North Wasco board hears data showing regular attendance at 61% and discusses tiered interventions
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
Superintendent and TLA staff presented a data review showing 61% of North Wasco students met the district's "regular attender" threshold (below Oregon's 67%); the board discussed subgroup disparities, possible links to recent federal immigration activity, youth outreach workers and policy options including targeted attendance teams and transportation waivers.
Superintendent Dr. Bernal and TLA Director Alan Ivy told the North Wasco County School District 21 board that only 61% of district students qualified as "regular attenders," defined as present more than 90% of enrolled days, compared with Oregon's average of 67%. The presentation broke the data down by grade and student subgroup and highlighted gaps the district plans to target.
"When students are present consistently, they're able to engage deeply in their learning," Dr. Bernal said while outlining the district's Student Investment Account and its focus on mental health, academic support and equity. Alan Ivy walked trustees through a tiered intervention model (tier 1: universal supports; tier 2: targeted outreach; tier 3: intensive family outreach with youth outreach workers) and a new attendance-tracking tool in the Oregon Data Suite.
Board members heard specific subgroup figures: students with disabilities were attending at roughly 56%; Ever English learners were around 64%; district staff reported American Indian and Alaska Native students had the lowest regular-attender rates. Administrators also said migrant students and Latino/Latinx attendance showed recent declines in 2025 compared with 2024 and 2025, and they flagged a likely correlation with an uptick in federal immigration enforcement activity in the area.
"We are seeing our students attend less during these past few months than they were back in '24 and '25," a staff presenter said, adding the district is investigating root causes rather than assuming parental neglect. Trustees pressed for more household-level anecdotes and data, asking staff to aggregate family-level information (rather than only student-level counts) so root causes can be better identified and addressed.
Board members discussed state law constraints and local policy levers. The board was told Oregon statute requires schools to drop students who fail to attend for 10 consecutive days and have them reenroll, a process that some families appear to avoid by returning on the ninth or tenth day. Trustees noted Oregon lacks the stronger truancy enforcement mechanisms used in some other states and discussed local alternatives such as clearer attendance policies, incentives, and targeted outreach.
Administrators described operational steps already underway: attendance teams in each building, automated ParentSquare messaging for absences, an intervention tracker to monitor and color-code student risk, expanded use of youth outreach workers (YOWs) to coordinate community-level supports, and partnerships with community organizations to address transportation, housing and other non-school barriers.
Trustees asked staff to return with additional analyses and more anecdotal information at future meetings. The board also asked for comparative metrics linking attendance to reading and math outcomes so the public can see the instructional impact of absence, and staff said they will bring literacy data in the January data dive.
What happens next: staff will continue implementing tiered interventions, gather household-level anecdotal data via youth outreach workers, and return to the board with updated attendance and literacy analyses.