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Yakima School District reports early attendance uptick, emphasizes ‘all students, all means all’
Summary
Executive Director Omar Santoy told the board the district’s Skyward daily-average attendance has held near 88% over the last three years and the 2025–26 school year is starting strong at about 93% daily average; Santoy contrasted local Skyward measures with OSPI’s regular-attendance numbers and described classroom strategies to boost engagement.
Executive Director of Student Services Omar Santoy told the Yakima School District Board on Sept. 16 that the district is continuing steady progress on ENDS Goal No. 2 — ensuring “all students empowered, connected, supported, resilient and engaged.” Santoy said the district’s internal Skyward daily-average attendance metric has been a stable, accessible measure — “it does measure every kid, every period,” — and reported that the district has maintained roughly an 88% daily average over the last three years and was starting the 2025–26 year at about 93%.
Santoy noted the difference between the district’s Skyward data and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) regular-attendance metric, which yields a lower figure. He cited the finalized OSPI regular-attendance figure of 65.9% for the 2023–24 school year and said the two series measure attendance in different ways. “When we say all students, all means all,” Santoy said, arguing the district’s data captures each student and every period and is therefore useful for operational monitoring.
Santoy described a dramatic one-day attendance drop to 55.2% on Feb. 3, 2024, tied to a community protest that affected families’ decisions about school attendance, and said staff worked with schools to recover and end the year at the 88% daily-average level. He framed that recovery as evidence of school- and district-level efforts to create welcoming environments and highlighted qualitative practices that support attendance, including positive behavior interventions and school-level professional learning teams.
As an example of a locally driven incentive, Santoy showed a McKinley Elementary program he called a ‘‘March Madness attendance tournament’’ that used friendly competition and district attendance data to increase engagement at the classroom level. Santoy said several schools replicated the approach.
Board members thanked Santoy and asked few follow-up questions. Superintendent Trevor Green and Santoy named Aaron Thomas and assistant director Sean Rominski as leaders overseeing attendance work.
The board was also told the district will lead a strategic-plan refresh that will move from five goals to four and will emphasize student voice; Santoy said student services will have a leadership role in that refresh. The board will receive additional attendance updates later in the school year.
