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District outlines summer programs, attendance gains and parent-engagement plans
Summary
District staff described a broad summer programming slate, online registration plans and parent-engagement initiatives; officials also said chronic absenteeism has fallen by 15% compared with last year and invited parents to complete a survey.
Newton County Schools presented a series of informational items on summer programming, registration procedures, and efforts to boost attendance and family engagement.
Tracy Blackburn outlined summer offerings that include credit recovery and initial-credit high-school options, an Elevate Summer Academy for rising fourth through ninth graders (June 2'27), a technology-focused HTML coding camp for girls in grades 6'9 and a Georgia Tech partnership camp for rising sixth-graders. Blackburn said registration windows vary by program and some registrations opened as early as February; she asked the board to note that some programs were initially targeted to students recommended by schools but will be opened more broadly while seats remain.
Blackburn also said the district will host centralized in-person registration assistance with translation services at the board office and that the district's Infinite Campus portal will be used for online registration. The district's health services team, she said, will partner with Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale public health to host vaccination clinics for required seventh- and eleventh-grade immunizations.
Doctor Sheba Thomas presented the district's parent-engagement and attendance work and said the district has reduced chronic absenteeism by 15 percent compared with the same period last year. Thomas described a multi-tiered strategy including attendance committees, early-warning systems, direct parent communications, home visits by social workers, counseling interventions, and partnerships that provide on-site or virtual mental-health support. She also described ParentConnect initiatives such as an annual Parent Connect live conference and an on-demand Canvas page.
Board members asked staff to provide clarity about how registration communications were distributed after some parents reported that the website still showed "coming soon" and that they had not received links. Blackburn said targeted communications were sent to specific groups and that district-wide links would be posted to the website that week; she said she would verify distribution channels and follow up.
The district encouraged families to complete an engagement survey open through April 28 and said details about registration deadlines, site locations and summer-nutrition offerings are published on the district website.
