Cool Coffee 7 - Mr. Kurt Seiler - Independence High School

Cool Coffee w/ Kansas Principals

Mr. Kurt Seiler of Independence High School, USD 446, talks about their success tackling the issue of chronic absenteeism. Incentives for attending school as it is tied to their "good standing" policy has produced the results they hoped. Kurt shared some of the details and adjustments they made along the way to finetune their approach to solving one of the most talked about issues facing education right now.

Contact Kurt Seiler: [e-mail]

Chapters (time stamps do not account for 30 second intro) 00:00 Introduction to Chronic Absenteeism 01:59 Independence High School's Strategies 06:02 Good Standing Policy Explained 11:53 J's for Days Initiative 18:09 Community Involvement and Support 21:45 Celebrating Independence High School

(full transcript of show below)

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TRANSCRIPT (AI produced)

Rick Sola (00:01.866)
Good morning and welcome to another edition of Cool Coffee with Kansas principals specifically today with Mr. Kurt Seiler of Independence High School, USD 446, home of the Bulldogs. Good morning, Kurt.

Kurt Seiler (00:15.425)
Morning, Rick.

Rick Sola (00:17.23)
And it is bright and early, just about a 645 start time here on a Friday, October 4th. Kurt, I've got my morning coffee. What is your morning drink? Okay. Whatever it is, we all have it and we got to have it.

Kurt Seiler (00:28.974)
I've got a Dr. Pepper.

That's right.

Rick Sola (00:37.046)
Before we get started on really an important topic, excited to talk about it, but important topic today of chronic absenteeism facing education, I do want to draw attention to the show notes for this and every show. There you're going to find a full transcript of today's show here with Mr. Seiler and also contact information for him and also a Google form to leave feedback or provide input or even express interest to be on this show. So please.

check that out in every one of our show notes. So, all right, Kurt, we had talked to each other a little bit through email before, and you had shared some interesting things, some positive things going on in Independence High School where you're at regarding chronic absenteeism, which is something not even just statewide, but nationwide where we're spending a lot of time.

working with and just for that definition of chronic absenteeism, any student who misses 10 % or more of the school year for any reason, including excused, unexcused suspensions and kind of a typical example is 180 days of instruction, student misses 18 or more, that's about two a month. So it adds up really quick, but share a little bit about Independence High School and

what has led to some of the things that we're about to talk about.

Kurt Seiler (02:03.82)
Yeah, so just like I'm sure most of schools across the nation after COVID hit, the absenteeism numbers just shot up and you know, I attribute it to kids were at at home for an entire quarter and ours, you know, some schools it was a lot longer than that, but an entire nine weeks learning from home, it's hard to pull them back to get them to come to school on a regular basis. And so our chronic absenteeism numbers are tardies are

really just our ADA, our average daily attendance, was extremely low from what we were wanting. So we sat down, you know, as an admin team and as a building leadership team to really try and target on how we were going to improve those numbers. And we came up with two really good policies in my mind. One is our good standing policy and another is what we call Jays for days. So I'll talk about the good standing policy first.

Rick Sola (02:49.118)
And we can not work too.

Thank

Kurt Seiler (03:03.256)
So our good staining policy is you cannot have more than two in school suspensions in a semester. You cannot have an out of school suspension. You cannot have more than six tardies to all your classes cumulatively for a nine weeks. You cannot be ineligible academically. So not pass five new classes the previous semester.

Rick Sola (03:26.431)
you

Kurt Seiler (03:32.234)
If you do all of those things and you're in none of those categories, you are what we call in good standing. And so if you are in good standing, you can attend any of our school dances. We also have a good standing event every single month. So for the month of September, we had a cornhole tournament, kids signed up, we drew out, made their teams.

They came in, had a cornhole tournament. had a door prize. So we always give a door prize at our Good Stain event, because not everybody wants to compete in cornhole or whatever we're having for that month, but they just want to come and watch. So we give a door prize. That's also how we track the data of how many kids are coming, because we give them a ticket. We keep a ticket. So that way we know how many kids are attending. And then we gave out a nice set of cornhole bags, like

Rick Sola (03:58.346)
Thank you.

Thank you.

Kurt Seiler (04:26.382)
you know, a professional set of bags to the winners and had really good attendance. I think we had 70 to 75 students show up. And so for everybody that doesn't know Independence, we have 560 kids roughly in the high school. And so we want all those kids to be able to come enjoy these events, but do the right things to be able to enjoy it. it's.

Rick Sola (04:31.028)
I'm happy.

Kurt Seiler (04:52.992)
In the past, it's always been outside of the school day. This year, we're going to have a couple inside of the school day to allow the kids to get out of an advisory class and to come and do it. But just for reference, we've shown, you know, when the new Top Gun movie came out a couple of years ago, we showed that in our auditorium, just like a movie theater. We've had pumpkin carving contest. We've had Madden tournaments. We've had Mario Kart tournaments.

Rick Sola (05:00.539)
Thank you.

Kurt Seiler (05:20.27)
You know, we've had a lot of different things and we actually have what we call a fun club that gets together and organizes these events. And that way we're getting kids feedback on what's interest for the kids. But we track how many kids come in and we want to make sure that we're rewarding kids for doing things the right way. You know, those positive reinforcements. And so we've really seen an uptick of

Rick Sola (05:26.294)
you

Rick Sola (05:33.974)
Thank you.

Kurt Seiler (05:47.886)
The number of referrals going down, the number of in-school suspensions and out-of-school suspensions have gone down because of it. And so we're trying to reward those kids for doing things the right way.

Rick Sola (05:52.854)
Thank

Rick Sola (06:02.186)
That's awesome. There's a lot of different, just a lot of different incentives I'd like to get into. But question I had, you mentioned the good standing and what criteria that qualifies for. Does that reset each nine weeks that you mentioned that for the TARDIS? Is that same with ISS, OSS and so forth?

Kurt Seiler (06:22.336)
I'm glad you brought that up. So the OSS is for the year. ISS resets at semester. The TARDIS resets at the nine weeks. The grades resets at semester. But here's the thing about it, Rick. We don't want kids to feel like, you know, because they did something wrong, they're just out, right? So they can, what's the word for not not lobby. They can, they can write a letter.

to their administrator. And so before we have a good standing event or before we have a dance, the week and a half prior, they can put a letter, submit a letter to us writing basically what they've done wrong and how they're writing the wrong. So if they didn't pass five classes the previous semester, they write us a letter. I always tell kids that actions speak louder than words.

So we'll pull up their grades. If they're currently failing no classes and they took the time to write us a letter, chances are they're probably going to be reinstated into good standing. If they're failing a class or two classes, we tell them, hey, at this time, you're not making the progress we want to see. Next month, go ahead, submit another letter, make the progress, and you can be back in good standing. So we allow them to try and, I can't think of the word that we use.

Rick Sola (07:40.272)
that to track that.

Kurt Seiler (07:46.924)
basically just write a letter to try and get back in good standing. So to answer your question, it does reset, but they can do it beforehand if they're doing things the right way.

Rick Sola (07:56.394)
Great. You had mentioned the Top Gun movie. So going back a few years, which by the way is one of my favorite movies, that movie's fantastic. Seen it multiple times, probably more than most movies. So you've had this in place for a little while. What kind of adjustments did you see early on that you felt like you either needed to calibrate or even change wholesale to fit where you're at today?

Kurt Seiler (08:03.5)
Me too.

Kurt Seiler (08:09.154)
Yeah.

Kurt Seiler (08:23.992)
So a lot of it is reinstating the students back into good standing, working with the kids to make sure that they don't lose hope too. Because in the beginning, we were pretty dead set on, hey, you're not good standing for the semester. You can try again next semester. And we're like, that's a long time for a kid to sit out.

Rick Sola (08:38.196)
young and with the community.

Rick Sola (08:47.51)
late.

Kurt Seiler (08:49.258)
if they're doing things the right way. You know, we're doing this to try and move the needle, to try and get kids to improve as always, do things the right way. So one major adjustment we had was we allow those kids each month if they want to, to submit a letter and we look at their, you know, their data, what they're doing. And if they're doing things the right way, we want to reinstate them. And so that was one major change that we made up front.

Rick Sola (09:15.316)
Yeah, great. You mentioned J's for days. And I'm pretty sure I know what that's all about. But talk about that.

Kurt Seiler (09:25.324)
Yeah, so last year was the first year that we did it and it actually came from our middle school assistant principal Sam Carnes. He he did J's for A's and so they do it for grades at the middle school. We just adjusted it for attendance at the high school and so. Last year we did it by semester so we had one boy one girl and actually one staff member.

Rick Sola (09:37.238)
So, the grades have to be.

Rick Sola (09:44.48)
So.

Kurt Seiler (09:52.61)
that if you had over 95 % attendance and for students, the 95 % attendance was specifically for the staff. For the students, if you had over 95 % attendance, you had no first hour tardies, you have no more than six tardies in a quarter, and let me pull up my...

Rick Sola (10:04.246)
So if you had.

Kurt Seiler (10:21.314)
I'm forgetting one Rick and I don't want to. Yeah. Yes, Jays or Jordans. And so we put the kids names in a drawing and so it's no first hour tardies, no unexcused absences. Now we do it each month this year. So we changed it a little bit and I'll talk about that here in a minute, but no first hour tardies, no unexcused absences.

Rick Sola (10:23.252)
Well, just while you're doing that, J's are Jordans, right?

Kurt Seiler (10:48.588)
which is defined as not turning in a professional note. You cannot be Mark Truant, not be considered a Truant student, no ISS or OSS, and no more than two tardies to all classes. So last semester we did, or last year we did it by semester. We wanted to change it this year to do it by month. And so we put their names in a drawing, we draw it out, they win the chance, or not the chance, but they win a pair of shoes.

Rick Sola (11:00.65)
I think.

Rick Sola (11:13.014)
We'll back.

Kurt Seiler (11:18.454)
And so they come to the office, I explain it to them. They can go on Nike.com or The Goat and they can order a pair of dunks or Jordans or whatever shoes they want for $150 or less. And we order it and then they get a pair of shoes. And so we did it by semester last year and what we were seeing was kids forgot about it, right? It was that same thing that we did for good standing. They kind of lost the hope after a while.

Rick Sola (11:20.438)
and I'm just putting them in.

Rick Sola (11:32.192)
we are.

Rick Sola (11:44.02)
yeah.

Kurt Seiler (11:46.35)
And so we changed it monthly this year, but we got sponsors. So Hugo's Industrial Supply here in town and Edward Jones, they are switching off months. And so we actually did our first drawing two days ago and had a boy and a girl winner. And out of those, we had 166 boys that qualified and 161 girls.

Rick Sola (11:47.542)
Thank you.

Rick Sola (11:53.59)
Thank

Kurt Seiler (12:15.662)
for the Jays for Days drawing this month. And so it was exciting to have that first drawing this year. And then next month we'll do another drawing and that's that's kind of going back to the same thing. We don't want kids to lose hope, so we're doing it monthly this year and we're really targeting that attendance because as you know we can put every every intervention everything in place we want. But if kids aren't in school, you can't. You can't teach him so we want kids here.

Rick Sola (12:37.174)
Thank

Kurt Seiler (12:44.798)
and really seeing that positive effect.

Rick Sola (12:49.256)
Do you record the reactions or video stream or anything when you're doing these drawings?

Kurt Seiler (12:54.678)
We don't, we do it Facebook Live on the drawing, but then whenever the shoes come in, we always like to go Facebook Live this year. We're doing that differently. And the sponsors are actually going to be here to take a picture and get a photo op with the kids. But it's pretty exciting to see those kids come to the office after they've won.

Rick Sola (13:19.614)
Yeah, I mean, I would be thrilled at this point. can imagine kids winning Jordans or choice of their choosing. That's a pretty nice budget too that they get to work with.

Kurt Seiler (13:31.476)
It is and it it were very fortunate for the sponsors that we have here in town to be able to do it monthly because I think it's it's really going to to make a difference and I have kids that come up to me and they're like I didn't qualify this month but I'm going to be I'm going to be in that drawing next month so I know it makes a difference because as I'm sure you're wearing your school those shoes are important to those kids so they get a nice new clean pair of Jordans or dunks and it.

they just, they walk around a little differently.

Rick Sola (14:03.976)
Yeah, I don't know the turnaround time on once they order and they come in probably pretty quick, but I imagine once they start wearing them, kids start to notice. you mentioned the monthly versus semester. we have not done anything like J's for days where I'm at, but we do in some of our district schools. But some of that is the balance of you don't want to just, it's September, a student gets in bad standing, if you will.

And then it's like, well, I guess I got to wait until January. You know, that's a really a positive to kind of keep keep things moving along with them. You mentioned. go ahead. Go ahead.

Kurt Seiler (14:37.452)
Yep.

Kurt Seiler (14:44.046)
And so to tell you a little bit about the data that we tracked behind it, so the school year before last year, for one semester, we had like 456 tardies. And in one year's time of implementing this program, it went down to 182 tardies. So it just cut down on the tardies huge. mean, big time.

Not only that, but our average daily attendance the year before we were at, we were at 92.47 ADA, which is not good at all. And we jumped in one year to 93.58. So we jumped over 1 % in our average daily attendance, which, you know, to a non-educator, that doesn't seem like very much, but.

When you look at average daily attendance and you're talking 560 kids over seven hours a day every day, like that's a pretty good jump for one school year. So the data is backing up what we're doing.

Rick Sola (15:40.608)
understand.

Rick Sola (15:49.514)
Yeah, you know, some of the things that I look at as, first of all, when you define chronic absenteeism and you see just two absences a month, you know, someone can get sick in the middle of January and be out for four days. you know, so it really puts it into perspective. Some of the things that I have seen as challenges sometimes is when we have our long, our natural long weekends, maybe around a president's day or a labor day,

there's cheaper flights or there's cheaper deals if you leave just a little bit earlier. And so we see some of that as well. Have you ever had any students come up and talk about adjusting family plans for any of your long weekends as a result of this policy?

Kurt Seiler (16:37.152)
We have a lot of kids that choose not to miss maybe because they have a haircut. We've seen that before where they go miss school to go get a haircut or they do things. Those have all been eliminated. And it's not us harping on the kids. It's the kids not wanting to miss and take their name out of the running. And we tell them, we understand that you have doctors, dentists, appointments.

Rick Sola (16:40.502)
future is not.

Kurt Seiler (17:03.916)
Bring us a note and that's excused so you're not out of the running. So not only are we, you know, cutting down on the overall absences, but we're getting more doctor's notes, dentist notes, professional notes turned in to us to excuse the absences, which is what we all want as educators. And so it's, yeah, to answer your question, we don't have a lot of kids that travel out of town in our community. a little bit lower socioeconomic, but we definitely have kids that...

Rick Sola (17:06.294)
Thank

Rick Sola (17:09.814)
you know, down and out.

those minutes to turn it up.

Kurt Seiler (17:32.696)
that are not choosing to miss because of certain things because they want to be in that drawing for the Jays for days.

Rick Sola (17:40.194)
Well, ultimately too, you're encouraging good life skills. If you're going to miss work, it's important that you communicate that. You do it the appropriate way, the way it's expected. It's not that you can't, it's just that there's a process of doing it. Going back to earlier in the conversation, digital, what has led to this, the COVID, the digital platforms that we had several years ago.

I have seen that it's an annual conversation where I'm at as far as parent teacher conferences. And, you know, I've said for a long time, there's really not much mystery as to what goes on in our schools anymore between sharing out on social media, Google Classroom, platforms, LMSs, whatever, that everything is accessible to parents who want it. And that is a challenge as well as getting students in to see the relevancy of

Now there's value to you sitting in the chair of your teacher's classroom.

Kurt Seiler (18:44.47)
Yeah. Yeah. And not only that, but showing up to school on time, you know, correlates to showing up to work on time. Our first hour tardies were just astronomical before we started this. And we'd have kids walk in there like, I'm late. Now with this policy, we have kids running into the building because they don't want to be late to first hour. And I tell them, if you're late to work,

your boss is not going to like it. And we're just trying to teach you how to be successful in the professional world after this. And so that the first hour tardies is big for me being to school on time correlates to being to work on time and having no first hour tardies for an entire month. That really is big on getting kids here and being in the seat on.

Rick Sola (19:33.46)
Yeah. Well, that's great. There are a lot of really, just a lot of really good ideas and thoughts. and you know, we just had our, our district site council this week. So we bring the community together. The, the overarching topic was chronic absenteeism and, we had several breakout sessions all with a different angle to it. And, just a lot of really good things here and you've got the data to back it up and,

really intriguing the monthly giveaway because that that keep those the months go quick and and to be able to celebrate that on such a frequent basis I'm sure keeps it at the forefront.

Kurt Seiler (20:05.73)
Yes, they do.

Kurt Seiler (20:13.612)
Yeah, and so to talk about chronic absenteeism, our number is probably twice as high as what most schools are. So before last school year, which would have been the 22, 23 school year, we had a 27 % chronic absenteeism in one year of implementing the J's for days that went down to 22%. And so we're hoping to get that number down into the teens after this year.

Rick Sola (20:30.838)
want you

Kurt Seiler (20:39.732)
It's way higher than I want it to be even still with these policies, but any positive movement is good movement. So we are hoping to get that chronic capstan T as a number down even further.

Rick Sola (20:51.954)
One thing I like too, you mentioned the supporters or sponsors of the Jays for days and just that community involvement as well. think it's good for kids. It's good for the community. And that's always something that has interested me is how do we bring in our community and what a fun thing for them. I mean, they get to stand there and be with be with a kid who just won Jordans and nothing's more exciting than that really.

Kurt Seiler (21:16.814)
Yeah, and our local businesses understand if kids are in school, they're not doing the wrong thing out in the streets that are affecting their businesses. And so it was not hard to find two businesses that were willing to sponsor us. And I suspect after this year, we'll probably get a few more sponsors that want to jump on board. so, I mean, you think about it, it's $300 a month for a business. And so that over

know, a couple months they they write it off, but it's the positive interaction with the kids that they want to be in our building. They want to help out and Hugo's industrial supply here in town. They you know we do all of our business through them for buying all of our custodial supplies. Everything that we do. Not only that, Edward Jones has all of our teachers on there, so it's businesses that already have a foot in the door that wanted to help give back.

Rick Sola (22:15.422)
Yeah, and I love the tie-in conversation you have when a student is tardy or if it's a frequent concern and it's like, hey, where are you going to be in a few years? And do you think this is going to fly? before we wrap up here, I want to give you a chance to talk about Independence High School. Bragging your school, your people, your community. Let's hear about independence.

Kurt Seiler (22:37.516)
Yeah, I tell it anytime I go talk in town, anywhere I talk in the state, we're very fortunate with the kids that we have. You you hear a lot these days, people talking bad about this generation. I don't think people understand all the good that these kids do. I mean, these kids are involved. They do service learning as a part of a graduation requirement.

and they give back to the community. You walk down our halls, you don't see kids pushing other kids. You see kids helping, know, somebody drops their books or their papers, two or three kids stop to help pick it up. I can't say enough of how good of kids we have here in Independence. And not only that, but community involvement. You you go to a choir concert last night, our auditorium is full.

Rick Sola (23:21.768)
I don't

Kurt Seiler (23:27.854)
We have, you we see over 700 people in our auditorium, it's full. We have a Friday night football game, the stands are full. It doesn't matter what event we have, the community comes out, they support our kids, our kids know it and they're very fortunate to live in the community that we have. If you ever come through Independence, Kansas, we have a free zoo. Not a lot of towns can say that and we're not a large town. You know, we have...

Rick Sola (23:28.31)
Thank

Rick Sola (23:39.062)
that happens.

Kurt Seiler (23:55.758)
8,500 people in town, we have a free zoo. You can stop by any time and go through the zoo, see a lot of different animals. But not only that, our chamber of commerce has events that happen every single month, you know, sometimes weekly live music events, different things. So it really is a great small town feeling, but it's just, it's a close knit community.

Rick Sola (24:01.014)
Thank

Rick Sola (24:09.526)
here.

Kurt Seiler (24:22.226)
And I tell our kids all the time, you know, they say, I just want to get out of this town. said, you might want to get out of this town, but I'll tell you, there is nothing like living in a small town where people stick up for one another and help each other out in hard times. And our town is that town and our school is that school. And I'm proud to be a Bulldog and live here.

Rick Sola (24:22.845)
I tell you.

Thank you.

Rick Sola (24:40.897)
That's great. Thanks for sharing all that. Just awesome. Who are you playing tonight? I'm playing with Jim Nipton. He's to get played tonight. OK. Is that a big rival for you down there?

Kurt Seiler (24:47.822)
We were playing chenille and they're going to be tough.

Kurt Seiler (24:54.91)
It is a rivalry. It's not quite as much as us in Coffeyville who we had last week, but it definitely is a rivalry and they're tough this year. How about you guys? Who do you guys have?

Rick Sola (25:05.238)
You're putting me on the spot. So we feed into a late the South and it's homecoming weekend. I should know this. I'm going to the game tonight. Kurt, can't tell you who South is playing tonight, but it is homecoming. I've got a freshman son up there. he's my oldest. So it's our first kind of getting back into the swing of things. I went to South. I'm a South grad. So I'm a Falcon through and through.

Kurt Seiler (25:17.134)
That's alright.

Rick Sola (25:31.52)
Darta, you just outed me here. don't know who we're playing tonight.

Kurt Seiler (25:33.102)
Well, I understand. We got a lot of things on our minds, so I understand completely.

Rick Sola (25:38.752)
Yeah. Hey, I really enjoyed this conversation and on a at the end of a long week and early in the morning, I appreciate you getting on here and really sharing some things. I hope that others will hear and if they're not, you know, they're struggling with some of the same issues that we're looking at nationwide. You shared a lot of really good ideas and thoughts that that are applicable everywhere. So I really appreciate your time.

Kurt Seiler (26:05.154)
Well, thank you. And if anybody wants to reach out and get more information.

I'm always available. Email is usually the best way to reach me, ksiler at indieschools.com. That's K-S-E-I-L-E-R at indieschools.com. You can reach out anytime and I'll give you any information you want to know. We definitely don't have it figured out by any means and I'm always open for suggestions from anybody that wants it. any way we can help each other out as fellow educators, I'm always for it.

Rick Sola (26:36.854)
Yeah, I love that. And I'll put your email in the show notes here too. People click on that. So, Kurt, happy Friday to you. I hope it's a good Friday and we'll catch you next time. All right. Thanks a lot.

Kurt Seiler (26:49.1)
You too, Rick. I appreciate it.