….Bakersfield School: We Closed it—Now students won’t come back—40% absentee rate
BY STEVEN MAYER
David Hernandez and his 9-year-old son, Max, get ready to walk to nearby McKinley Elementary School during Walking School Bus, held Friday to combat chronic absenteeism at McKinley. Hernandez said he won’t let his son walk to school alone.
The mood was joyful, yet determined Friday morning as close to 50 community volunteers crowded into the library at McKinley Elementary School in central Bakersfield.
It was 6:55 a.m. when school Vice Principal Whitney Dirkse stood up on a chair and began to speak.
“I cannot tell you how thankful we are that you are all here today,” Dirkse told the diverse group. “McKinley is so very blessed to have all of you supporting us.”
The volunteers were there to fan out on foot into the early morning neighborhood, meet McKinley students at various locations, and walk with them to school.
In a way, it was fun, but it was no game.
McKinley and some other schools in the Bakersfield City School District have been experiencing a higher incidence of chronic absenteeism, and school Principal Kelli Michaud and her team have been searching for a solution.
“Chronic absenteeism is defined as kids who have been absent more than 10 times in the school year,” Michaud said. The school year is 180 days.
“Since the pandemic, it’s been a real uphill battle.”
Before the pandemic, chronic absenteeism was at 18%, the principal said. After the pandemic, it more than doubled to 42%.
Odessa Perkins, founder of the nonprofit Empowerment Dess Perkins, came to McKinley early Friday morning to volunteer her time for Walking School Bus.
“I grew up here,” she said. “I went to McKinley, Emerson and Bakersfield High.”
Perkins said she believes part of the problem causing McKinley’s absenteeism stems from the poverty and crime in the neighborhood.
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“COVID didn’t help because kids stopped coming to school,” she said.
“We have to come together as a community,” Perkins said. “We have to do what we have to do for all these kids.”
Regina Shelton, another one of Friday’s volunteers, is associated with a fitness group called 2 Queens Fitness.
“I’m from the neighborhood, I attended McKinley,” Shelton said, “and I wanted to come out and support the community.
“We want the kids to be safe,” she said, “and any way I can help the kids be safe, I’ll be here.”
The 50 or so volunteers broke into several groups, each with an assigned leader, and spread out into the neighborhood.
As she walked several blocks through the neighborhood with her group, Roxanne Lee, 49, said she wants the children who attend McKinley and nearby Emerson Middle School to be embraced by love from the community.
She’s lived in the neighborhood for 24 years, and she said she watches out for the children who walk by her house headed to school.
“When I heard about it, I was, like, how awesome is this,” she said of Friday’s effort.
After collecting about five students, the group returned to the campus, where they were met with cheers from the BHS cheer squad.
McKinley students meet in the school’s quad each Friday morning, and on Friday, Jovon Dangerfield, a local community activist and radio personality, was providing a pep talk to the crowd of kids.
“Come to school every day,” Dangerfield said over a microphone. “Come to school on time.”
It was the kind of advice Principal Michaud hopes will stick.
