Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools - capradio.org

Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools - capradio.org

Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools

Ann Crisp says her family tried doing “Zoom-school” for their 5-year-old son Lennon earlier this year, but it just didn’t work.

She works at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so she set her son up in front of a computer next to her desk to make sure he paid attention during class. But her son has minor speech and motor skill delays, and it was frustrating for him to sit through three 45-minute online sessions, she says.  

“Because of his delays, even following along doing the alphabets, I needed to be there, right next to him, helping him hold his pencil the right way,” Crisp explained. “It seemed just too much for him.”

Now, Crisp pays about $1,100 a month to keep her would-be kindergartner in a private preschool this year.

Her family is part of a pandemic-era trend that Sacramento and many other school districts are experiencing this year: a massive drop in kindergarten enrollment. 

Early data show Sacramento City Unified School District has about 600 fewer kindergartners this year, and about 1,600 fewer kids overall.

Child advocates and school officials fear the enrollment drop and educational disruptions for the young children could widen existing racial achievement gaps, and endanger school financing in the future.

“We’re very concerned about the effects on our district if we continue to see this level of CONTINUE READING: Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools - capradio.org

New Attendance Data to Address Chronic Absenteeism - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

New Attendance Data to Address Chronic Absenteeism - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

California Department of Education Releases New Attendance Data to Help School Districts Address Chronic Absenteeism

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced today that the California Department of Education (CDE) has released, for the first time, statewide absenteeism data that provides information about the types of reasons students are absent. The “absenteeism by reason” (AR) reports available on the CDE Dataquest website offer an extensive statewide view of absenteeism numbers that can assist local educational agencies (LEAs) in their efforts to develop targeted attendance intervention strategies and support.

“Knowing why students are missing school is a crucial step in helping them stay in school,” said Thurmond. “These data add an extra layer of transparency to existing absenteeism information and a level of detail that school districts can utilize as they evaluate the effectiveness of existing attendance plans and compare absenteeism rates with other districts. It also creates an opportunity for school attendance staff throughout the state to collaborate and share best practices on methods to improve attendance, identifying specific actions that can help students and their families overcome attendance barriers.”

The CDE developed the new AR reports based on student absence data submitted and certified by LEAs and independently reporting charter schools through the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS). The catalyst for providing this data came from a recommendation proposed by the State Superintendent’s Improving Data Collection Workgroup that was convened in the summer of 2019. One of the goals for the workgroup was to improve the availability of publicly reported data. Although AR information is annually collected through CALPADS, this critical measure of student attendance has not been reported until now.

The data available in this release include the 2017–18 and 2018–19 academic years. The AR report categories are: excused absences, unexcused absences, absences due to out-of-school suspension, and incomplete independent study absences. Even if a student has excused absences, they are considered chronically absent if they miss 10 percent of the days they were expected to attend school.

The reports provide data disaggregated by race/ethnicity, student groups, grade level, and by academic year. The reports also include filters that allow the data to be viewed along a variety of dimensions, including by school type (charter and non-charter schools), for alternative and traditional schools, for chronically absent and non-chronically absent students, and by gender.

In addition to statewide data, the reports are also available at the district and school levels. Downloadable data files that support many aspects of the new AR reports are also available. To view the AR reports, visit the CDE Dataquest website. Downloadable data files can be found on the CDE Data & Statistics web page.

2018–19 Statewide Absenteeism by Reason Data

Reporting Category	Average Days Absent	Excused Absences	Unexcused Absences	Out-of-School Suspension Absences	Incomplete Independent Study Absences
African American	13.2	38.1%	52.7%	2.6%	6.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native	13.6	45.2%	43.9%	2.0%	8.8%
Asian	6.2	66.3%	31.0%	0.5%	2.2%
Filipino	7.3	64.2%	32.1%	0.6%	3.1%
Hispanic or Latino	10.3	51.1%	42.7%	1.2%	5.0%
Pacific Islander	12.3	49.1%	44.9%	1.2%	4.9%
White	9.1	64.0%	29.4%	1.0%	5.5%
Two or More Races	9.3	58.4%	33.5%	1.3%	6.8%
Not Reported	10.3	50.8%	38.0%	1.2%	9.9%
English Learners	9.7	51.0%	44.0%	1.1%	3.8%
Homeless Youth	14.3	39.8%	50.6%	1.7%	7.9%
Students With Disabilities	12.8	51.9%	41.5%	2.0%	4.6%
Foster Youth	15.3	36.4%	51.0%	4.3%	8.3%
Migrant Youth	8.1	54.3%	41.2%	1.7%	2.8%
Socioeconomically Disadvantaged	10.9	49.1%	43.9%	1.4%	5.6%
Statewide	9.8	54.1%	39.5%	1.2%	5.2%

# # # #

Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

New Attendance Data to Address Chronic Absenteeism - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

Failing grades surge for poor L.A. students amid COVID-19 - Los Angeles Times

Failing grades surge for poor L.A. students amid COVID-19 - Los Angeles Times

Ds and Fs surge, attendance slips among L.A.'s poorest students amid distance learning

Grades of D and F have increased in the Los Angeles Unified School District among middle and high school students in a troubling sign of the toll that distance learning — and the coronavirus crisis — is taking on the children, especially those who are members of low-income families.

The district released a chart Monday indicating that based on 10-week interim assessments, failing grades are increasing across the board, but are surging the most in lower-income communities. Compounding the disturbing trend, students in these same communities, hard hit by the spread of COVID-19, have the lowest attendance.

“The attendance figures and interim assessments don’t reflect the desire or capability of students,” said L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner in remarks recorded for broadcast Monday. “They’re eager to learn and every bit as capable as they were before school facilities closed. But the struggle to cope with COVID-19 and online learning for children and their families is very real.”

The data on grades made another announcement all the more painful, even though school board leaders foreshadowed it last week: Campuses will not reopen for most students before January, the superintendent said. And even that timing could prove doubtful, Beutner said, unless the coronavirus pandemic subsides and unless the state and local agencies offer more guidance and resources.

In the meantime, the district is expanding attempts to reach more students in person, providing instruction for groups of up to three students at a time. All participants, including teachers, will have to take a coronavirus test, even if they’ve had one recently. This gradual growth of in-person services is expected to reach several thousand of the district’s 460,000 K-12 students.

The district also will be speeding up the in-person assessment of students with special needs and will allow sports teams to begin conditioning work — outside with physical distancing and no team drills.

The next two months need to be spent in an all-out effort to get ready for a hoped-for January opening, Beutner said in an interview with The Times and in his broadcast remarks. As part of that effort, Beutner said that L.A. Unified is part of a coalition of seven California school districts calling for “a common standard of health, education and employee practices so schools have a clear path to open in the safest way.”

Some state legislators expressed overlapping concerns in a legislative hearing last week, directing their comments to the governor’s office and state agencies, including CONTINUE READING: Failing grades surge for poor L.A. students amid COVID-19 - Los Angeles Times

How Many Kids are Attending NYC Public Schools? | JD2718

How Many Kids are Attending NYC Public Schools? | JD2718

How Many Kids are Attending NYC Public Schools?

Should be an easy question. How many kids are in school? Turns out, schools have been “open” for a month, and no one seemed to know how many kids were in them.

Open? Well, in this weird blended/staggered way, with most instruction taking place through Zoom. That includes kids who opted to stay home all the time. Kids who come in every other, every third, or every nth day, and receive half, two-thirds, or n-minus-one nths of their instruction remotely. And kids who come to school, go sit in a room, and log onto their classes.

But the mayor and the leaders of my union say schools are open… And certainly the buildings are open. And some staff are reporting.

So how many kids? On any given day? NYC public schools have 1.1 million students. But lots have opted for remote. Those who are coming into school are coming in every 2nd day, or every third day, or less frequently than that. And some who are scheduled to come in stay home on any given day.

Two weeks back I took a guess: CONTINUE READING: How Many Kids are Attending NYC Public Schools? | JD2718

Testimony on Attendance Reporting Bills | Class Size Matters | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

Testimony on Attendance Reporting Bills | Class Size Matters  | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

Testimony on Attendance Reporting Bills

The NYC Council Education and Health Committees held oversight hearings on October 16 on the reopening of schools, as well as two proposed bills to require detailed attendance reporting: Int. 2058 and Int. 2104. Below is my testimony on the issue of class size and how to sharpen these bills to require more precise and disaggregated reporting on the three kinds of instruction students are receiving: in-person face-to-face learning, blended online learning, and full-time remote learning.

The most depressing statistic revealed at the hearings: 77,000 students still don’t have access to devices for remote learning.

The DOE also failed to provide any data on how many students are attending school in-person only to receive instruction on their computers, how many more teachers are needed to staff all three types of programs sufficiently, and/or how many houseless students have logged into any sort of online classes.

The most hopeful finding: Only 0.2% of students and staff randomly tested randomly so far in the public schools have been shown to be positive for COVID-19; more on this here. Dr. Jay Varma, the Senior Advisor for Public Health to the Mayor, also revealed at the hearings that their estimates of the actual current COVID-19 infection rate in NYC is between 0.1-0.7% –rather than the much higher positivity rate which according to the state is 1.3%, and according to the city is 2.17%, which instead reflects how many New Yorkers have tested positive at any one time.

Testimony on Attendance Reporting Bills | Class Size Matters  | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

School Attendance In The COVID Era: What Counts As 'Present'? | 89.3 KPCC

School Attendance In The COVID Era: What Counts As 'Present'? | 89.3 KPCC

School Attendance In The COVID Era: What Counts As 'Present'?

From shiny red pencils reading "My Attendance Rocks!" to countless plaques and ribbons and trophies and certificates and gold stars: For as long as anyone can remember, taking attendance — and rewarding kids for simply showing up — is a time-honored school ritual.

For good reason: Just being there, day in, day out, happens to be one of the most important factors that determines a child's success in school. And average daily head count forms the basis of school funding decisions at the federal, state and local level.

Yet now, like so many other aspects of education, that simple measure — "here" or "absent" — is not so simple anymore. States are having to update their attendance policies to cover the realities of virtual learning. And where school is being held in-person, strict coronavirus health protocols mean students must now stay home at the slightest sign of illness, or to quarantine in case of a potential exposure.

So the emerging questions for educators and parents are: What is the best way to measure whether students are participating in learning? And who will be held responsible for a student who doesn't participate? The student? Their caregiver? The school?

It all adds up to "a paradigm shift," says Hedy Chang,who directs Attendance Works, a national and state level initiative that treats attendance as a key lever to student success. It was Chang's research in the mid-2000s that helped lay the groundwork for the current policy focus on chronic absenteeism. She found that missing more CONTINUE READING: School Attendance In The COVID Era: What Counts As 'Present'? | 89.3 KPCC