Bipartisan bills would kick chronic absenteeism from Oklahoma school evaluations

OKLAHOMA CITY — Grading public schools based on students’ poor attendance has gained bipartisan opposition in the Oklahoma Legislature.

Lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle said they support tracking chronic absenteeism rates, but they called it unfair to penalize schools for it.

Students are considered chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of the school year.

Chronic absenteeism is one of six factors that can impact a school’s A-F grade on the Oklahoma State Report Cards. Federal law requires states to track and report chronic absenteeism rates, and at least 36 states use it while grading school performance.

The head of the Senate Education Committee, Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, proposed replacing chronic absenteeism on state report cards with a climate survey of a school’s students, parents and employees. Under Pugh’s Senate Bill 711, attendance rates could count as a bonus for a school’s A-F grade.

Rep. Ellen Pogemiller, D-Oklahoma City, and Rep. Ronny Johns, R-Ada, filed similar legislation in the House with HB 1131 and HB 1412 to add a school climate survey to state report cards in place of chronic absenteeism. Changing a factor on the report cards requires approval from the U.S. Department of Education.

Pugh and Pogemiller said chronic absenteeism is important to measure, but they agreed student attendance is not something districts entirely control. “Schools aren’t in charge of bringing kids to school. Parents are,” Pogemiller said. “I know that districts across the state are trying their best to address chronic absenteeism and so that still should be a priority, but I don’t think they should be evaluated by it on a metric that’s so prominent on our state report card.”

Chronic absenteeism is worth 10 points on state report cards, the same point value as a high school’s graduation rate, the progress of students learning English as a second language and post-secondary opportunities exposure.

State testing performance, called academic achievement, carries the heaviest weight in a report card score followed by academic growth, which measures how much state test results have improved.

Pugh said it would be more logical for a school’s A-F grade to reflect what students, parents, faculty and staff say about how their school is performing and how it could improve.

He said poor attendance reflects challenges existing in the broader community, and it’s an issue every state is trying to tackle.

“I just feel it’s unfair to hold the school district accountable for something that might be a much bigger macro-level problem than just what’s happening inside the school district,” Pugh said.

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