Usually labeled as one of many poorest large cities within the nation, San Antonio additionally has a number of the largest power absenteeism charges.
Whereas college attendance charges have marginally improved throughout San Antonio and Texas, in keeping with state reviews launched in December, college districts within the space far exceed the state’s power absenteeism price.
In Texas, a scholar is taken into account chronically absent as soon as they miss 10% or extra of the varsity years, normally 18 days. Throughout the state, 19% of scholars have been chronically absent through the 2023-24 college yr, in keeping with the newest information. The earlier yr, 20.03% of Texas college students have been chronically absent.
In San Antonio, greater than 1 / 4 of scholars have been chronically absent through the 2022-23 cycle, barely bettering to 24.3% through the 2023-24 college yr.
Attendance challenges intensify in District 5
Throughout town, some components of city are worse than others. Metropolis Council District 5, which incorporates the West Aspect and chunks of the city core, has colleges with the most important absenteeism charges in San Antonio.
Colleges with the worst attendance information attend Tafolla and Rhodes center colleges in San Antonio Impartial College District and Brentwood and Gus Garcia center colleges in Edgewood ISD.
In any respect 4 campuses, greater than 50% of scholars have been chronically absent through the 2023-24 college yr.
Councilwoman for District 5 Teri Castillo stated the absenteeism stems from a spread of socioeconomic elements, together with financial instability within the space, lack of entry to well being care and shortage of kid care choices.
“After which, after all, as we all know, transportation, subsequent to housing, is likely one of the high bills for our households,” Castillo stated throughout a November interview with the Report, a month earlier than the state launched its newer absenteeism information.
That’s why Castillo advocates for inexpensive housing, she stated, so households can afford to dwell close to neighborhood colleges, easing each transportation and housing issues.
And most group members could also be leaving their neighborhoods for work and faculty at larger charges than in different components of city, stated Rebeca Canizales, director of technique and applications at Prosper West, a corporation working to foster financial development on the West Aspect.
Most mother and father typically work a number of jobs and irregular hours, working in manufacturing or retail and repair industries.
Canizales additionally pointed to town’s transportation obstacles, extra pronounced on the West Aspect, which has a number of the busiest freeway corridors in San Antonio on high of different bodily obstacles like railroad tracks, bridges and inconveniently situated creeks.
“It makes for very bizarre parcels or items of land the place sidewalks are made very narrowly or very low and near the road — having to cross the road between Commerce or Buena Vista once you’re going north to south is admittedly tough,” she stated.
Metropolis elected leaders don’t have management over San Antonio’s many college districts, typically taking the route of investing in youth programming and workforce initiatives to handle town’s poor schooling outcomes. However native teams, together with trainer unions and youth advocacy teams, have not too long ago been pushing for metropolis and county officers to take a extra energetic function in Okay-12 and public schooling.
A latest survey by Futuro San Antonio, a bunch aiming to mobilize mother and father in schooling, discovered that 55% of oldsters say households are lacking college due to household well being challenges, and 43% blamed transportation obstacles. Futuro surveyed 505 mother and father and caregivers throughout San Antonio final yr.
From Castillo’s perspective on the dais, town might do extra to assist San Antonio’s college districts and tackle absenteeism with out immediately coming into the Okay-12 house. Her concepts embrace advocating for larger wages so mother and father aren’t pressured to work a number of jobs, bettering public transit and political lobbying within the curiosity of native college districts on the state stage.
“I do consider now we have a duty on the subject of our metropolis’s legislative agenda,” Castillo stated. “I’ve gone to testify on the Capitol in opposition to the usage of vouchers, as a result of we do have that duty to face alongside our college board members.”
A few of SAISD’s colleges with the best attendance charges are additionally in District 5, together with Irving Twin Language Academy, with a 95% common each day attendance and a 12% power absenteeism price, a lot decrease than the state common.
Anxiousness over immigration enforcement
Although absenteeism information for the 2024-25 college yr gained’t be made out there till later this yr, a newer problem to attendance in keeping with native officers is the federal authorities’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement below the Trump Administration.
College districts don’t hold information of citizenship or immigration standing of scholars and their households, nevertheless it’s not laborious to parse what’s happening, stated Eduardo Hernández, superintendent for Edgewood ISD.
Edgewood ISD had the most important power absenteeism price in San Antonio for the 2023-24 cycle, with 51.2% of scholars lacking not less than 10% of the varsity yr.
“The immigration situation continues to come back up,” exacerbating psychological well being points and anxieties within the Edgewood group, Hernández stated throughout an interview in December.
Hernández doesn’t ask a couple of household’s standing, however directors have discovered easy methods to learn the indicators: college students discussing ICE amongst themselves and older college students struggling to navigate faculty enrollment processes with out social safety numbers or assist from their households.
“There’s some authorized challenges, if you’ll, that we will counsel college students via,” he stated. “However proper now, there doesn’t appear to be any manner round it.”
Literacy and funding penalties
The 4 campuses with the best absenteeism charges in District 5 — Tafolla, Rhodes, Brentwood and Gus Garcia — are all F-rated colleges, academically “unacceptable” by state requirements.
Transition years, sometimes center college grades and freshman yr of highschool, are inclined to have the worst attendance charges, schooling officers say, which can also be why these colleges sometimes wrestle academically.
Attendance tends to easy out throughout highschool, since credit are based mostly on attendance and grades, whereas youthful college students normally solely want good grades to go from one stage to the subsequent.
An evaluation by native schooling advocacy group Futuro San Antonio discovered that for each 0.5% that power absenteeism goes down, literacy goes up by 1%.
As soon as college students miss two or extra days a month, colleges begin seeing a dip in tutorial efficiency via testing, stated Diane Fernandez, director of enrollment at SAISD.
It doesn’t occur for all youngsters, she stated, nevertheless it does occur for a very good quantity of them.
“I feel mother and father generally simply have to know the affect that it has,” Fernandez stated.
Lacking 18 days of faculty, or a tenth of the standard college yr, over a scholar’s Okay-12 journey provides as much as a full yr of educational time, Fernandez added.
SAISD had the second-largest absenteeism price in San Antonio for the 2023-24 college yr at 37.7%, following solely Edgewood ISD.
In Texas, absenteeism additionally has monetary implications as a result of public college funding is tied to a district’s common each day scholar attendance.
Jennifer Herrera, SAISD director of attendance and commencement safety applications, stated the district missed out on $24 million it will’ve gotten from the state had college students achieved excellent attendance through the 2024-25 college yr.
Resulting from latest modifications in scholar funding on the state stage, SAISD might miss out on much more {dollars} per scholar this yr even when attendance information stay the identical.
At Edgewood ISD, the district tends to realize a further $800,000 for each 1% enhance in attendance.
“You concentrate on what you are able to do with that cash,” Hernández stated. “Every little thing from further personnel assist to rising salaries… We might take a look at further assets for the classroom.”
Housing instability in San Antonio
San Antonio has the second largest homeless inhabitants in Texas.
All college districts are required to offer particular companies for college kids thought-about homeless below the federal McKinney-Vento Act — together with offering transportation for college kids pressured into short-term housing or shelters.
Haven For Hope, a downtown San Antonio group serving town’s homeless inhabitants, has somebody devoted to coordinating with native college districts to attach McKinney-Vento college students with transportation, social companies and different assets in colleges.
Haven’s “hub colleges” are designated for college kids who keep on the downtown shelter in the event that they don’t keep on the college they attended earlier than turning into homeless. They embrace Margil Elementary College, Tafolla Center College and Lanier Excessive College in SAISD.
Persistent absenteeism charges at Haven’s hub colleges vary from 39% to almost 60%. Of the 162 school-aged youngsters quickly homed at Haven, 97 are enrolled at SAISD, stated Ashley Miller, senior supervisor of youth and household enrichment.
“We work actually, actually intently with the faculties, which actually helps with the attendance, as a result of we will form of get forward of it earlier than it turns into power,” Miller stated.
It’s a requirement for school-aged youngsters at Haven to attend college, and there’s incentive applications for households with good attendance.
The excessive absenteeism charges could mirror what occurs after households go away Haven, Miller defined, particularly if a scholar continues bouncing between properties and shelters or enrolls in one other college district with out notifying their first college district.
Doable options
Most districts have interventionists that attain out to folks as soon as a scholar has three absences. If cellphone calls don’t work, campus and district workers comply with up with conferences and emails.
SAISD additionally employs seven retention specialists throughout the district and holds weekly campus attendance committee conferences the place directors, counselors and different assist workers discuss absentee college students, evaluating notes and discussing options.
Edgewood ISD takes related steps, however the district mechanically information truancy prices as quickly as a scholar misses 10% of the varsity yr, Hernández advised the Report.
This yr, SAISD additionally carried out a recognition ceremony for colleges bettering their attendance information each 9 weeks as an added incentive.
“Not solely will we have a good time people who have the best attendance price on the finish of the 9 weeks, however we additionally have a good time people who have demonstrated that have demonstrated essentially the most development,” stated Jennifer Hernandez, who oversees attendance efforts at SAISD.
Since not less than 2015, when Texas largely decriminalized truancy, the Metropolis of San Antonio has deployed some assets to deal with attendance points.
Presently, town’s municipal courtroom has 10 case managers working with 11 San Antonio-area college districts and 4 constitution college networks. Often embedded on college campuses, their aim is mediation between households, college districts and the courtroom earlier than a district information any prison prices in opposition to mother and father for truancy.
“What I might at all times inform the households that I labored with was that my job was to assist them tackle the difficulty and repair attendance to keep away from any additional courtroom of involvement,” stated Katie Kappler, a senior juvenile case supervisor for town.
College districts can file prison prices in opposition to mother and father via town legal professional’s workplace if mediation doesn’t work, however instances like which can be uncommon and the punishment consists of fines.
What the municipal courtroom typically finds, Kappler stated, is that college students aren’t lacking college for no purpose — households who undergo the system are sometimes going through housing points and meals insecurity.
Quickly, town additionally plans to handle one other prong of the difficulty: transportation.
Metropolis Council is contemplating a funding settlement between town and VIA Metropolitan Transit for as much as $150,000 to fund semester bus passes for center and highschool college students as a part of a pilot program to fight power absenteeism. If authorised, the funding might fund passes for greater than 5,000 college students this yr.
Marginal, however optimistic outcomes
Whereas absenteeism charges stay excessive, even 5 years out from the COVID-19 shutdown that threw a wrench in public schooling, college districts are seeing enhancements.
In San Antonio, most college districts noticed power absenteeism charges drop by a number of proportion factors from 2022-23 to 2023-24.
SAISD went from a 40.6% absenteeism price to 37.7%, and Edgewood ISD went from 53.6% to 51.2%. Earlier than 2020, solely about one in 10 of SAISD college students have been chronically absent, stated the district.
Newer projections for 2024-25 and the present 2025-26 cycle are optimistic.
Fernandez stated SAISD ended the 2024-25 college yr with 34% power absenteeism price. The beginning of the present college yr noticed 23% of scholars chronically absent.
Jennifer Hernandez attributes the progress to interdepartmental collaboration inside SAISD and outdoors businesses, just like the municipal courtroom and Haven For Hope.
However the job is nowhere close to performed.
“We’re seeing some positive aspects, however nonetheless plenty of work to do on the attendance aspect,” Hernandez stated. “Attendance and enrollment belong to everybody.”
