Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Attendance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board hears attendance strategy: campus attendance committees, withdrawal interviews and outreach to recapture students
Summary
West Oso ISD trustees reviewed attendance-tracking efforts: campus attendance committees, weekly reports, home-visit outreach, withdrawal interviews and a proposed community coalition to reduce chronic absenteeism and recover students who enroll elsewhere.
The board received a report on attendance efforts and recent trends, including the district’s use of campus attendance committees and efforts to contact families of absent students.
District staff said they generate weekly data reports and distribute color-coded trend information to principals and attendance teams so campuses can focus outreach where absences spike. Staff described routine interventions — phone calls, home visits and attendance contracts — and said the district is using targeted casework to address the causes keeping students from school, such as medical needs, family circumstances or school‑based concerns.
The superintendent and other administrators told the board the district has begun issuing exit/withdrawal interviews when students leave West Oso ISD in order to understand drivers for transfer. Staff said those conversations seek concrete information on why families enrolled elsewhere (for example, moving out of the district versus concerns about programs or instruction) and that the district now uses a withdrawal form to capture reasons in a structured way.
Trustees and staff discussed outreach strategies used previously — including door‑to‑door neighborhood visits and partnerships with community agencies — and suggested organizing a broader coalition of businesses, courts and service providers to reduce midday loitering and to encourage children to remain in school. Trustee comments noted that a seemingly high attendance percentage can mask large per‑day absences in rural parts of the district and that each missed student represents instructional loss and possible funding impact.
Staff said that district attendance (average daily attendance) had recently been running in the low‑to‑mid 90 percent range, and that individual campuses were already using attendance-committee reviews and interventions for students with repeated absences. The board did not take separate action on attendance at the meeting; it approved the campus attendance‑committee membership as a consent item elsewhere on the agenda.
