The audit findings show under 100 students were improperly designated to collect state-funded attendance allowances, causing deductions from early childhood and special education, career and technical services, and bilingual education funds, Bryan Moore, LCISD’s director of research, assessment and accountability, said at the Jan. 23 board of trustees meeting.
The background
The district received notice from the TEA in 2023 that it was randomly selected for an attendance audit of the 2021-22 school year, according to board documents. All districts participate in this audit process in two- to five-year cycles.
State law requires districts adopt a student attendance accounting system that describes the eligibility for the state funding, which allocates “similar revenue per student” regardless of property tax rates, according to the TEA website. The district must submit different codes and accompanying documentation to receive the funding.
At LCISD, attendance indicators are submitted and monitored by campus secretaries and clerks as additional duties into the Public Education Information Management System, Moore said.
Based on the agency’s findings, districts are asked to create a corrective action plan and will have funds deducted from future state aid payments, Moore said.
The overview
Moore said the TEA made the following deductions due to the incorrect attendance coding:
- 76 students enrolled in early education without special education instructional setting code ($352,669 deduction)
- 16 students enrolled in early education receiving special education for speech therapy only ($78,205 deduction)
- Three students enrolled in pregnancy related services with inconsistent documentation ($1,041 deduction)
- One student enrolled in kindergarten under age 5 by Sept. 1 ($244 deduction)
- Three students enrolled in bilingual/English as a second language without parent consent indicator ($72 deduction)
“Significant” turnover occurring around the COVID-19 pandemic affected training protocols and likely led to these attendance oversights, Moore said.
“At that time, we had significant employee turnover at the campus all the way through the district level,” he said. “It was during the time of ... the great resignation, and because of the employee turnover, our training protocols did not catch up with the new personnel until the 2023-24 school year.”
In summer 2023, the district created an attendance data clerk position to monitor attendance daily across campuses. The following year, a position was created in coordination with the registration and attendance department as well as the PEIMS coordinator to oversee training and compliance processes, Moore said.
Moore said district staff have also taken other measures since March, including:
- Training personnel involved in the registration of the Pegasus program, which codes students differently depending on if they are the children of staff
- Monthly trainings of campus bilingual personnel to identify parent denials for consent forms
- Providing administrative reviews of data by district staff and special education personnel to ensure students are properly coded
Moving forward, the special education PEIMS coordinator will conduct a biweekly review of students who receive instruction at home, speech therapy and early childhood special education services, Moore said.
Moore also proposed a centralized attendance and registration team overseen by the current attendance data clerk. Data entry responsibilities would shrink from 50 individuals, who monitor attendance on top of their workload, to seven dedicated clerks at the district level.
Additionally, the district will conduct an internal five-year attendance audit in the future, Superintendent Roosevelt Nivens said. He said the district will audit other functions with money attached to them, including bond budgeting, curriculum, human resources and special education.
He said this year the staff only submitted 12 failure errors, giving him assurance the procedures have improved.
“As we continue to move forward, I'll present to the board the next audit that we'll do internally to make sure that we have our own systems [under control] before the agency comes in,” he said.