Interim OSSE Report on Student Absenteeism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is missing 4 days to go on a scholarship interview in Texas more valid than a student missing 4 days to take care of a much younger sibling? To get to a job that's needed to pay the family's food bill or rent? Who are you to judge that?

The schools recognize that some absences are legitimate and others are not for the purpose of truancy laws -- eg excused and unexcused absences.

But when looking at the educational impact of absenteeism -- a missed day is a missed day.

college visits are excused, but I heard only 3 days per session, at a graduation meeting @Wilson last year. Taking care of siblings isn't on the excuse form, nor can you indicate that it was a school activity which was missed if the teacher doesn't remember to put it in the computer

The absenteeism report does NOT distinguish between excused and unexcused absences although the school district does too.

The standard cited was that anything in excess of 5% is problematic for learning, but the issue is what is (or isn't) done if students have far more absences than that and whether it's appropriate (credit recovery).

[Anonymous]

You guys don’t have a clue if you are quibbling about excused vs. unexcused absences and a few legitimate college visits. Truancy is a huge and systemic issue at DC schools. Walk into a school like Ballou, Anacostia, Woodson, or Dunbar and ask for a school tour. You will wonder why there are so many kids hanging around outside or in the hallways. Classes look tiny because the kids aren’t there. How do you teach and get a good impact score if you have different kids showing up every day. That is why so many teachers quit those schools. Also, only a handful of parents show up to Back to School Night and conferences. Parents are completely checked out. I’m not sure what to do to solve it but it has to be addressed at the community level not just the school level. The Mayor’s Office needs to get involved.

[Anonymous]

Chancellor sounded pretty bad on Kojo. Kept mumbling about excellence and equity. What’s up with the meaningless jargon?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chancellor sounded pretty bad on Kojo. Kept mumbling about excellence and equity. What’s up with the meaningless jargon?

“Equity” is their new battle cry and he’s clearly incapable of speaking off the cuff. So he nervously went on the air committed to just repeating his buzzword again and again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys don’t have a clue if you are quibbling about excused vs. unexcused absences and a few legitimate college visits. Truancy is a huge and systemic issue at DC schools. Walk into a school like Ballou, Anacostia, Woodson, or Dunbar and ask for a school tour. You will wonder why there are so many kids hanging around outside or in the hallways. Classes look tiny because the kids aren’t there. How do you teach and get a good impact score if you have different kids showing up every day. That is why so many teachers quit those schools. Also, only a handful of parents show up to Back to School Night and conferences. Parents are completely checked out. I’m not sure what to do to solve it but it has to be addressed at the community level not just the school level. The Mayor’s Office needs to get involved.

+1

Many students at these schools don't go to school on Monday or Friday, if it's raining, snowing, too cold, etc. There is no priority to go to school consistently because they know they will pass no matter how little work they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys don’t have a clue if you are quibbling about excused vs. unexcused absences and a few legitimate college visits. Truancy is a huge and systemic issue at DC schools. Walk into a school like Ballou, Anacostia, Woodson, or Dunbar and ask for a school tour. You will wonder why there are so many kids hanging around outside or in the hallways. Classes look tiny because the kids aren’t there. How do you teach and get a good impact score if you have different kids showing up every day. That is why so many teachers quit those schools. Also, only a handful of parents show up to Back to School Night and conferences. Parents are completely checked out. I’m not sure what to do to solve it but it has to be addressed at the community level not just the school level. The Mayor’s Office needs to get involved.

+1

Many students at these schools don't go to school on Monday or Friday, if it's raining, snowing, too cold, etc. There is no priority to go to school consistently because they know they will pass no matter how little work they do.

And the vast majority of these students don’t go to jobs instead of school. No accountability, particularly on the he part of the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys don’t have a clue if you are quibbling about excused vs. unexcused absences and a few legitimate college visits. Truancy is a huge and systemic issue at DC schools. Walk into a school like Ballou, Anacostia, Woodson, or Dunbar and ask for a school tour. You will wonder why there are so many kids hanging around outside or in the hallways. Classes look tiny because the kids aren’t there. How do you teach and get a good impact score if you have different kids showing up every day. That is why so many teachers quit those schools. Also, only a handful of parents show up to Back to School Night and conferences. Parents are completely checked out. I’m not sure what to do to solve it but it has to be addressed at the community level not just the school level. The Mayor’s Office needs to get involved.

+1

Many students at these schools don't go to school on Monday or Friday, if it's raining, snowing, too cold, etc. There is no priority to go to school consistently because they know they will pass no matter how little work they do.

Also, day before a holiday, day after a holiday, but when it's their birthday definitely they go...not to work or be in class, but to walk up and down in the hallway with their birthday balloons! I worked in high school DCPS and it's tough for the ones that want to work to stay focussed and be about their work because there is so much disruption, chaos, and non-compliance!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I read an article about the truancy at Ballou and several teachers talked about how
a lot of times the truant kids were in the building but just not in class. I'm no stranger to the DCPS model of blaming the teacher for every problem, but that one is definitely the issue of school security and administration.

[Anonymous]

However, you feel about the author, this blog post raises a lot of legitimate concerns. Please help to ensure that this matter is properly looked into. I have a middle-schooler at a MS/HS charter school, and it's worrying that there is no real oversight/accountability on the charter side. It puts so much on the parents to investigate and be on top of, and I, for one, can't do it. I need my Mayor, DC Council, PCSB and OSSE to be on top of this!

https://educationdc.net/2018/01/20/come-on-city-leaders-do-the-right-thing-fully-investigate-all-our-dc-high-schools/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I read an article about the truancy at Ballou and several teachers talked about how
a lot of times the truant kids were in the building but just not in class. I'm no stranger to the DCPS model of blaming the teacher for every problem, but that one is definitely the issue of school security and administration.

I did some volunteer work at one of the DC high schools. The classes only had a few kids in them. Some were trying to hang out in the hallways and an administrator rounded them up and gave the choice of go to class or have your parent come pick you up. The administrator was relatively new and the kids complained and complained, moaning about how different it was from the year before. It was surreal. You can't place the blame only on teachers if kids aren't in class to be taught. Parents, students, admin, security, teachers and the central office all have a part in helping shape a functional or dysfunctional environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:However, you feel about the author, this blog post raises a lot of legitimate concerns. Please help to ensure that this matter is properly looked into. I have a middle-schooler at a MS/HS charter school, and it's worrying that there is no real oversight/accountability on the charter side. It puts so much on the parents to investigate and be on top of, and I, for one, can't do it. I need my Mayor, DC Council, PCSB and OSSE to be on top of this!

https://educationdc.net/2018/01/20/come-on-city-leaders-do-the-right-thing-fully-investigate-all-our-dc-high-schools/

Do you guys realize that OSSE produces equity reports where the in-school attendance rate is reported for every school? Do you also realize that the charters have those rates counted in their PCSB report cards? If you look at the equity report for Ballou, for example, the attendance rate is 63.5%. The attendance rate for Thurgood is 92%. Like it or not, perhaps the fact that the PCSB puts a score and tier on everything is the reason that attendance is better at charters? I also would call that pretty strong accountability and oversight. If a charter doesn't have a good report card score, the PCSB will close them. Having good attendance is part of getting a good score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:However, you feel about the author, this blog post raises a lot of legitimate concerns. Please help to ensure that this matter is properly looked into. I have a middle-schooler at a MS/HS charter school, and it's worrying that there is no real oversight/accountability on the charter side. It puts so much on the parents to investigate and be on top of, and I, for one, can't do it. I need my Mayor, DC Council, PCSB and OSSE to be on top of this!

https://educationdc.net/2018/01/20/come-on-city-leaders-do-the-right-thing-fully-investigate-all-our-dc-high-schools/

Do you guys realize that OSSE produces equity reports where the in-school attendance rate is reported for every school? Do you also realize that the charters have those rates counted in their PCSB report cards? If you look at the equity report for Ballou, for example, the attendance rate is 63.5%. The attendance rate for Thurgood is 92%. Like it or not, perhaps the fact that the PCSB puts a score and tier on everything is the reason that attendance is better at charters? I also would call that pretty strong accountability and oversight. If a charter doesn't have a good report card score, the PCSB will close them. Having good attendance is part of getting a good score.

Amen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:However, you feel about the author, this blog post raises a lot of legitimate concerns. Please help to ensure that this matter is properly looked into. I have a middle-schooler at a MS/HS charter school, and it's worrying that there is no real oversight/accountability on the charter side. It puts so much on the parents to investigate and be on top of, and I, for one, can't do it. I need my Mayor, DC Council, PCSB and OSSE to be on top of this!

https://educationdc.net/2018/01/20/come-on-city-leaders-do-the-right-thing-fully-investigate-all-our-dc-high-schools/

Do you guys realize that OSSE produces equity reports where the in-school attendance rate is reported for every school? Do you also realize that the charters have those rates counted in their PCSB report cards? If you look at the equity report for Ballou, for example, the attendance rate is 63.5%. The attendance rate for Thurgood is 92%. Like it or not, perhaps the fact that the PCSB puts a score and tier on everything is the reason that attendance is better at charters? I also would call that pretty strong accountability and oversight. If a charter doesn't have a good report card score, the PCSB will close them. Having good attendance is part of getting a good score.

Please, the type of students who are majority students are hardly likely to be the ones signing up to go to a charter school are they? You know how many students from Charters are sent back to their neighborhood schools, do you think Basis would put up with this foolishness and likewise the application DCPS schools! Send all the truants to Charters and see what happens!

[Anonymous]

http://wjla.com/features/faking-the-grade/faking-the-grade-fbi-now-investigating-dcs-ballou-high-school Not sure I understand why the FBI is investigating, really, even if kids get federal funds

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:However, you feel about the author, this blog post raises a lot of legitimate concerns. Please help to ensure that this matter is properly looked into. I have a middle-schooler at a MS/HS charter school, and it's worrying that there is no real oversight/accountability on the charter side. It puts so much on the parents to investigate and be on top of, and I, for one, can't do it. I need my Mayor, DC Council, PCSB and OSSE to be on top of this!

https://educationdc.net/2018/01/20/come-on-city-leaders-do-the-right-thing-fully-investigate-all-our-dc-high-schools/

Do you guys realize that OSSE produces equity reports where the in-school attendance rate is reported for every school? Do you also realize that the charters have those rates counted in their PCSB report cards? If you look at the equity report for Ballou, for example, the attendance rate is 63.5%. The attendance rate for Thurgood is 92%. Like it or not, perhaps the fact that the PCSB puts a score and tier on everything is the reason that attendance is better at charters? I also would call that pretty strong accountability and oversight. If a charter doesn't have a good report card score, the PCSB will close them. Having good attendance is part of getting a good score.

Please, the type of students who are majority students are hardly likely to be the ones signing up to go to a charter school are they? You know how many students from Charters are sent back to their neighborhood schools, do you think Basis would put up with this foolishness and likewise the application DCPS schools! Send all the truants to Charters and see what happens!

Angry much?