Interim OSSE Report on Student Absenteeism

[Anonymous]

Covers more than Ballou.

Some of this is what you'd expect -- homeless and at-risk students have the highest rates of absenteeism -- and some is still shocking. For example, even at Wilson, 45% of its graduates missed 10-20% of school days.

https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/release_content/attachments/Analysis%20of%20Attendance%20and%20Graduation%20Outcomes%20at%20Public%20High%20Schools%20in%20DC%20-%20Jan%2016%202018%20-%20sm.pdf

[Anonymous]

Report is pretty shocking. This is why graduation rates have gone up - because they will graduate just about anyone not because DCPS is doing anything better. If I was a Ballou parent, I would be outraged at the shenanigans at the school. Principal needs to be fired now but I feel bad as I’m sure there are people involved above her who will escape unscathed.

[Anonymous]

10% of schools days is 18 days: 3 for a family winter ski trip, 3 for travel team trips, 5 down with the flu, 1 random fever, 2 bad cold, 3 to visit colleges, 1 protest march, 1 more protest march, 1 dental appointment that lasted longer than expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10% of schools days is 18 days: 3 for a family winter ski trip, 3 for travel team trips, 5 down with the flu, 1 random fever, 2 bad cold, 3 to visit colleges, 1 protest march, 1 more protest march, 1 dental appointment that lasted longer than expected.

Protest marches?
Family ski trips?

[Anonymous]

Satisfactory attendance is defined as 5% or fewer missed instructional days (be they excused or unexcused absences).

So riffing off 10:34, how many days have your kids missed this year (for any/all reasons)?

My kids:

8th 4
11th 2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10% of schools days is 18 days: 3 for a family winter ski trip, 3 for travel team trips, 5 down with the flu, 1 random fever, 2 bad cold, 3 to visit colleges, 1 protest march, 1 more protest march, 1 dental appointment that lasted longer than expected.

Exactly. this is us and we live in Ward three and our kids are A and B students with 2 to 3 APs a year. This statistic is fime. Kids spend 180 days in public school--it's too much and many days are wasted with substitute teachers and generally the same inefficient pedagogy that plagues all formalized in-school classes, public or private. This is a meaningless metric for high achieving students, which comprises the remaining 55% of graduating students. Get a grip, OP. It could be better, but it's fine for most of the student population at Wilson.

[Anonymous]

I just skimmed the report but didn't see any mention of how they changed the definition of absent two years ago. Now, if you aren't in school for 80% of the day, then you are marked absent. Obviously, chronic tardiness is bad, too, but the change in how they calculate absent students may account in some part for the "explosion" in absenteeism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10% of schools days is 18 days: 3 for a family winter ski trip, 3 for travel team trips, 5 down with the flu, 1 random fever, 2 bad cold, 3 to visit colleges, 1 protest march, 1 more protest march, 1 dental appointment that lasted longer than expected.

Protest marches?
Family ski trips?

It IS DC, you know

[Anonymous]

^^"which comprise"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10% of schools days is 18 days: 3 for a family winter ski trip, 3 for travel team trips, 5 down with the flu, 1 random fever, 2 bad cold, 3 to visit colleges, 1 protest march, 1 more protest march, 1 dental appointment that lasted longer than expected.

Protest marches?
Family ski trips?

Guess what, jerk, this is the life style of any UMC family in ANY major city in the US. Yes. We protest incompetent, idiot, politicians, their policies, and their actions. All right-thinking people do. And some of them ski, too, the same way you go to Gatlinburg every year.

[Anonymous]

C’mon- my kids miss 5-6 days max especially HS kid. 18 days is a lot. Also look at PARCC correlation. If your kid is missing 18 days and getting 4s and 5s on the PARCC, I guess they are fine. This is not the case for majority of students though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:C’mon- my kids miss 5-6 days max especially HS kid. 18 days is a lot. Also look at PARCC correlation. If your kid is missing 18 days and getting 4s and 5s on the PARCC, I guess they are fine. This is not the case for majority of students though.

Also the percentage band is 10-20% -- so that many kids are missing between 18 and 36 days.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who teaches at Ballou and she says that often 5 students show up to class out of 20. Sometimes only 1-2 show up. Truancy is especially bad in August and June and any type of adverse weather days. This is not your typical UMC family situation of taking a couple extra days for a ski trip.
Also, since the Rhee days, everything is considered the teacher’s fault. So if kids aren’t showing up to class, the teacher gets blamed for not making the class so compelling that students don’t want to miss it. Lot of pressure on teachers to be performers, etc.

[Anonymous]

60% of SWW graduates and 80%+ of Wilson graduates had absence rates of 10% or more. Damn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:60% of SWW graduates and 80%+ of Wilson graduates had absence rates of 10% or more. Damn.

That is shocking.