<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2PhuxE_1FVQ0Jm800" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2PhuxE_1FVQ0Jm800" width="1280" height="1121" >Nearly a quarter of North Carolina public school students missed enough school last year to be called chronically absent, but the state board task force rewriting school grades chose not to count it.At a Sept. 21 meeting in Raleigh, the State Board of Education Task Force on Accountability for Public Schools agreed to leave chronic absenteeism out of the A-F grades schools receive each year.Although no formal vote was taken, Curtis Sonneman, accountability director at the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), said he thought the group had consensus, and no member objected.The decision goes against DPI’s own recommendation. Agency staff urged the task force to count the measure, and 38 states already do, according to DPI. Most of the task force’s outside advisory group had also favored including it, but only if schools were scored on improvement and compared with similar schools.A student is chronically absent after missing 10% of the school year, about 18 days. The rate was 24.3% last year. It has fallen each year since peaking at 31% in 2021-22 but remains well above the 15% North Carolina saw before the pandemic.Alex Quigley, executive director of Durham Charter School, said his school has pushed its rate down to 13.5% and has few ways to push it lower.“This is something that we lack levers to pull to try to address,” he said. “Things like truancy court no longer exist. They virtually don’t happen.”He added that publishing the numbers would do more good than grading schools on them. “I want to know everybody’s chronic absenteeism. I want to know we benchmark against other schools. I think that’s great. Report it all day,” he said. “Just don’t put it into, here’s your school performance grade.”Kim Jones, an educator with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, didn’t want it in the grade either. She did want it reported, and reported by student group.“Achievement data can hide who these kids are,” Jones said. “And we create districts that continually underserve the same kids because there’s nothing we can do about it.”She named students with disabilities and low-income students in particular. The task force agreed to that.The new state budget directs DPI to run a two-year pilot to cut chronic absenteeism in one district of up to 15,000 students. Lawmakers set aside $75,000 and told the agency to pick the district by Sept. 1, choose a vendor by Sept. 15 and have the program running by Jan. 1, 2027.State Rep. David Willis, R-Union, a chair of the House Education Committee, pushed a version of the measure through his committee in May while faulting the State Board over attendance policy, citing its “abysmal policy choice this year to not fail students for non-attendance.”Attendance numbers will keep appearing on school report cards, just not in the grade. DPI had proposed giving schools credit for cutting their rates rather than holding every school to the same target.The task force meets again Oct. 15. Its recommendations go to the State Board in early 2027.</div></body>

Block Source: carolinajournal.com

Misinformation

Clickbait

Old or repetitive news

Explicit content

Location not relevant

Nearly a quarter of North Carolina public school students missed enough school last year to be called chronically absent, but the state board task force rewriting school grades chose not to count it. At a Sept. 21 meeting in Raleigh, the State Board of Education Task Force on Accountability for...

Task force rejects DPI push to grade schools on absenteeism

NewsBreak

Nearly a quarter of North Carolina public school students missed enough school last year to be called chronically absent, but the state board task force re

Task force rejects DPI push to grade schools on absenteeism

Comments