Chronic absenteeism and truancy in DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The first thing DCPS should do is bring back the rule that chronically absent students lose their lottery spot and go back to their home school. We had so many kids who “couldn’t get to school” across town but they live across the street from their IB school.

our DCPS sends kids back to their IB in this scenario.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is one of the legacies of the absurdly long school closures during the pandemic.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/15/has-school-become-optional

New York Times:

"Before the pandemic, about 15 percent of U.S. students were chronically absent, which typically means missing 18 days of the school year, for any reason. By the 2021-22 school year, that number had skyrocketed to 28 percent of students. Last school year, the most recent for which national estimates are available, it held stubbornly at 26 percent."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The first thing DCPS should do is bring back the rule that chronically absent students lose their lottery spot and go back to their home school. We had so many kids who “couldn’t get to school” across town but they live across the street from their IB school.

our DCPS sends kids back to their IB in this scenario.

What school?

[Anonymous]

A family has been using my home address for 6+ years. I've reported it no less than 10 times to OSSE. Their kid went from good grades in elementary to chronically truant in a DCPS magnet school and failing all but two of his classes. He has missed 50+ school days this year. How do I know? Because after utter and complete inaction by OSSE for 8 years, I started opening his report cards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about school buses for ES kids? At least they’d have a reliable way to get to school.

I assume you are sitting in your house in the suburbs with such a dumb suggestion. The majority of DCPS kids walk to school. Are you suggesting that absentee parents who can walk their kids to school on their own schedule are MORE likely to get their kids to a bus stop on time? Isn't there a Fairfax meeting you can go attend?

Have you ever seen a kindergartner walking themselves and their preK sibling to school for 3/4 of a mile so they can have something to eat? I have. But sometimes they can’t make it alone and stay home. A bus isn’t perfect but it would help a lot of kids get to school safely.

But thanks for your input.

There actually are buses in DCPS. Most often used for unhoused kids (coming from shelters or other temp housing) but can also be used for kids in other at risk categories IF the school district can figure out a way to do it. But for kids in bad situations their housing and home life may simply not be consistent enough for a bus to be the solution. It doesn't work if you are sleeping in a different home every week. It doesn't work if the issue is your parent/guardian is high every day and doesn't even think about getting you up and ready for school. And so on.

But in any case DCPS already does this for a lot of kids especially at the elementary level.

If you spend any time at all working with this population you understand that you're dealing with endemic poverty and crime issues. DCPS already does a ton and it absolutely helps kids on the margins where there may be issues but maybe they have a grandparent who can step in and help, or kids who are just wards of the state or living in shelters or foster care. But there are still tons of kids in DC who technically have custodial parents (or other family) but there's just so much dysfunction that school isn't a priority.

I thought you had to have an IEP (or 504) to get bussing. They bus kids from shelters? Never heard of that in DC specifically, but certainly have in the MD counties.

My Title I IB school has a bus of kids from a shelter daily...

[Anonymous]

1. Taking accurate attendance is much more difficult than average people know. There are so many mistakes that if one really knew how bad it was, this report would be thrown out the window.

2. Attendance "counselors" are the most underpaid, under-trained, overly disrespected people in the building. They are undervalued and I guarantee if you walk into any building that person has more than one job.

3. The gig requires chasing the constantly moving 🎯 target of tracking down teacher, substitute teacher, and parent data entry errors.

4. It never ever reflects the number of kids actually in the building, as they are tasked to paper chase while also answering the phone, putting band-aids on bleeding kids, being yelled at and spoken to rudely by parents of all walks of life.... and sometimes building admins....

5. These citywide truancy dog whistle reports are red herrings; they never talk about the antiquated contracted attendance systems. There are over 45 attendance codes which is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about school buses for ES kids? At least they’d have a reliable way to get to school.

I assume you are sitting in your house in the suburbs with such a dumb suggestion. The majority of DCPS kids walk to school. Are you suggesting that absentee parents who can walk their kids to school on their own schedule are MORE likely to get their kids to a bus stop on time? Isn't there a Fairfax meeting you can go attend?

Have you ever seen a kindergartner walking themselves and their preK sibling to school for 3/4 of a mile so they can have something to eat? I have. But sometimes they can’t make it alone and stay home. A bus isn’t perfect but it would help a lot of kids get to school safely.

But thanks for your input.

There actually are buses in DCPS. Most often used for unhoused kids (coming from shelters or other temp housing) but can also be used for kids in other at risk categories IF the school district can figure out a way to do it. But for kids in bad situations their housing and home life may simply not be consistent enough for a bus to be the solution. It doesn't work if you are sleeping in a different home every week. It doesn't work if the issue is your parent/guardian is high every day and doesn't even think about getting you up and ready for school. And so on.

But in any case DCPS already does this for a lot of kids especially at the elementary level.

If you spend any time at all working with this population you understand that you're dealing with endemic poverty and crime issues. DCPS already does a ton and it absolutely helps kids on the margins where there may be issues but maybe they have a grandparent who can step in and help, or kids who are just wards of the state or living in shelters or foster care. But there are still tons of kids in DC who technically have custodial parents (or other family) but there's just so much dysfunction that school isn't a priority.

I thought you had to have an IEP (or 504) to get bussing. They bus kids from shelters? Never heard of that in DC specifically, but certainly have in the MD counties.

My Title I IB school has a bus of kids from a shelter daily...

The children did not ask to be homeless. Glad your school provides transportation and follows the law; it is required by the McKinney Vento Act for enrolled homeless children.

[Anonymous]

If D.C. were a state, it would have one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the country (Alaska had the highest average, at 48.6%). Across K-12, 43% of District students were chronically absent in the 2022-2023 school year, and 37% were truant. Absenteeism is especially bad among high school students, 60% of whom were chronically absent.

And those averages mask significantly higher rates in some schools, particularly those in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Rates for most DCPS high schools east of the river ranged from just under 80% to near 90% (a whopping 89.3% were chronically absent at Ballou High in Ward 8).

https://wamu.org/story/24/03/20/how-is-dc-addressing-chronic-absenteeism/

[Anonymous]

It’s hard to get worked up about this when you know kids who have been kept on the rolls for years at JR despite enrolling in private schools and trying to unenroll from DCPS. I bet the same thing is true for kids who switch from attending 8th grade in DC with a DC address to attending 9th grade in Maryland with a Maryland address. At least part of this is a record keeping failure, not an actual crisis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to get worked up about this when you know kids who have been kept on the rolls for years at JR despite enrolling in private schools and trying to unenroll from DCPS. I bet the same thing is true for kids who switch from attending 8th grade in DC with a DC address to attending 9th grade in Maryland with a Maryland address. At least part of this is a record keeping failure, not an actual crisis.

This makes no sense because don’t you have to enroll your child every year at the school even if it’s your IB

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to get worked up about this when you know kids who have been kept on the rolls for years at JR despite enrolling in private schools and trying to unenroll from DCPS. I bet the same thing is true for kids who switch from attending 8th grade in DC with a DC address to attending 9th grade in Maryland with a Maryland address. At least part of this is a record keeping failure, not an actual crisis.

This makes no sense because don’t you have to enroll your child every year at the school even if it’s your IB

Yes, and I agree it makes no sense. And yet this is what happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A family has been using my home address for 6+ years. I've reported it no less than 10 times to OSSE. Their kid went from good grades in elementary to chronically truant in a DCPS magnet school and failing all but two of his classes. He has missed 50+ school days this year. How do I know? Because after utter and complete inaction by OSSE for 8 years, I started opening his report cards.

This. Is. CRAZY. Here I am, thinking I’ve seen some of the craziest shit and yet, there’s more. Speechless.

[Anonymous]

DC is just a crazy place. I have live here for 36 years. I have seen the good and the bad.

The Op talks of truancy. Good point. Less than 75% of DCPC students graduate in a given year.

DC spends more than $25,000 per public school student, making it the second in the nation behind NYC!

Yet, DC students are way behind the grade curve nationally!

I'm also curious about the number of cars that drop off kids at our local schools. Many have out of state tags

[Anonymous]

and this gem, but off topic:

More than 160 students — nearly 30 percent of the student body — at D.C.’s celebrated Duke Ellington School of the Arts live outside the city and are not paying the tuition required of suburbanites who attend the District’s public schools, an internal investigation has found.
The students’ cases have been forwarded to the D.C. attorney general’s office, which enforces laws against school residency fraud, city officials said Friday. Another 56 have been flagged for less clear-cut residency problems and are being given a week and a half to prove they live in the city, bringing the total number of students caught up in the fraud investigation to 220 out of the 570 enrolled at the Northwest Washington campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about school buses for ES kids? At least they’d have a reliable way to get to school.

I assume you are sitting in your house in the suburbs with such a dumb suggestion. The majority of DCPS kids walk to school. Are you suggesting that absentee parents who can walk their kids to school on their own schedule are MORE likely to get their kids to a bus stop on time? Isn't there a Fairfax meeting you can go attend?

Have you ever seen a kindergartner walking themselves and their preK sibling to school for 3/4 of a mile so they can have something to eat? I have. But sometimes they can’t make it alone and stay home. A bus isn’t perfect but it would help a lot of kids get to school safely.

But thanks for your input.

There actually are buses in DCPS. Most often used for unhoused kids (coming from shelters or other temp housing) but can also be used for kids in other at risk categories IF the school district can figure out a way to do it. But for kids in bad situations their housing and home life may simply not be consistent enough for a bus to be the solution. It doesn't work if you are sleeping in a different home every week. It doesn't work if the issue is your parent/guardian is high every day and doesn't even think about getting you up and ready for school. And so on.

But in any case DCPS already does this for a lot of kids especially at the elementary level.

If you spend any time at all working with this population you understand that you're dealing with endemic poverty and crime issues. DCPS already does a ton and it absolutely helps kids on the margins where there may be issues but maybe they have a grandparent who can step in and help, or kids who are just wards of the state or living in shelters or foster care. But there are still tons of kids in DC who technically have custodial parents (or other family) but there's just so much dysfunction that school isn't a priority.

I thought you had to have an IEP (or 504) to get bussing. They bus kids from shelters? Never heard of that in DC specifically, but certainly have in the MD counties.

My Title I IB school has a bus of kids from a shelter daily...

The children did not ask to be homeless. Glad your school provides transportation and follows the law; it is required by the McKinney Vento Act for enrolled homeless children.

PP that this responded to. I’m not sure if something got read into my comment, but I’m glad they have a ride daily to our safe, welcoming, nuturing school too.