Normandy Schools Collaborative teachers and staff went door knocking recently in the neighborhood around Washington Elementary School to encourage families to register their children ahead of the start of the year.
The Back-to-School Walk was held Friday as the district works to boost enrollment and average attendance to help regain full accreditation. Normandy has been provisionally accredited since 2017.
The district also rolled out a new policy this year that requires all families to register their children with the district online before the first day of school, which is Aug. 18.
The district previously would only allow families to fill out paperwork in person at neighborhood schools or at the district office, which would often result in families showing up with unregistered children during the first couple of weeks of school.
Pamela Hollins, principal of Washington Elementary, said that makes it harder for school staff to adequately prepare.
“It's a trickle-down effect because we know that numbers dictate how many staff we have, how many students are in classrooms, how many sections of everything, materials, the whole gamut,” Hollins said.
Hollins encouraged families to register by Aug. 14. She warned that if their child isn’t registered in time, the student may not be able to start on the first day of school.
Superintendent Michael Triplett said his hope was to get as many students to show up to the first day of school as possible.
“It's important that we maximize our attempts to make sure we get kids in the seats the first day, at the latest, the first week, so we can start early on with any kind of instructional support, interventions, whatever we need to do to support the kids,” Triplett said. “It sets the tone for the rest of the year.”
Enrollment also plays a critical role in how much money a district receives in funding, said Carlton Brooks, chief financial officer for Normandy Schools.
About 3,000 students, including preschool, attended Normandy in the 2024-25 academic year.
“So in order to pay our teachers and educate our children successfully, we've got to have good enrollment,” Brooks said. “The numbers of students in our community — we've got to see them coming out.”
The district saw a drop in enrollment after it lost its accreditation in 2012.
Families that live in unaccredited school districts are permitted to send their students to neighboring ones, according to Missouri law. Their home district is on the hook for the cost of transportation of those students.
The canvassing event was also a way to combat chronic absenteeism, according to Tony Brooks, assistant superintendent of student support services.
Chronic absenteeism is when a student misses more than 10% of school, which is about 18 days per year.
“There's a direct correlation between academics and performance and attendance,” Brooks said. “If students aren’t in the seat, you can't teach them the curriculum. If students are not in the buildings, they're not necessarily eating.”
The rate of absenteeism jumped to over 30% during the 2021-22 school year, which is when most schools went back to full-time in-person instruction after the pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education requires that 90% of students show up 90% of the time for the school to stay in good standing.
Normandy’s attendance rate was at about 85% at the end of this school year, according to assistant superintendent Brooks, which he credits to an increase in communication with families.
The district’s proportional attendance rate was about 50% in the 2023-24 school year, according to DESE.
District officials also said they are open to receiving any students that were displaced by the May 16 tornado and advised them to get their children registered as soon as possible.
Displaced families can find more information at normandysc.org.
