teacher Nick Pleskac sees skipping class as detrimental to learning. Some students, however, see it as necessary. Pleskac stressed the value of class time as an environment for students to practice their knowledge. \u201cTeachers are here to help students learn, and it’s easiest for us when students are present, so that we can work with them,” Pleskac said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Contrary to Pleskac, BHS senior Niko Senn expressed that he can be more productive at home than in class because at school he must account for distractions like other students talking to him. \u201cThe environment of being at home allows me to focus,\u201d Senn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
BHS sophomore, Hattie Robinson, skips a day of school every one to two weeks, and sometimes skips individual classes. \u201cI think it’s mostly easier to do it at school just because you have more resources and … sometimes it’s hard for me to focus when I’m just like in class and surrounded by a lot of different things that are happening.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Robinson tries not to let her absences affect her grades. She explained that the most helpful thing for making up work was when teachers post on Google Classroom. Some students, like Senn, will even occasionally take a day off of school to do work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An anonymous student said that many classes feel like a waste of time due to uninteresting material or slow pacing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Additionally, Senn explained that the requirements for the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma \u2014 an Extended Essay and preparing for six additional exams \u2014 lead to a very large workload. \u201cHaving things outside of the normal classes that we have to do at home really incentivizes skipping school,\u201d Senn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Minyoung Chung is a senior at International School of San Francisco, which also offers the IB program. She said that skipping class was rare, but that the primary motivator for students to do so was to study for exams, specifically the SAT. One solution Senn suggested was for more class time to be given to work on the extra assignments, although some class time is already dedicated to the Extended Essay, and Creativity, Activity,\u00a0 and Service project within Berkeley International High School (BIHS) classes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Melissa Jimenez, the BIHS teacher lead, added that there is class time to work on the essay and prepare for tests. In her IB Language and Literature class, Jimenez teaches the texts that are options for that assessment along with providing time in school to outline the essay, journal about it weekly, and draft it.<\/p>\n
BHS Universal Ninth Grade (U9) counselor Molly Tannehill does not recommend skipping class to study. \u201cEven if you feel like it’s a good idea \u2014 you feel like you have to finish a homework assignment to submit it on time \u2014 you’re going to be missing class instruction and more information that might be detrimental to your grade over time,\u201d Tannehill explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Pleskac\u2019s biotechnology and biology classes, he checks students’ attendance for the previous periods, to make sure students don\u2019t skip other classes to study for his tests. If he catches students doing this he will also speak directly with them about what happened. \u201cI try to talk to the student to find out more information about why they skipped that class and try to encourage them to not do that in the future,\u201d Pleskac said.<\/p>\n
Pleskac has also found other consequences to keep students in class. \u201cI always tell students that if I find out that students are skipping to study for an exam, then I’ll just give them their exam during zero period, and that usually encourages students not to do that,\u201d Plekac said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Consequences for skipping class can also affect student life on a larger scale. The BHS attendance policy says if a student reaches 30 unexcused period absences they lose their work permit and are not permitted to attend homecoming or prom. BHS procedure for when a student skips class is filing an On Campus Intervention (OCI) referral and calling home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Tesch, the word referral has a negative connotation, when in reality it is simply a formal recommendation for a course of action to help a student work through an issue. Depending on the cause of cutting class a student can be referred to a counselor or a parent-staff meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
BHS Principal Juan Raygoza explained that when students are present in their classes, it benefits the whole school. \u201cFunding that we get for the school is dependent on students being in class,\u201d he said. Raygoza estimated that for every one percent change in average daily attendance BUSD could gain \u2014 or lose \u2014 roughly one million dollars. This money would go directly into funding student resources and programming. According to Raygoza, this has been especially important the last few years, as BUSD is dealing with balancing its budget.<\/p>\n
Funding is never the first thing that comes to mind for Raygoza, though, when dealing with absences. To understand the root causes of cutting class, BHS staff interviewed students found in the hallways skipping class.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the feedback was really heartbreaking to hear,\u201d Raygoza said. Some of the reasons found were giving up due to a low grade or not feeling welcome in a class without friends. BHS staff have been working on coming off as friendly and understanding when they see a student skipping or cutting class. They are asking questions in the hallway, to find out what the student\u2019s story is, rather than immediately berating them to return to class. However, Tesch believes that students who are skipping class don\u2019t have the right to complain about how they are reprimanded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the numerous consequences, chronic absenteeism still prevails at BHS. If students are avoiding a class because they have given up on it academically, Raygoza recommends tutoring in the College and Career Center. Pleskac and Robinson said that if mental health is making attending class difficult, student-teacher communication can ease the situation. Whatever the reason may be, when students are attending class, it uplifts everyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At BHS, staff are working hard to ensure student success, which starts with high rates of attendance and participation. For any problem or struggle a student has, school related or not, there is a support network on campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Berkeley High School students skip class for various reasons, such as academic gaps, substance use, and mental health,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-521162","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\/521162","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=521162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}