Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Molly May first presented the board with chronic absenteeism data from the 2022-23 Texas Academic Performance Report on Jan. 23, as previously reported by Community Impact.
During the March 5 board study session, May provided follow-up information on chronic absenteeism in the district, including data for this school year.
Diving in deeper
In Eanes ISD, chronically absent students are absent for 17 or more days out of the school year. As of March 5, May said 310 students, or 4%, were reported as chronically absent. There are also 131 students who are sitting at 15 absences and 77 students sitting at 14 absences.
“It’s important to know that chronic absenteeism includes you being absent for any reason—whether it's excused, which is funded, or unexcused, which is unfunded,” May said. “ ... Even if students have really good reasons for being absent for 17 days out of the school year or more, they’re missing a lot of instruction.”
By grade level, the 2022-23 chronic absenteeism rates were:
- 4.9% in elementary school, down from 7.7% in 2021-22
- 6.1% in middle school, down from 6.3% in 2021-22
- 13.3% in high school, down from 15.7% in 2021-22
May said the district will implement coding changes that label “excused” and “unexcused” absences as “funded” or “unfunded” instead.
“We developed this code, D, for documented [absences], which people started assuming meant excused,” May said. “My child is sick, I send in a letter that says they’re sick, and you mark it as a D, so it’s excused. It’s not excused because it’s not funded. We just created a lot of confusion. ... We will make sure our parents are very clear about what is funded and unfunded so that they understand that.”
May said each 1% of student attendance equates to approximately $500,000. However, she said there is a misnomer that students absences cost the district money.
“It’s more so that [Chief Financial Officer Chris Scott] builds the budget on what he anticipates attendance being, and we’re getting attendance for students coming,” May said. “If they don’t come and our attendance drops and Chris has said this is what we think we’re going to have, that’s where that impact is. It’s not like if they miss school somebody’s deducting our account. It’s more we’re just not getting that additional funding.”
What else?
May outlined some of the ways the district is responding to chronic absenteeism, including:
- Distributing lists to campuses of students who have 10 or more absences
- Administration and counselor reviews of individual students and looking at trends, such as extended absences due to mental health issues or less parental involvement
- Increased communication about attendance in district newsletters
- Calls to parents
- Fixing coding errors so students are not miscounted while they are at school but not in the classroom, such as in the counselor's office or nurses office
- Considering implementing an elementary Saturday school to help make up loss of instruction time
