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Murphysboro CUSD 186 assistant principals report falling referrals, mixed attendance trends
Summary
At a regular Murphysboro CUSD 186 board meeting, assistant principals reviewed attendance and behavior data showing declines in referrals but ongoing chronic-absence concerns; the district described interventions including PBIS, SEL lessons and targeted family outreach.
Assistant principals presented attendance and behavior data to the Murphysboro CUSD 186 Board of Education, highlighting steady declines in disciplinary referrals alongside continuing concerns about chronic absenteeism.
The presentation, labeled by board staff as “assistant principal discipline data,” said the Illinois definition of chronic absenteeism—missing more than 10 days in a school year—drives much of the district’s monitoring and outreach. The high school report showed a state comparison figure of 39.7% for the school’s yellow-bar cohort versus a state average of 26.3%, and the presenters said the district recorded 86 high-school students with more than 10 absences in November. The presenters said the high school’s percentage was 27.3% in November and that some students counted at that point later transfer or drop out, so end-of-year numbers could shift.
Why it matters: chronic absenteeism and in-school behavior are the district’s stated levers for improving academic outcomes and state accountability measures; the board heard both current counts and the district’s interventions aimed at reversing negative trends.
Assistant principals described how attendance is logged by class period—several missed periods can count as a full day toward the state’s metric—and noted that excused absences, college visits and mental-health days still count toward the state’s 10-day threshold except when a trip is a school-sponsored field trip. “The state says the student is chronically absent if they miss more than 10 days of the school year,” a presenter said during the high school briefing.
At the high school, presenters said the building serves about 603 students; of those, 414 had zero referrals in the current reporting window. Using the PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) tiering described in the slides, the presenters reported roughly 82% of students in tier 1 (0–1 referrals), 12% in tier 2 and just over 6% in tier 3. Presenters cautioned that tracking practices made some counts appear higher because teacher-managed detentions were recorded in the same system as referrals; they said refinements to recordkeeping are planned for next year.
Discipline trends: the presenters said major behavior referrals have fallen compared with prior years. “Eighty-eight percent, almost 89% of our students have 0 to 1” major referrals, one presenter said. Tardies and failure-to-serve detention accounted for a substantial share of entries in the district’s “other” category; staff said repeated failure to serve detentions converts to formal referrals under the handbook and district policy.
Middle school staff reported similar patterns—sharp increases in absences in the year after COVID and then a return toward pre‑COVID patterns—and described incentives to improve attendance (monthly “perfect attendance” recognition, small prizes and festival-ticket drawings). Middle school figures shown to the board included a multi-year drop in referrals: two years ago the building logged 630 referrals for 183 students, last year 835 referrals for 201 students, and this year 380 referrals for 135 students in the August–January window.
Interventions and supports cited by staff included a monthly PBIS leadership team, twice-daily attendance checks and outreach when students reach early-warning markers (for example, at five absences), an in‑school room for supervised consequence work, and a weekly schoolwide SEL (social-emotional learning) video lesson led by the district social worker and counselor. “Mr. Trimble and Ms. Miller are teaching SEL lessons,” a presenter said, describing a classroom login the whole school views together.
Staff emphasized that most behavior patterns improve as students progress through the building: presenters showed cohort tracking indicating that cohorts with higher freshman-year referrals tend to drop in subsequent years as expectations become clearer.
Board follow-up: presenters told the board they will provide academic-data reports from building principals at the next meeting—behavior/attendance in January and academic data in February—to align behavior and outcome measures.
The board did not take action on the presentation; it was provided for information and future monitoring.
