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Division reports rising chronic absenteeism; board weighs interventions and data cleanup
Summary
Division staff reported elevated chronic absenteeism—Charlottesville High School was cited at 32.68%—and described tiered interventions, automated family notifications and targeted social‑worker caseloads. Board members requested more neighborhood‑level data, counts of student success plans and clarity on outreach.
Charlottesville City Schools staff told the board the division is seeing a post‑COVID increase in chronic absenteeism and described a multi-pronged effort to identify and address the causes.
Ms. Rasnick (attendance lead) told the board that chronic absenteeism is measured across the school year and that early‑year thresholds (10%) are used to identify students at risk. She said the division provides automated daily and chronic‑absence notifications, uses a decision‑tree to prioritize interventions and deploys school mental‑health professionals to serve as tier‑3 interventionists. The presentation said an alarming share of Charlottesville High School students—"32.68 percent of Charlottesville high schoolers have missed 12 or more school days"—are currently over the chronic‑absence threshold.
Rasnick explained the regulatory pathway: unexcused absences trigger attendance conferences (five unexcused absences), referral to a student success team at seven unexcused absences and, for continued noncompliance, possible multidisciplinary review or court referral consistent with state reporting. Excused absences still count toward chronic absenteeism metrics used for accreditation; the presenter said the division is required by state processes to report and, when required, to pursue compliance measures even when absences are excused.
Board members asked for more granular data: how many families and students currently have student success plans, which schools use period‑by‑period attendance (CHS does), and how delays or late buses factor into absentee counts. Rasnick said staff are cleaning the data and reconciling cases where students were marked absent but present; the CHS figure may be refined after that review. She also said flexible in‑person make‑up instruction may become required in some cases rather than optional, to reduce learning loss.
The board directed staff to include additional data points in written reports and to return monthly attendance briefs that track the number of student success plans, intervention outcomes, and any changes in how absences are coded.
