Bibb County superintendent urges community push to cut chronic absenteeism
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Summary
Superintendent Dan Sims presented district attendance data showing roughly 5,130 of 20,781 students missed at least 10% of the year, set a goal to reduce chronic absenteeism to about 15%, and convened school and community partners to outline supports, incentives and outreach events.
Dan Sims, superintendent of the Bibb County School District, opened a State of the District episode focused on attendance and urged families, schools and community partners to work together to reduce chronic absenteeism. Sims said the district recorded about 5,130 of its 20,781 students missing at least 10% of the school year and set a goal to cut chronic absenteeism to around 15% this year.
The superintendent front‑loaded the data and the district’s theory of action: build stakeholder engagement to improve student outcomes. Sims highlighted weekday patterns — higher absence rates on Mondays and Fridays — and quantified the impact as tens of thousands of missed days of instruction (district figures cited roughly 74,446 days, or about 444,676 hours).
"Attendance is necessary," Sims said, urging families to prioritize daily school attendance and to use district resources when barriers arise. He framed the evening as a combination of data presentation, a panel discussion and community feedback, and he announced forthcoming outreach events including a barbershop series starting March 11, a presence at the Cherry Blossom Festival, and a "Meet Me at the Mall" event April 14.
Panel members described school‑level and community strategies. Siobhan Laney, principal of Southfield Elementary School, described a school attendance team she called the "Roll Call Rangers," daily absence dashboards visible to staff and students, a tiered intervention menu and regular recognition for students with strong attendance. "Attendance unlocks our shared vision of teaching and learning," Laney said, adding that students with higher attendance perform better on assessments.
Anna Omachanu, a district school social worker, described outreach and practical supports for families: early referrals (commonly after about five absences), outreach by phone or in person, providing uniforms, coats and other material help when needed, coordinating walk groups, advising on a bus‑tracking app, arranging check‑in/check‑out mentors or school‑based mental‑health supports, and supplying community resource lists. Omachanu emphasized relationship building: "We can't help a problem we don't know," she said, and added that while the district prefers supportive interventions, it also informs families about the compulsory‑attendance law and the district's truancy process when absences persist.
Community partner Shedrick Clark described incentive programs that focus on motivating students directly — a school store, monthly prizes and grand rewards such as shoe selections or tickets to sporting events — so students want to attend regardless of family circumstances. "My goal is to take the focus away from the parents and to try to motivate our students," Clark said.
Dr. Steve Jones, the district's executive director for school improvement, stressed proactive family engagement — "showing up when nothing is wrong" — and suggested studying the relationship between parental involvement and student attendance and performance. He characterized attendance work as a "village" effort that should continue through high school.
Sims closed by asking for community feedback via a QR code and the superintendent's Facebook page, reminding viewers that the district will deploy outreach events to meet residents where they are, and charging families to prioritize student attendance. The episode concluded with thanks to the panel and an invitation to future State of the District sessions.
The district provided numeric snapshots and program descriptions during the presentation; the district did not record formal votes or adopt new policies during the session.
