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El Paso ISD board delays decision on 90% attendance exemption, asks administration for fuller recommendation by Jan. 20
Summary
Administration will return to trustees with a fuller recommendation on whether to keep the District of Innovation exemption to the 90% attendance rule after trustees voted to extend the review deadline to Jan. 20, 2026 to allow more stakeholder input and additional data analysis.
El Paso Independent School District trustees voted Nov. 18 to push back a board deadline and asked administration to return with a fuller recommendation by Jan. 20, 2026 on whether to keep the district’s District of Innovation exemption to the Texas 90% attendance rule.
Maribel Macias, chief organizational transformation and innovation officer, told trustees the exemption — adopted in EPISD’s DOI plan in 2016 and renewed in 2021 — lets the district award course credit based on content mastery even when a student does not meet the 90% attendance threshold. Macias said an internal committee of 20 stakeholders has reviewed 10 years of attendance data, correlations between attendance and passing rates, credit‑loss incentives, and procedures meant to ensure absences for athletics and fine‑arts are coded as approved events.
“We started looking at whether students with low attendance who are still passing are improving their attendance when loss of credit is applied,” Macias said. She described mixed findings: some passing students increased attendance modestly after credit‑loss policies, while chronically absent and low‑performing students did not consistently improve.
Trustees pressed administrators on the exemption’s original intent — to enable hands‑on learning opportunities and internships without penalizing content mastery — and noted the data presented suggests some students who miss class are performing worse, not better. Trustee Leverage asked whether EPISD had consulted similarly sized districts; Macias said the team has compiled comparative data and will reach out directly if needed.
Because the district’s recommendation was still pending advisory‑committee feedback and additional data requests from trustees, the board voted unanimously to extend the report date to Jan. 20, 2026. The motion, carried 7–0, gives staff more time to include mastery measures and final committee recommendations before the board decides whether to keep, revoke or reword the DOI attendance exemption.
