SCHOOL ATTENDANCE DATA
To obtain facts regarding school attendance in the West Side district studied, a special tabulation for four public schools was made in the Bureau of Social Research from schedules obtained for the Committee on School Inquiry of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of New York City. Public Schools Nos. 17, 32, 51, and 127 were the schools included in the study. The records covered a period of five months, from February 1, 1911, to June 30, 1911, or practically 100 school days. In the following table is shown the relation between the absences of boys and the absences of girls in the four schools mentioned, and the relation between absences in these schools and absences in the entire city.
It will be noted that attendance is poorer for the girls than for the boys. The difference in the average number of days of absence is about 2.6 days, or approximately 2.6 per cent of the term in question.
Attendance is better in the city as a whole than in the four schools in the district. But 63.5 per cent of the children in the schools in the district were absent less than eleven days, as compared with 67.3 per cent of those in the city as a whole. The proportion of children in each of the successive groups representing longer periods of absence is smaller for the city as a whole than for the four schools. A comparison of the column for boys with that for girls shows that the low attendance in the schools studied is due to the relatively low attendance among the girls. While the percentages relating to the boys correspond almost exactly to those relating to all the children of the city, the percentages for the girls indicate a materially lower proportion of attendance.
| Days of absence | PUPILS IN SCHOOLS NOS. 17, 32, 51 AND 127[a] | PUPILS IN ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS[b] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boys | Girls | Total | Number | Per cent | ||||
| Number | Per cent | Number | Per cent | Number | Per cent | |||
| Less than 11 | 1,829 | 67.4 | 1,173 | 58.3 | 3,002 | 63.5 | 382,406 | 67.3 |
| 11 and less than 21 | 447 | 16.4 | 408 | 20.3 | 855 | 18.1 | 97,512 | 17.1 |
| 21 and less than 31 | 182 | 6.7 | 182 | 9.0 | 364 | 7.7 | 39,391 | 6.9 |
| 31 and less than 41 | 92 | 3.4 | 99 | 4.9 | 191 | 4.0 | 19,297 | 3.4 |
| 41 and over | 166 | 6.1 | 151 | 7.5 | 317 | 6.7 | 30,006 | 5.3 |
| Total | 2,716 | 100.0 | 2,013 | 100.0 | 4,729 | 100.0 | 568,612 | 100.0 |
| Average number of days absence | 11.4 | 14.0 | 12.5 | |||||
[a] Tabulated from schedules obtained for the Committee on School Inquiry of the Board of Estimate and
Apportionment of New York City.
[b] From a report to the Committee on School Inquiry of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of New York City, on Promotions and Non-promotions, and Part Time, by Frank P. Bachman, Ph.D., p. 64.