Orange County Schools reports mixed midyear discipline trends; chronic absenteeism at 21%
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Summary
District staff reported midyear discipline and attendance data: Panorama SEL fall response rates were high in grades 4-5 and secondary; in-school suspension incidents rose while out-of-school suspension incidents declined across most demographic subgroups; district chronic absenteeism is at 21% and tiered mental-health supports and new pilots such as "Bounce Back" were highlighted.
Orange County Schools staff presented midyear discipline and attendance findings to the board, describing both progress and continuing gaps in student experience and safety.
Dr. Jessica Dreyer and the district's presentation team summarized results from the fall Panorama social-emotional learning survey and first-semester discipline data. The presentation reported roughly 850 elementary (grades 4-5) survey respondents with an 86.7% response rate and 3,404 responses from secondary students. The district reported a midyear chronic absenteeism rate of 21% and said out-of-school suspension incidents decreased for most demographic subgroups while in-school suspension incidents increased as incidents were counted separately from student counts.
District staff described a tiered support model: Tier 1 (universal supports, classroom restorative practices and SEL lessons), Tier 2 (targeted small groups and school-based mental-health services) and Tier 3 (individualized interventions and MTSS plans for students with repeated out-of-school suspensions). Daniel Kearns Pickett, the district's mental health and SEL coordinator, said the district currently had no students on school-based mental-health wait lists and that new partners such as Daybreak Health and the Gaggle platform are expanding access: "No students are currently on a wait list," he said.
Presenters highlighted a new elementary pilot called "Bounce Back," designed to help younger students build coping skills and resilience after stressful experiences. Staff also described co-located mental-health partnerships and said some referrals were pending due to insurance or consent processing.
Board members pressed for more disaggregated and year-over-year trend data. Trustee Bonnie asked whether absences by Hispanic students might correlate with law-enforcement activity in the community; the presentation team said they are monitoring reasons for absences but that cause-of-absence reporting is sometimes incomplete and they will provide trend comparisons once year-end data are finalized. Trustees asked staff to provide breakdowns of incident types, counts of truancy-court referrals and analyses showing whether suspensions cluster among a small number of students; staff said those counts can be supplied on request.
Next steps noted by staff included continued Panorama administrations (spring), use of survey dashboards at school and classroom levels, additional professional learning, and an OCS attendance week starting Feb. 6 to highlight the importance of daily attendance.