Student Level Data by Race Only 10.5 percent of students that meet the definition of truant have truancy petitions on them. This is a decrease from last year when approximately 20 percent of students who met the definition of truant had a petition filed. One striking trend in the data relates students from economically disadvantaged families. When we look at poverty as a subgroup, students who are on free and reduced-priced lunch make up 44.7 percent of the population. However, they account for 62.7 percent of truant youth, and make up 93 percent of all petitions filed. Therefore, low-income students are nearly twice as likely to become involved with the juvenile justice system due to truancy. On average, a truant student misses about 21 days of instruction. Conclusion and Next Steps The original intent of the Truancy Report was to provide information on the relationship between the truant” and truancy petitions as an intervention. OSPI provided “habitual clearer, more defined guidance on the definition of unexcused absences, and more accountability for districts to report the data to OSPI. This encouraged districts to review and redefine attendance policies across the state. The new data analytics that OSPI has released on chronic absenteeism and the intentionality on early intervention, needs assessment and responses to root causes may be contributing factors to not filing truancy petitions. With only one year of student-level data it may be early to draw any conclusions with the 5
Student Level Data by Race Only 10.5 percent of students that meet the definition of truant have truancy petitions on them. This is a decrease from last year when approximately 20 percent of students who met the definition of truant had a petition filed. One striking trend in the data relates students from economically disadvantaged families. When we look at poverty as a subgroup, students who are on free and reduced-priced lunch make up 44.7 percent of the population. However, they account for 62.7 percent of truant youth, and make up 93 percent of all petitions filed. Therefore, low-income students are nearly twice as likely to become involved with the juvenile justice system due to truancy. On average, a truant student misses about 21 days of instruction. Conclusion and Next Steps The original intent of the Truancy Report was to provide information on the relationship between the “habitual truant” and truancy petitions as an intervention. OSPI provided clearer, more defined guidance on the definition of unexcused absences, and more accountability for districts to report the data to OSPI. This encouraged districts to review and redefine attendance policies across the state. The new data analytics that OSPI has released on chronic absenteeism and the intentionality on early intervention, needs assessment and responses to root causes may be contributing factors to not filing truancy petitions. With only one year of student-level data it may be early to draw any conclusions with the 5
UPDATE2017TruancyLegReportADA.docx