Chronic Absenteeism INdicator
The Chronic Absenteeism Indicator measures the percentage of students in grades K-8 who have been enrolled at a given school for at least 31 days (and attended at least one day) who missed 10% or more of school days.
Status is measured as the percentage of students who missed 10% or more days of school (unexcused absences, excused absences, out of school suspensions).
Change is measured as the difference in the result between the most recent year of data and the prior year of data. Note that prior to the Fall 2018 release, data were not reported as part of the California School dashboard.
More information
The minimum N size at the school level is 30 students in the current and prior year, however, at the LEA level, the minimum N for foster and homeless students is 15 rather than 30 as is the case for all other groups. Students enrolled in non-public schools, receiving instruction through a home and hospital program, or attending community college full time are not included in the calculations. TK students are included as they are coded the same way as Kindergarten students in CALPADS. Days upon which one or more schools are closed are not included in chronic absenteeism calculations. Only open days are included in the expected attendance days count. A student is counted as 'in attendance' if he/she is present when attendance was taken, regardless of whether the student was present at the school for the entire school day.
Chronic absenteeism of a student is attributed to each school at which the student missed 10% or more of enrolled days. For example, if a student who was enrolled at 3 different schools for 31 days each during the 2017-18 school year and missed 4 days at each, that student would be included in the numerator of chronically absent students at each school. Data for this measure come from end-of-year CALPADS submissions and are separate from average daily attendance (ADA) reporting to the state. Chronic absenteeism rates for students in grades 9-12 were not included because there were already two indicators that capture the impact of missing school at the high school level.
Schools that do not submit chronic absenteeism data in CALPADS in either the prior or current year are assigned an orange performance level. When data are submitted but not certified, the school or LEA cannot receive a performance level above orange.
Status is measured as the percentage of students who missed 10% or more days of school (unexcused absences, excused absences, out of school suspensions).
Change is measured as the difference in the result between the most recent year of data and the prior year of data. Note that prior to the Fall 2018 release, data were not reported as part of the California School dashboard.
More information
The minimum N size at the school level is 30 students in the current and prior year, however, at the LEA level, the minimum N for foster and homeless students is 15 rather than 30 as is the case for all other groups. Students enrolled in non-public schools, receiving instruction through a home and hospital program, or attending community college full time are not included in the calculations. TK students are included as they are coded the same way as Kindergarten students in CALPADS. Days upon which one or more schools are closed are not included in chronic absenteeism calculations. Only open days are included in the expected attendance days count. A student is counted as 'in attendance' if he/she is present when attendance was taken, regardless of whether the student was present at the school for the entire school day.
Chronic absenteeism of a student is attributed to each school at which the student missed 10% or more of enrolled days. For example, if a student who was enrolled at 3 different schools for 31 days each during the 2017-18 school year and missed 4 days at each, that student would be included in the numerator of chronically absent students at each school. Data for this measure come from end-of-year CALPADS submissions and are separate from average daily attendance (ADA) reporting to the state. Chronic absenteeism rates for students in grades 9-12 were not included because there were already two indicators that capture the impact of missing school at the high school level.
Schools that do not submit chronic absenteeism data in CALPADS in either the prior or current year are assigned an orange performance level. When data are submitted but not certified, the school or LEA cannot receive a performance level above orange.
The reference grid for translating status and change results for the Chronic Absenteeism Indicator is below. Click HERE to view all reference grids for all of the measures that go into the California School Dashboard and Oakland Public School Report Cards.
Safety Net Methodology
For Chronic Absenteeism, Graduation Rate, Suspension Rate, the State Board of Education approved the use of what they are calling the safety net methodology to prevent large swings in results for these measures triggered by the results of just a few students. The methodology is applied when the N size is less than 150 students for that measure. What this methodology does is remove the possibility of classification of results into the increased significantly or declined significantly columns from the reference grids. If the change result for a school is an increase of more than 3 percentage points but there are fewer than 150 students who were enrolled for more than 30 days, then their result will be translated to color using the "Increased" change column. Likewise, if the change result for a school is a decrease of more than 3 percentage points but there are fewer than 150 students who were enrolled for more than 30 days, then their result will be translated to color using the "Declined" column (see graphic below).
For Chronic Absenteeism, Graduation Rate, Suspension Rate, the State Board of Education approved the use of what they are calling the safety net methodology to prevent large swings in results for these measures triggered by the results of just a few students. The methodology is applied when the N size is less than 150 students for that measure. What this methodology does is remove the possibility of classification of results into the increased significantly or declined significantly columns from the reference grids. If the change result for a school is an increase of more than 3 percentage points but there are fewer than 150 students who were enrolled for more than 30 days, then their result will be translated to color using the "Increased" change column. Likewise, if the change result for a school is a decrease of more than 3 percentage points but there are fewer than 150 students who were enrolled for more than 30 days, then their result will be translated to color using the "Declined" column (see graphic below).
