‘Present to win’: Teachers, students start year at Meadow View School with eyes on attendance

Editor’s note: This story is the first in a series about school attendance, told from the classrooms and hallways of Meadow View School in Bethel School District.

A crowd gathered at Meadow View School’s elementary doors at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8, the first day of school.

Ryan and Sarah Sather stood with their second-grader, Natalie, outside the Bethel School District K-8 school. Natalie was excited to see her friends, and her parents were excited for her to continue excelling in all subjects.

As the doors opened, Principal Heather Hiatt arrived. She greeted kids by name, letting out a whoop and clapping her hands as the river of children started moving into the school. She had gotten her 5:30 a.m. swim in that morning, and she was still riding the wave of energy.

“Welcome to day one,” she said. “The first two days everyone gets here so early, and then it fades away.”

Third-grader Raelynn and kindergartener Mason Jones stood with their mom, Sarah Jones, sporting new backpacks and clothing. Mason reported that he was excited that kindergarten did not entail naps. Jones was nervous about sending off Mason, who sometimes struggles to pay attention.

Showing up to school, however, is a feat in itself, data shows. At Meadow View, 23.3% of students were absent more than 10% of the time during the 2024-25 school year. 

The rate is below Oregon’s overall chronic absentee rate of 33.5%, but more than double the school’s pre-pandemic rates. 

Oregon’s chronic absenteeism is among the worst in the country and, along with many states, attendance has been slow to rebound after the pandemic.

But no one uttered the word “attendance” on Tuesday morning as parents dropped children in classrooms, some on time, some late. When the morning announcements came on, no one listed data points or demanded students show up to school.

Instead, “Pump Up the Jam” filtered through the PA system, Hiatt listed the lunch menu for the day (burgers and nachos) and asked everyone to make it a “fantastic day.”

Then, Meadow View students and staff got down to business.

First lines of defense

Teachers and their educational assistants moved deftly through the morning sprint to lunchtime.

They established classroom rules, led name games and observed personalities and behaviors. They fielded minor medical emergencies, including a painfully wiggly tooth and a skinned knee, and taught lessons that ranged from how to use a paper-towel machine in the bathroom to how to politely inquire about a classmate’s name.

In second-grade teacher Kayla Potter’s class, Natalie sat next to a previous acquaintance.

“I was hoping you were in the same class,” said her desk neighbor, Ben.

They both giggled quietly.

Meanwhile, Mason learned playground safety outside in kindergarten teacher Cami Railey’s class. 

“When you guys are on the green squishy mat today, you need to use walking feet,” Railey instructed.

Railey and the other kindergarten staff were taking a week to observe their students in order to create balanced classes with a variety of academic and social skill levels and an even distribution of English-language learners and children with additional needs. 

She and her educational assistant, Gail Taylor, watched kids as they climbed on the playground, walked through the halls and interacted with each other in the classroom, and they performed quick assessments to test students’ understanding of basic instructions. Taylor took notes on a sheet of paper.

“Some kids will have a honeymoon period for the first couple of weeks, but some kids show their true colors the first day,” she said.

While she ensured her students knew how to ask to use the bathroom and sit criss-cross applesauce on the rug, Railey noted two absences out of the 30 students on her roster. 

It was too early to know if it was a cause for concern. Even though the school sent home information about the first day of kindergarten and what to expect, parents might just be confused, Railey said. Her parent-teacher conferences on the second week of school would be a helpful check-in point.

Taylor, who worked at Bethel’s Kids in Transition to School summer program, had already gotten to know some of the kindergarteners’ families.

“If you can build a relationship with a parent and if anything comes up, they’re more likely to help you,” she said. “I try to build a relationship with the parents just as I do with the kids.”

A mandate from the top

Each part of the first day of school, from the fun to the mundane, lays the groundwork for the rest of the year. 

Education research shows that chronic absenteeism stems from a host of factors: poverty, chronic health conditions, bad school experiences, lack of belonging and lack of engagement with parents, among other reasons.

Attendance for K-12 students, one of Oregon’s weaknesses, is included in the new state-mandated school accountability goals.

Education think tank FutureEd gathered data from 44 states and the District of Columbia and reports that Oregon ranked third-worst in the country for chronic absenteeism during the 2024-25 school year. Chronic absenteeism is nationally recognized as being absent 10% or more of all school days.

Bethel School Board has also made K-12 attendance one of its board goals for the year, in alignment with administrators’ push to prioritize the issue. The district just hired a part-time attendance liaison to reduce the district’s chronic absenteeism, which has remained around 30% for the past three years. The year before the pandemic hit, the rate was 12.1%.

In the board’s Sept. 9 meeting, Superintendent Kraig Sproles spoke about his frustrations with Oregon’s laws about truancy. The Oregon Legislature repealed a law in 2021 that allowed school districts to fine families for repeated unexcused absences. While Sproles has issued only a couple of truancy fines during his 28-year career in education, he likes to have both “the stick” and “the carrot,” he said, even if he rarely uses the stick.

“To just say, ‘Please send your kids because we think it’s best for them,’ without that responsibility and accountability — it’s hard,” Sproles said. “It’s not a six-year-old who’s getting themselves out of bed, it’s just not.”

‘Present to win’

Attendance has always been a hurdle Hiatt has faced as an administrator. She, assistant principal Denee Newton and their entire staff approach it through researched-backed methods: engaging families, eliminating barriers, creating a joyful, inclusive school environment and providing incentives.

Hiatt doesn’t ever discipline a student with a detention or loss of recess for missing school, however.

“That kind of goes against the idea of creating more sense of belonging and engagement and connection with your friends,” she said. “If you lose something that is one of the highlights of the school day, why would you want to go the next day?”

Hiatt’s inner motto is “you have to be present to win.” Since her high school days as a student government “social promoter,” she’s been a champion of creating school experiences that make kids want to be there. She brought the tradition of making an all-school lip-dub video to Meadow View when she arrived two years ago. Every student attended on the 2026 filming day. 

In addition to all the fun, Hiatt is serious about identifying the barriers kids face to get to school. She works with school counselors, secretaries, the district’s resource officer and behavior specialists to communicate with families and solve the puzzle for each student.

“It’s different everywhere,” she said. “Different for different communities and different people and different experiences, and you just have to figure out, ‘what is going on here and how can I help?’”

Hiatt had already whipped up an event to close out the first week. She listed the details like a true social promoter: ice cream sandwiches and frozen pops out on the blacktop, and don’t forget the music.

“If they aren’t there, they’re going to miss out and they’ll hear about how fun it (was),” Hiatt said. “It’s a great way to end the week on a positive.”