CUSDWatch: WHY ARE CUSD's TRUANCY RATES SO HIGH COMPARED TO THE STATE AND COUNTY?

I started to look at the Truancy and absentee rates for Tesoro- to see if grading of the Toll Road without the required protective barrier was resulting in higher absentee rates. I was astonished to see how high truancy rates are in CUSD. 

Truancy in CUSD High Schools does not appear to be the result of bad behavior- suspensions or expulsions. It must be for "other reasons". Increased absenteeism. I through this chart on to Facebook and asked for thoughts on why CUSD High School Truancy is so high, especially at Tesoro High School.

I asked if it was increased illness due to fugitive dust from road construction?

Increased illness due to the lack of facilities maintenance? 

Tesoro parents said that parking is so difficult that when kids can't find a spot, they give up and skip school.

April 27, 2016 BOT Meeting Agenda Item #21 Exhibit #21 page 325: School Dude and Planned Maintenance

Board Audio at 2:43:30 HVAC Issues  

• CUSD needs $12.5 million to put air conditioning in facilities that currently have no air.
• CUSD needs $10 million to repair roofs. 
• CUSD has replaced 53 HVAC systems this year 2015-16
• The rest of the HVACs are past their lifespan (over 15 years). No funds and no staff to band-aid fix all these, should they all go out at once. CUSD installed fans at Pallisades and Concordia but it causes power outages. 

Definition of a Truant

The California Legislature defined a truant in very precise language. In summary, it states that a student missing more than 30 minutes of instruction without an excuse three times during the school year must be classified as a truant and reported to the proper school authority. This classification and referral helps emphasize the importance of school attendance and is intended to help minimize interference with instruction. Effective January 1, 2013, the law was amended to authorize school administrators to excuse school absences due to the pupil’s circumstances, even if the excuse is not one of the valid excuses listed in the California Education Code (EC) or the uniform standards established by the governing board of the district. The EC section that defines a truant reads as follows:

EC Section 48260 (a) A pupil subject to compulsory full-time education or to compulsory continuation education who is absent from school without a valid excuse three full days in one school year or tardy or absent for more than a 30-minute period during the school day without a valid excuse on three occasions in one school year, or any combination thereof, shall be classified as a truant and shall be reported to the attendance supervisor or to the superintendent of the school district.
(b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), it is the intent of the Legislature that school districts shall not change the method of attendance accounting provided for in existing law and shall not be required to employ period-by-period attendance accounting.
(c) For purposes of this article, a valid excuse includes, but is not limited to, the reasons for which a pupil shall be excused from school pursuant to Sections 48205 and 48225.5 and may include other reasons that are within the discretion of school administrators and, based on the facts of the pupil's circumstances, are deemed to constitute a valid excuse.

Definition of a Chronic Truant

Effective January 1, 2011, EC Section 48263.6: Any pupil subject to compulsory full-time education or to compulsory continuation education who is absent from school without a valid excuse for ten percent or more of the school days in one school year, from the date of enrollment to the current date, is deemed a chronic truant, provided that the appropriate school district officer or employee has complied with EC sections 48260, 48260.5, 48261, 48262, 48263, and 48291.

Viewing this Report

This report is compiled using aggregate truancy data reported to the California Basic Educational Data System (CBEDS) and student-level enrollment data reported to the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS). The student-level enrollment data enables a determination of cumulative enrollment used in the calculation of Truancy Rates. Census enrollment is also provided for context.

The "Census Enrollment" count provides the total unique or unduplicated number of primary enrollments on the CALPADS Fall 1 Census Day, which is the first Wednesday in October of the associated academic year.

The "Cumulative Enrollment" count provides the total number of unique or unduplicated primary, secondary, and short-term enrollments within the academic year (July 1 to June 30), regardless of whether the student is enrolled multiple times within a school or district. Cumulative enrollment counts are calculated separately at the school, district and state-levels for the purpose of generating suspension, expulsion and truancy rate reports at these levels. For example, a student who is enrolled in two schools within the same district during the academic year, will be counted in each of the school’s cumulative enrollment, but only once in the district’s cumulative enrollment count. For this reason, adding the cumulative enrollment of all schools within a district will not equal the district’s cumulative enrollment listed at the bottom of the district-level rate report

 Source DataQuest: http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/

Aliso Viejo High School

2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16

Capistrano Valley High School Truancy

2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16

Dana Hills High School Truancy

2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16

San Clemente High School Truancy

2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16

San Juan Hills High School Truancy

2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16

Tesoro High School Truancy Increase in Truancy Rate 14.69

2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16

County and State

2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16

Capistrano Unified Expulsions and Suspensions are Declining

2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 Data Not Available Yet