Utah
Chronic Absenteeism leads to rise in F grades in most of Utah’s largest school districts
The ultimate bell at Cedar Valley Excessive sends college students into the halls heading for residence. However a lot of them have been in already within the halls throughout class.
“They arrive to our college and wander, they don’t go to class,” Counselor Aprill Triggs stated.
Faculties throughout Utah are coping with the issue of continual absenteeism. After the pandemic, college students aren’t coming again. Educators are seeing hundreds of absences, and in consequence, failing grades.
John Gordillo began down that path throughout the pandemic. Final 12 months, he estimates he had 300 absences and 100 tardies.
“I used to be simply exterior with my buddies, hanging out… I didn’t care,” he stated.
He’s on a greater monitor now. However faculty districts throughout Utah see college students similar to him.
“Thirty to forty % in some circumstances are persistently absent. So that is clearly greater than I don’t really feel effectively. That is I don’t need to go to highschool in any respect,” Ben Horsley, Chief of Workers within the Granite District stated.
That sentiment seems contagious.
We contacted the most important faculty districts throughout the state. They report attendance otherwise, however usually, Granite, Alpine, Canyons, Davis, Provo, Nebo, Weber and Washington all noticed a dramatic spike final 12 months in continual absences. In lots of districts, continual circumstances have doubled from the traditional charges, earlier than the pandemic.
To place that in perspective, many Utah excessive colleges have three thousand college students. If as much as thirty % are absent on any given day, 900 college students could also be lacking in motion.
Many educators agree, the pandemic created an setting the place college students have been typically not in school, they usually knew they may entry the day’s homework on-line.
“We did undergo a time frame the place we did issues at residence and issues have been much more versatile,” Horsley stated.
However faculty directors say that’s not the one cause college students are skipping. They level to the State Capitol and up to date modifications to Utah Regulation.
-Home Invoice 81 added behavioral or psychological well being as a legitimate excuse for lacking faculty.
– Home Invoice 116 prohibited colleges from requiring a physician’s word for an excused absence.
-Senate Invoice 219 put a moratorium on truancy enforcement. That legislation expired in July 2022.
Faculties really feel onerous pressed to carry college students accountable.
“What I feel they do know is there are not any penalties,” Triggs stated.
However it’s changing into clear, there ARE penalties for lacking faculty, within the type of failing grades.
“We noticed a reasonably vital rise in F’s and D’s” Brian McGil, director of scholar companies within the Canyons Faculty District stated.
Within the Canyons District, evaluating the 2018 to the 2021 faculty 12 months, “F” grades shot up 73% amongst 9th graders and 74% amongst 10th graders.
In Provo, “F” grades elevated about the identical amongst juniors and seniors.
Most of our different districts additionally noticed dramatically extra F’s. Washington District says they have a look at take a look at scores, not letter grades.
“They’re not incomes the credit wanted to graduate from highschool,” Triggs stated.
“Placing themselves ready for faculty scholarships and faculty admissions is necessary too,” McGill stated.
Faculties are rightfully involved about getting college students caught up. They usually’re going to nice lengths to drag college students again to class.
In Canyons Faculty District, they’ve created a peer courtroom. College students like Cameryn Coffey are peer judges who assist college students with continual absences work by way of issues or obstacles to highschool.
“We sympathize and I perceive, I do the identical factor. However that is why I maintain going to class, and that is what motivates me. And we’ll speak about what would inspire them to class,” Coffey stated.
In Granite District, many colleges are accommodating a late-start possibility, the place dad and mom can let their teenagers take a web based first interval to allow them to sleep in a bit longer.
Alpine District was one of many few that averted large jumps in Fs. They imagine the reason being their concentrate on constructing teacher-student relationships. For instance, at Cedar Valley, college students have the identical homeroom trainer for all 4 years, in order that they construct a connection.
“We really feel like if there’s a relationship with a trusted adults, an grownup that they care about, that they’ll come to highschool and that they’ll need to be right here,” Triggs stated.
For John, that has made a distinction. He credit a particular trainer, Brian Anderson, and his counselor Aprill Triggs, for serving to him discover a pathway again.
“The employees right here is so cool. They only actually helped me out with plenty of stuff,” he stated.
He’ll need to get well plenty of credit in summer time faculty. However he’s motivated for his future.
“I’m on a reasonably straight highway now,” he stated.
Utah
Amid traffic, Utah walked to Leafs’ arena pregame
TORONTO — The Utah Hockey Club said players were forced to walk to their game against the Maple Leafs after their bus got stuck in Toronto traffic Sunday night.
The team posted a video on social media of team members walking to Scotiabank Arena, with player Maveric Lamoureux saying the bus was “not moving at all.”
Several city streets had been closed during the day for an annual Santa Claus parade.
The Maple Leafs earned their fourth consecutive win by defeating Utah 3-2.
The viral incident prompted Ontario Premier Doug Ford to call the congestion “embarrassing” and “unacceptable,” highlighting his government’s plan to address the city’s gridlock through bike lane legislation.
It wasn’t the first time a Toronto visitor had to ditch their vehicle to make it to an event on time.
In June, former One Direction band member Niall Horan had to walk through traffic to get to his concert at Scotiabank Arena.
Utah
Utah Highway Patrol responds to your suggestions on making Utah roads safer
SALT LAKE CITY — FOX 13 News is Driven to Change and that includes bringing you reports on important topics like road rage, construction, and wrong-way drivers. During our coverage, we continually ask for any questions or concerns you may have along Utah’s roadways.
The feedback has gotten an enormous response, so FOX 13 sat down with Lieutenant Cameron Roden on Good Day Utah to help address input we have been getting, from the perspective of Utah Highway Patrol.
Speeding in Utah, there’s so much of it, and then you can sometimes say that that leads to tailgating, which may lead to road rage incidents. What are you seeing out there in terms of speed and what can we do to lessen the effects of that?
Lt. Cameron Roden: Speed is our number one thing that we see. That’s our number one traffic stop that we make, and we know that it leads to the majority of crashes in the state of Utah. So we definitely put an emphasis on speed and it does lead to other things. Not just crashes. It leads to road rage and other things .So, as far as what changes can we make, we need to start with ourselves, and really say, ‘Hey, do I have a problem?’ You know, we just need to start with ourselves and not think that it’s something else’s problem. If we slow our speeds ourselves, and then it’ll start to to catch on and people will do that speed limit. So, but the legislature has definitely taken some steps to help us address, especially the the speeds that are those excessive speeds where we have that one zero five law now that addresses those speeds and increases fines and and hopefully discourages people from those extreme speeds.
Some of our viewers talked about maybe capping some of the speed limits for truck drivers. Is that something that’s even feasible?
You know, that would be something that would have to go through that, that legislative process to see whether we that would be something that would help. But ultimately, if we we start with ourselves, hopefully that will make that change and reduce crashes and fatalities.
There are things being done to try and intervene and stop wrong-way drivers before they happen. But some of our viewers propose things like spikes. What are your thoughts on implementing something like that?
We’ve had over the last several years, a rash of wrong-way drivers, and it’ll come in onesie twos, and then we’ll go for a period of time without that. And so, but this spike over the last couple of years has caused us to to create a task force to look at wrongly driving what things can be done. And so getting all these stakeholders together between UDOT and Highway Safety, looking at what technologies and things that could be implemented, and and things like, wrong way detection cameras. Those are some things that are being actually used in the state of Utah right now to help us spot those and and advance signage, getting people to realize they’re going the wrong way and turn around. The the spike strips have actually been talked about in our task force a little bit. And if something like that would even be, it is that technology available right now. And as what we could actually implement in the state of Utah, there’s nothing that really fits the bill right now because of our environment. We have our snow plows. We have snow and things like that. Something like that really wouldn’t be practical right now.
Probably the most talked about topic that we’ve received was distracted driving, texting while driving. You went out, I saw on the UHP social media page, that you guys just driving and you look to your right and left and you can find someone texting. What kind of enforcement do we have against distracted driving specifically on your phone?
This is something that we like you said, we see it every day. We go out to crashes,and and we may suspect that a driver may be distracted. And so, it’s something that’s definitely under-reported. It’s it’s a bigger problem than than the numbers really show.And so not only do we address it during our normal patrols.Our officers are seeing it, and addressing it while they’re out there.But we’ll also do targeted patrols where the highway safety office actually gives out additional funds for that targeted enforcement, where we’ll get an unmarked vehicle. We go out driving down the roads where we try to spot these vehicles and and get them stopped because those are those are a big danger on our roadways where our attention and our focus needs to be on driving.
If you have ideas or suggestions for how to make Utah’s roadways safer click here to be taken to our Driven to Change form. There you can share your ideas or suggestions.
DRIVEN TO CHANGE
Share your ideas on how to make Utah’s roads safer
Utah
Utah National Guard gets new, top-of-the-line Apache helicopters
WEST JORDAN, Utah — The Utah National Guard has been serving the state since 1894 with roots dating back to the Minutemen of the 17th-century American colonies.
This weekend, they received quite the boost in the form of the Army’s most advanced attack helicopter.
“These aircraft are extremely fast compared to our other aircraft,” said Col. Patrick.
On Saturday, the Utah National Guard took their new Apache helicopters for a spin.
“The flight went better than we could have hoped for. A little weather on the east coast, but after that, it wasn’t bad at all,” Patrick said.
The first four of 24 Apaches arrived early Saturday morning after they went under full inspection.
“They’ve got software on there that it’s like playing a video game. You just fly the video game and the airplane… is fast and smooth, which is the good thing, and so it’ll just hold the altitude and airspeed and just keep on trucking along. It’s pretty good,” Patrick said.
The first Apache helicopters arrived in Utah back in 1992.
“It just continues the legacy of the air pirates and what we bring to not only Utah, but really to the global fight and security, really,” Patrick added.
The colonel calls it a major step forward.
“What a great day for Utah as we advance into the next couple decades of combat operations and what we can provide to, you know, the global security.”
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