MCPS Announces New Attendance Plan and Policy on 8/22

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even compared to pre-pandemic, absenteeism numbers are way up:

Will they break down the absenteeism numbers by race?

Or by school. I bet there's a pocket of consistent, serious offenders that need to be prioritized and dealt with most urgently.

And some of the absenteeism numbers have to do with failed admin leadership in those schools.

I doubt they will. Because it will mostly be a certain demographic in certain pockets, and the optics are not good.

Found the numbers:
https://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/Graphs/#/Demographics/ChronicAbsenteeism/3/99/1/6/15/XXXX/2022

This looks wrong.

The header for % says "chronic absenteeism", but the header for the fraction is "fractions of days attended". The values are the same. They cant both be right.

Definitions:


Absentee Rate

percentage of students absent from school for one or more days between the first day of the school year and the last day of the school year.

[1 day!!?!!]


Attendance Rate

average daily attendance rate including special education students. The state’s proficient standard is 94%

Average Daily Attendance

number of students in attendance divided by the total number of students, from the first day of school through April 13th.

[Take your international trips after spring break!]

Chronic absenteeism

number of students who are absent 10% or more of the school days while enrolled

Latest numbers:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rd8Gst_V-f5Wv8823R2jienupYqW0rYC/view?pli=1

[Anonymous]

The header on the fraction column is wrong -- it's the same for all the metrics tables.

The chronic absentee rate very different (higher) from the more than 20 absences rate.

This may be because the chronic absentee are students who are enrolled part year (due to migration?) , and missing a large percent but a small total number of.

https://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov/Graphs/#/Demographics/AbsenteeRate20/3/99/1/6/15/0234/2022

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:So what exactly is the new plan and policy?

Because they cut off the livestream, we're all in the dark. I'm guessing we'll get the details when news reports are filed later today? This is all so bizarre.

MCPS's largest student racial group is Hispanic, and 36.6% of Hispanic students are chronically absent (based on MSDE report card).

Whey are more than 1/3 of Hispanic students chronically absent? Are they helping their family or are they doing something else?

In fact some Hispanic groups surveyed MCPS's Hispanic students and found that many of them are not going to school because they were undereducated in their home countries (many of them are immigrant children and are ESOL students) and cannot keep up with the work, even the ESOL work.

I look forward to see whether MCPS addresses this massive problem in the school system.

Right.

This is no longer a school system primarily of UMC kids. It is increasingly a system of high needs kids.

2021-2022 numbers:

40% of the kids are FARMS
18% are ESOL

33% Hispanic
22% Black
25% White
14% Asian

This is in a county that is 42% white and with a 5% poverty rate.

Think about that. Essentially, white families with financial means have fled the system.

Not a conclusion you can make from the data you've given. What are the demographics of all school-aged kids in MoCo?

Look at 2002-3 numbers:
https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/fy2003/schools/county.pdf
White 46.1%
Black 21.4%
Hispanic 17.9%
Asian 14.2%

FARMS 22.5%
ESOL 8.5%

In 20 years, FARMS, ESOL, and Hispanic percentages doubled or nearly doubled, and White percentage nearly halved.

Yes. The demographics of the county itself have changed dramatically in this interval as well. That's not a story of "whites fleeing the system."

I can't tell whether you are on a racist/nativist kick here or just realized this and think you are delivering new news, or what.

I don't understand what you mean. 36.6% of Hispanic students are chronically absent. This is a big problem. How is MCPS addressing this big problem?

But they aren't missing more than 20 days! There's something special happening there. Maybe people moving away (or dropping out?) and not deregistering?

What percent of Hispanics in schools are in unstable immigration situations?

Hispanics are a high immigrant group, and high poverty+immigrant group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that HS kids used to have to have fewer than X absences to pass a class. Even if they had the grades and turned everything in, if they missed more than X classes unexcused, they failed that class. Post Covid they got rid of that and now kids can rarely show up, do a few D assignments and pass. There is no incentive to attend.

I also have to say that too many teachers use class time as work time- kids on their Chromebooks completely worksheets and assignments. So some kids are just like I can do this from home…

The kids who can do it from home aren't the ones in trouble. Schools do more work in school, for the benefit of students who aren't doing work at home. (These students should be in aftercare, but no one cares what I think.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what's going on. MCPSTV disabled the live stream for the press conference on their YouTube channel and they were supposed to go live with the press conference at 10:45 am.

The press are clearly there, but no news is coming out:

"Plan includes
data driven foundation and system wide attendance promotion campaign to "raise importance of regular school attendance" "

So, more chatter, no action.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want kids to attend, then they need to add a consequence for being absent! Kids can be absent as often as they want and still earn high grades (or passing grades if that’s what the child is trying for). There’s no motivation to attend.

Or, here's an idea, if your kids skip school, you punish them at home.

In my home, there are consequences if we are informed. Our high school was marking my child present though when he wasn’t - even when I was with him at a doctor’s appointment. Not sure why the assistant principal and principal didn’t seem to care enough to fix the record keeping problems when I sent emails.

Everything is better for the school if they mark him present.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what's going on. MCPSTV disabled the live stream for the press conference on their YouTube channel and they were supposed to go live with the press conference at 10:45 am.

The press are clearly there, but no news is coming out:

"Plan includes
data driven foundation and system wide attendance promotion campaign to "raise importance of regular school attendance" "

So, more chatter, no action.

How much money did they spend to come up with this highly anticipated 4-page, large-character, empty action plan?

This is a scandal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what's going on. MCPSTV disabled the live stream for the press conference on their YouTube channel and they were supposed to go live with the press conference at 10:45 am.

The press are clearly there, but no news is coming out:

"Plan includes
data driven foundation and system wide attendance promotion campaign to "raise importance of regular school attendance" "

So, more chatter, no action.

How much money did they spend to come up with this highly anticipated 4-page, large-character, empty action plan?

This is a scandal.

I think they thought if they called it an action plan we'd think it was an action plan, even though it doesn't actually include any meaningful actions in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's no denying that white flight is part of the demographic shift story in MCPS. I live in Silver Spring and most of the white families in my neighborhood do not send their kids to our neighborhood DCC high school. They go to private schools.[/quote

Well, ]

Well, I live in SS, I am white, and we send our kids to DCC high schools. So does every white person we know.

I literally cannot think of anyone I know in my area who sends their kids to privates. I guess a handful of the new builds have private school stickers. But my neighbohood and swim club is full of white kids who go to DCC high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no denying that white flight is part of the demographic shift story in MCPS. I live in Silver Spring and most of the white families in my neighborhood do not send their kids to our neighborhood DCC high school. They go to private schools.[/quote

Well, ]

Well, I live in SS, I am white, and we send our kids to DCC high schools. So does every white person we know.

I literally cannot think of anyone I know in my area who sends their kids to privates. I guess a handful of the new builds have private school stickers. But my neighbohood and swim club is full of white kids who go to DCC high schools.

Well, I live in SS, I am white, and we send our kids to DCC high schools. So does every white person we know.

I literally cannot think of anyone I know in my area who sends their kids to privates. I guess a handful of the new builds have private school stickers. But my neighbohood and swim club is full of white kids who go to DCC high schools.

[Anonymous]

At my high school we were told today there will be a lot more individual family outreach to get kids back in school.

We were also told, that any kids that don't show up for 10 days are going to unenrolled automatically. "must be" rather than can be". Staff are going to have more pressure to keep attendance accurate. Contact counselors after three days of absence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know what's going on. MCPSTV disabled the live stream for the press conference on their YouTube channel and they were supposed to go live with the press conference at 10:45 am.

The press are clearly there, but no news is coming out:

"Plan includes
data driven foundation and system wide attendance promotion campaign to "raise importance of regular school attendance" "

So, more chatter, no action.

How much money did they spend to come up with this highly anticipated 4-page, large-character, empty action plan?

This is a scandal.

I think they thought if they called it an action plan we'd think it was an action plan, even though it doesn't actually include any meaningful actions in it.

Well, this is at about the same level as the superintendent's PhD thesis:
https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2021/06/monifa-b-mcknights-doctor-of-education.html

[Anonymous]

Wow, that document is sure a document. It took longer to design than to write.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my high school we were told today there will be a lot more individual family outreach to get kids back in school.

We were also told, that any kids that don't show up for 10 days are going to unenrolled automatically. "must be" rather than can be". Staff are going to have more pressure to keep attendance accurate. Contact counselors after three days of absence.

Well that certainly will improve the metrics. Even better than counting a 0 as a 50, count a 0 has not enrolled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, that document is sure a document. It took longer to design than to write.

One of the most recent documents ever created.

It's not bad, per se, it's just what you'd start with if you had absolutely known idea what was going on and needed to get started. Feels a few years late.