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Colson asks staff to gather data on how attendance and grading policies affect student learning
Summary
Representative Colson asked the committee to collect and analyze data from major LEAs to see whether attendance and grading rules together allow students to miss significant instruction and whether that correlates with lower proficiency and graduation outcomes.
Representative Colson asked the College, Career and Life Readiness Committee on Wednesday to collect data before pursuing changes to attendance or grading rules, saying the interaction of two existing policies may unintentionally let students miss substantial instruction.
"Students can miss up to four days without providing a note. On the fifth day, they are required to provide a note," Colson said, noting that repeated excused absences combined with a grading rule that allows make-up work up to the day before grades are due can mean students do not receive full instructional benefit. She argued the committee should first examine proficiency and grade outcomes for students with repeated excused absences.
Colson framed the request as fact-finding rather than punitive: she asked staff to gather data on secondary students and suggested beginning with District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and the city's largest charter LEAs to see whether the pattern exists across school types. Committee staff (Haley) said she would draft a data request aligned with standard practice and identify which metrics are held by OSSE versus individual LEAs.
Representative Thompson and others raised the need to include charter LEAs in the inquiry and cautioned that charter attendance policies can vary; members proposed focusing first on the largest LEAs (DCPS, KIPP and Friendship) to create a representative picture before expanding the request. Committee members also discussed which datasets OSSE tracks (attendance) versus what LEAs may hold (course grades and assessment-level performance).
The committee did not vote on a policy change. Instead members directed staff to draft the data request identifying: the LEAs to include, the grade bands (the group discussed focusing on secondary students), and which agency houses each data element. Haley said she would circulate a draft to Representative Colson for review before wider distribution to the board.
Next steps: staff will draft and circulate the data-request letter for review; the committee plans to revisit the topic at a future working session to review the data and any staff analysis.
