Franklin Schargel’s Blog

3 Apps For Improving School Attendance

3 Apps For Improving School Attendance from Voniz.com

Studies say that chronic absenteeism increases achievement gap and reduces graduation rate. Because of this, teachers all across the world are trying to find new ways to retain students in their classroom and increase student attendance.

Taking attendance needs to be done everyday. The following 3 apps can make taking attendance easier and ensures student attendance in classroom.

TeacherKit

Teacher Kit is a simple app which comes with a pie chart showing four attendance statuses: absent, late, sick and present. If a student is late or is sick, it can clear out if the student skipped or not. In addition, TeacherKit also tracks grades and student behavior, enabling to improve student behaviors. It has a great feature where you can record the students’ performance and record class overall progress.

TeacherTool

TeacherTool is an app which not only serves as course register and student record book, but also a notebook, grade book and a calendar. TeacherTool keeps track of student absences and reminds if they are unexcused. This smart technology knows he teachers timetable and adapts the startup screen accordingly. It also lets the teachers carry a course register for note taking during the class along with knowing student names, pictures, phone numbers, emails and other information.

iRoster

iRoster is a smartphone and computer based attendance application designed for schools to become productive and efficient in maintaining student roster. By using cloud computing, iRoster helps in registering student information as fast possible. A fully customizable app, iRoster can display student photos for easy recognition of students and view student history along with printing reports.

Reaching A Plateau

How do you know that your message has resonated ? This website has been viewed over 450,000 times from people around the world. The top 20 countries have been:

1. UNITED STATES
2   CANADA
3   MEXICO
4   MOROCCO
5   PHILIPPINES
6   SPAIN
7   INDIA
8   UNITED KINGDOM
9   GERMANY
10   AUSTRALIA
11   MALAYSIA
12   KOREA, REPUBLIC OF
13   BRAZIL
14   IRELAND
15   SINGAPORE
16   NETHERLANDS
17   INDONESIA
18   FRANCE
19   SOUTH AFRICA
20   SWEDEN

Some of the countries on the list come as a surprise. Sweden, Singapore and Germany surprise me because their educational systems are supposed to be so good. But obviously they are facing a problem with dropouts as well. Visits have also come from China and Japan. Although not high enough to be in the top 20.

I have recently returned from Brazil where I spoke to more than 600 business leaders who understand that the lack of education is the root cause for most of their problems. (More about that in a later posting.) I have now delivered workshops in 49 states in the United States and 12 foreign countries. As of today, there have been almost 1,100 postings. Between 1.600 to 2500 people view the website every month.

Please continue to send suggestions on different topics to me at [email protected]

To all of you who have accessed the website, thank you for making a difference with children.

Mental Illness Affecting Young People – Part 5

October 5-11 is Mental Illness Awareness Week. Research indicates a correlation between mental illness and school violence. According to an article in the Huffington Post (10/6/2015) written by Susan Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.A., Public Health Editor, The Huffington Post; and Former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General, posted on Huffington Post entitled, “Writing a National Prescription to Improve the Mental Health of America’s Youth”, there is a given the high prevalence of mental disorders among children and adolescents in the United States.

Health Policies to Improve Children’s Mental Health

New health policies are having a wide scale impact on the early detection and treatment of mental illness in children and youth. A critical component of reducing the toll of mental illness on individuals and communities is ensuring access to mental health services. In the United States, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) resulted in one of the largest expansions of mental health and substance use disorder treatment in our nation’s history, increasing access to services in four fundamental ways: 1) providing health insurance parity for mental illness for 62 million Americans; 2) prohibiting insurance plans from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions including mental illness; 3) including coverage for preventive and early detection services including depression screenings; and 4) allowing young people up to the age of 26 to stay on their parent’s health insurance.

Much progress has been made to increase awareness of mental disorders in young people and improve access to effective mental health services in schools and communities. Early identification and intervention is a cornerstone in reducing the long-term complications of mental disorders for children and adolescents during these crucial developmental years. Parents, educators, advocates, pediatricians and other health care professionals as well as policymakers all have important roles to play in enabling our nation’s children to realize their full potential as they grow into adults with healthy bodies and healthy minds. Additionally, more resources are needed to provide effective mental health services and interventions for substance abuse for youth in the United States. Improving the mental health of young people with evidenced-based public policies must be national priority in the days and years ahead. Youth are 33 percent of the U.S. population but they are 100 percent of our nation’s future.

If you — or someone you know — need help, please call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. If you are outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of international resources.

Mental Illness Affecting Young People – Part 4

What Schools and Parents Can Do

A major recommendation of a report calls on pediatricians to inform families about the federal supplemental security income (SSI) program and help them apply for benefits. Given that half of the SSI benefits in 2013 disbursed to 1.3 million children were related to the presence of mental disorders, primary healthcare providers play an important role in ensuring that young people receive the mental health services they so urgently need. Health care professionals should provide their pediatric patients with mental health screenings at every visit to assess cognitive and emotional functioning, testing a child’s brain vitals just as they would routinely gather information about other vital signs such as temperature, blood pressure, and pulse.

The importance of early identification and intervention for mental illness cannot be emphasized enough. There is an abundance of research pointing to the effectiveness of early treatment of mental illness in reducing developmental delays and the health damaging complications of these disorders during these critical early years of a child’s life. Family members, teachers, school administrators, and health care professionals all have important roles to play in identifying behavioral problems so that children can obtain the help they need in time. Parents would benefit from more education about the signs of behavioral and emotional difficulties in their children and where to seek help. School psychologists can work with parents, teachers and other educators to identify mental health concerns early on to help prevent the damaging impact on the learning and development of their students.

School-based mental health centers and programs can make a significant difference in increasing access to mental health services for students. With staff that includes licensed psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, some city-wide programs are providing comprehensive services to better identify and assist students experiencing emotional difficulties that affect their academic performance and relationships with their peers and family. Such programs range from on-site mental health services with counseling and crisis interventions to school-wide screenings by community mental health providers. In addition, other services offered through such initiatives include trainings for teachers and parents to identify and refer at-risk students.

Mental Illness Affecting Young People – Part 2

Identifying The Causes

At the individual level, genetics and other biological factors contribute to a child’s likelihood of developing a mental disorder. A family history of mental illness increases the risk that a child will develop some mental disorders. Gender has an impact as well: boys are more likely to die by suicide and have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), behavioral or conduct problems, autism spectrum disorders, anxiety, Tourette syndrome, and substance abuse, whereas girls are more likely to have depression or an alcohol use disorder and attempt suicide. ADHD was the most prevalent current diagnosis among children aged 3-17 years. Researchers are acknowledging more and more how critical external factors including family situations, socioeconomic status, trauma, and physical and social environments influence the mental health of children and teenagers.

There are also disparities for racial and ethnic minorities. Poverty is a major risk factor: a report from the Urban Institute found that the prevalence of mental health problems was significantly higher for children and adolescents aged 6-17 living at or below the federal poverty level compared to those whose families had higher income levels.

Yet, for children identified to be at high risk, obtaining access to mental health services has been difficult. Approximately 85 percent of young people with mental disorders in juvenile detention centers reported at least one perceived barrier to mental health services. Hispanic and African American Children living in urban areas receive less mental health care compared to their Caucasian peers. Additionally, a recent report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that many children with mental disorders from low-income families eligible for federal benefits are not receiving them.

Mental Illness Affecting Young People – Part 1

The Frightening Statistics

Mental illness affects up to 1 in 5 American youth, and are among the most economically costly conditions to treat in this population. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the cost of mental disorders including health care, use of services such as special education and juvenile justice, and decreased productivity for those under age 24 in the U.S. is an estimate $247 billion annually. Furthermore, half of lifetime cases of mental disorders begin by age 14 and three quarters of cases by age 24. A mental disorder left untreated is likely to result in the development of other concurrent mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders as well as long-term consequences including poorer performance in school and involvement with the juvenile justice system. Substance abuse and suicide are other serious and tragic consequences that are linked with mental disorders in American youth. 60-75 percent of young people with substance abuse problems have a co-occurring mental disorder. Suicide is the 3^rd leading cause of death in young people, ages 15-24, in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), more young Americans in this age group die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza and chronic lung disease combined. Given that 90 percent of those who commit suicide had a mental disorder at the time of their deaths, it is vital that we better understand the risk factors for these conditions in youth so as to detect them early and invest in treatment and other solutions that prevent their health damaging consequences.

Studies have found that nearly 50 percent of children and adolescents in the child welfare system have emotional/behavioral problems, whereas that figure jumps to over 70 percent for youth in the juvenile justice system. Children in military families, aged 11 to 17, reported a higher occurrence of emotional difficulties compared to the general population according to a study conducted by RAND.

National Dropout Prevention Center National Conference

Franklin will be presenting 3 workshops at the National Dropout Prevention’s National Conference to be held at the Wynham Riverwalk, San Antonio, October 25-28, 2015. Additional details can be found on www.dropoutprevention.org

National Dropout Prevention’s National Conference

Franklin will be presenting 3 workshops at the National Dropout Prevention’s National Conference to be held at the Wyndham Riverwalk in San Antonio, TX starting on October 25 – October 28th, 2015.

For additional details, check www.dropoutprevention.org