Notices, home visits and stern calls. Then court dates and, in some cases, hefty fines. All of this piled onto the lengthy list of stressors for thousands of Allegheny County families in the 2020-21 school year. Why?

Missing school repeatedly.

All in all, more than 4,400 truancy cases were filed in Allegheny Courts against students and their parents in 2020 and the first half of 2021.

The cited students were spread across Pittsburgh Public Schools (the second largest district in the state) and 42 other school districts in the county, some of which held classes virtually, some in person and others a hybrid due to COVID-19.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, schools continued to enforce “compulsory attendance” laws that require families to ensure students attend school or potentially face punishment for unexcused absences. During remote learning, parents often had to ensure their child showed up to class by logging them on or trusting them to do it themselves.“There were a lot of kids that, frankly, no one saw for the last 18 months.”

Districts across Allegheny County took different approaches to what counted as attendance and when to refer kids or their parents to court for truancy. Pittsburgh Public Schools, for example, said it needed to double down on efforts to contact and engage missing students, but still referred those with continued absences to court. In contrast, the more affluent North Allegheny School District, focused on flexibility around attendance and overall didn’t note significant problems with attendance. Their student populations are drastically different, with roughly 21,000 in the Pittsburgh district and 8,500 in North Allegheny.

Advocates have been encouraging less punitive responses as enforcement of truancy laws in some cases exacerbated burdens for families already struggling in the pandemic.

Some experts have called for a reform to truancy mandates to discourage court citations. They also see the current school year as an opportunity for schools and policy makers to rethink school response to truancy and absenteeism and how policies could be unfairly punishing or criminalizing students.

To understand the impact on local families, PublicSource requested truancy case data from the Pennsylvania court system for cases filed with magistrate judges in Allegheny County between January 2017 and June 2021. The court only provided aggregate annual numbers, making direct comparisons to school-year data provided by some districts impossible.

The court reported 11,708 truancy cases in Allegheny County between 2018 and June 2021.

The court data showed 578 truancy cases in 2017, a deviation from the other data PublicSource received. Neither the court nor other sources provided more insight into the data, so it is not included in overall calculations.

Due to privacy protections, details about the students or their guardians, including the fines and fees they were faced with, were available in fewer than 20% of the cases.

While the public information is often scant, the court data revealed the following details:

• In 2020, 2,596 truancy cases were filed in local magisterial courts, down about 22% from 2019. School districts stopped truancy referrals for the rest of the school year following the March 2020 shutdown.
• Between January and June 2021, 1,814 cases were filed — nearly 70% of total 2020 levels and 55% of total 2019 levels. 
• 88% of 2,028 cases filed between January 2017 and June 2021 with a gender listed were filed against a mother, female caregiver or female student.
• Of the 599 cases between January 2017 and June 2021 with a fine amount listed, the charges ranged from $4 to $778.

The true costs of truancy cases

Growing research suggests court involvement and punitive responses to truancy don’t fix attendance issues. In some cases, they can make it worse.

Disparities are notable. Some parents walk away from truancy cases with zero fines and fees. Others rack up court costs, sometimes for hundreds of dollars, and cases can extend months or across an entire school year.

But the cost of absence and truancy for a student is more than court fines.

Each year, an estimated 5 million to 7.5 million U.S. students miss nearly a month of school.

Students with more absences oftentimes have lower scores on national standardized tests, a 2014 analysis of national testing data showed. Students with more absences are more often low-income students and often have skill levels one to two years below their peers.

School staff and social workers, social service providers and researchers interviewed by PublicSource agreed that more kids and families needed help with attendance issues and resources in the pandemic than years past. While attendance challenges always existed, the shift to virtual learning environments exacerbated existent issues.Related story: Do PA schools have to send kids to court for unexcused absences? Read about 4 debunked truancy myths

Attendance data collection: a piecemeal approach

The collection of attendance data dropped sharply in early 2020. Just 27% of districts nationwide took attendance when school buildings closed and classroom instruction first shifted to being offered remotely.

By January 2021, the District of Columbia and 31 states (including Pennsylvania) required attendance to be taken again. Researchers say the inconsistent attendance records — and variation in what it means to “attend” — can make it difficult to measure how much instructional time a student misses and make comparisons district to district.

At the same time, schools grappled with how to account for students showing up to class — or not — in varying environments and amid unique hardships.

“A lot of states left a lot up to local control, which meant that one district could be doing it one way and another district could be doing it another way,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a national attendance research and advocacy organization. “[Attendance] used to be this pretty widely understood metric. Everyone kind of took it the same way. And then once you went to remote instruction, that really got lost in general across the country.”

North Allegheny created new attendance codes to reflect and account for the changing circumstances affecting absence in hybrid learning. They included codes for quarantining or being in remote learning with COVID symptoms. But with new codes and so many unique situations for non-attendance, it was difficult to track how attendance compared to years past, said Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Joe Sciullo, who at the time was director of student services.

In that role, he led the district’s COVID response effort including monitoring attendance and participation online and offline. Truancy isn’t typically a concern for the district, he said. The school resource officers do home checks, hold meetings and facilitate other interventions, such as creating a plan with families.

North Allegheny reported 769 cases of truancy (more than six unexcused absences) to the state for the 2020-21 school year. This number doesn’t reflect how many students were referred to court by the district.Related story: Pittsburgh Public Schools sent nearly 1,000 students to truancy court during COVID

A critical time for reengagement

Some kids completely disengaged with the move online and weren’t participating during the pandemic. Other students, now back in buildings, have made significant transitions.

“There were a lot of kids that, frankly, no one saw for the last 18 months,” said Bridget Clement, executive director for Communities in Schools Pittsburgh & Allegheny County (CISPAC), a dropout prevention program. She and her staff often visited student homes to deliver food, technology and other needs.

Students are referred to CISPAC by school staff, to improve attendance and set goals for behavior, course performance and attendance.

While device access and internet connection might not be as widespread of a barrier this fall, some pandemic-born issues remain, including housing instability and mental health needs. And the new school year brought barriers such as bus transportation shortages and anxiety about being in school buildings.

University of Pennsylvania Associate Professor Michael Gottfried noted that re-engagement may prove difficult but critical for some kids who prefer virtual learning because it’s a safer space or they can balance school with jobs to support families.

Truancy experts and advocates have called on local and state leaders to reevaluate attendance policies for how they may be disproportionately impacting students as districts try to move forward from the pandemic.

In the summer, behavioral health liaison Cara Kelly and her colleagues who work with local school districts through the University of Pittsburgh’s MAPS program were constantly pondering what this upcoming school year would look like. They collectively worried about a potential uptick in truancy because many students who either didn’t show up during virtual learning or had sporadically attendance would now be required to be in classes five days a week.

Kelly said the early school months are an “adjustment period and a re-engagement period that is going to be crucial.”

TyLisa C. Johnson covers education for PublicSource. She can be reached at tylisa@publicsource.org or on Twitter at @tylisawrites.

This story was produced as part of TyLisa C. Johnson’s participation in the Education Writers Association’s New to the Beat program.

The post Unexcused: Truancy cases continued for thousands of Allegheny County students and their families amid pandemic appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Too many unexcused absences from school can land parents, or a student if they’re legally an adult, in court. Under state truancy laws, a Pennsylvania student who accumulates three or more unexcused absences in a single school year is considered “truant.” In the worst cases, truancy can lead to hundreds of dollars in fines or years of court involvement. Advocates say truancy is another way students can end up in the school-to-prison pipeline.

Each year, thousands of Allegheny County families receive letters in the mail summoning them to court because a student has racked up too many unexcused absences. A PublicSource investigation found that 952 Pittsburgh Public Schools students were referred to the courts in the first pandemic school year. Nearly 2,000 cases were filed in Allegheny County courts between January and June 2021.

Advocates and truancy experts encourage school districts to avoid court involvement or punitive responses to truancy, highlighting research that shows it is not effective. Lawmakers and state leaders have urged districts to only use prosecution for truancy as a last resort. Even as state lawmakers, researchers, local leaders and truancy experts urged for further leniency in the 2020-21 school year, students were still sent to court. In the new school year, some have raised concerns about potential rises in truancy and absenteeism as students adjust to the routine of being back in buildings amid COVID. 

Truancy has many layers. Here, you will find information that bursts four common myths about truancy in Pennsylvania:

Myth: Schools are required to refer all truant kids to court.

While yes, Pennsylvania school districts have the option to file a truancy citation with the courts, researchers, public officials and advocates agree taking families to court is not mandatory — and it’s often the wrong way to go. “It is an option to refer a family for truancy court. It is not a requirement,” said Hetal Dhagat, a Pittsburgh-based lawyer with the Education Law Center.

State guidance urges schools to support families through interventions, instead of sending them to court. Following 2016 revisions to truancy laws, the state said that schools should exercise caution and reason. The state also maintains that prosecuting for truancy should only be used when other, less punitive measures, like an attendance improvement plan, have been unsuccessful.

Growing research suggests that punitive responses to absenteeism such as court involvement for truancy don’t curb absence or improve educational outcomes, and in some cases, they worsened outcomes.

Myth: Chronic absence and truancy only impact high schoolers.

Lower grades and other impacts of truancy and chronic absence can be more visible for older students. Still, research shows absenteeism in young students, especially those from low-income households, can transform into poor education outcomes. Chronic absence in early school years is correlated with reading difficulty and poor attendance in later years. 

“We see the highest absences in kindergarten of all years of elementary school,” said Researcher Michael Gottfried, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “Those rates aren’t as high again until kids are in middle school, so this is definitely something that’s affecting young kids as well.”

A child who is chronically absent in kindergarten is less likely to read proficiently in third grade. Monitoring absenteeism in kindergarten can be an effective strategy for finding and tackling educational and familial issues before attendance becomes a more challenging issue.

“Being absent leads to disengagement,” Gottfried said. “Being absent alienates you from school. It makes you less prepared for after high school.”

Myth: Parents, guardians or students can’t dispute truancy cases.

Parents, guardians or students have multiple chances to show evidence or explain why a student is struggling with attendance or has valid reasons for missing school, both before and in court. When initially cited as truant, parents and students can show evidence that absences were justified, such as a religious holiday or tutoring, or push for the school to develop a school attendance improvement plan and advocate for supports and services to address attendance barriers. If parents end up before a judge, they can still bring proof such as doctor’s notes, correspondence with school staff or other items that show they took “every reasonable step” to ensure the student’s attendance. Students and families can also appeal fines and other court orders.

Myth: There’s little connection between truancy, race and the school-to-prison pipeline.

Black and Brown students may be significantly more likely to be deemed truant than their white peers. Research points to racial and ethnic disparities in disciplinary responses to absenteeism.

School absenteeism policies, which dictate when a student is absent or present, may be a driving force for minority students being overrepresented in the juvenile court system. Highly discretionary policies around excused and unexcused absences lead to racial disparities in whose absences are more likely to be designated unexcused. A 2021 study found that on average, Native American and Black students were more likely to have absences defined as unexcused. Black students were nearly three times more likely than white students to be petitioned to juvenile court for truancy. The increased possibility of court involvement and the detrimental impacts on academic outcomes for students and their life post-high school both point to a connection between truancy and the school-to-prison pipeline.

Need more facts?

We’ll walk you through it another way.

What is truancy anyway? 

When a Pennsylvania student earns three unexcused absences in a school year, they become “truant.” An attendance officer or the superintendent is required legally to give written notice to parents or guardians. After being notified, parents have three school days to ensure a student is back in class before the school may take further action. A student becomes habitually truant after six or more unexcused absences. 

How is that different from chronic absence?

Chronic absence is generally missing 10% or more of school days, excused or unexcused. Truancy and chronic absence, while sometimes used interchangeably, express different aspects of absenteeism. 

Attendance Works, a national attendance research organization, says fixing truancy often becomes a question of ensuring compliance with rules, which can create run-ins with the legal system. Truancy relies on punitive consequences, while chronic absenteeism focuses on the academic consequences that come with lost learning time. Chronic absence often receives a more compassionate approach, recognizing the barriers such as homelessness or transportation that create absenteeism but don’t call for punitive response.

How can a school district respond to truancy? 

School districts have options. 

They can file a truancy citation with the local magisterial district judge, and a truancy hearing will be scheduled.

But while that’s a possibility, they don’t have to. 

When a student becomes truant, the school must notify guardians. At six or more unexcused absences, when a student is habitually truant, children younger than 15 must be referred to either a school- or community-based attendance improvement program, or the county’s children and youth services agency. For habitually truant students ages 15 and older, the school is required to refer the student to an attendance improvement program, refer the student to the county’s children and youth agency or file a citation. 

If a student refuses the program, the school can refer the student to the county’s children and youth agency.

Districts are mandated to convene a School Attendance Improvement Conference (SAIC) with the child, the guardian or parent, school staff and community service providers to identify barriers to attendance and make an improvement plan to get the student back on track.

Justice advocates and the Pennsylvania Department of Education urge alternatives to court to help families to address barriers to attendance, such as transportation. 

TyLisa C. Johnson covers education for PublicSource. She can be reached at tylisa@publicsource.org or on Twitter at @tylisawrites.

The post Unexcused: Do PA schools have to send kids to court for truancy? 4 debunked myths appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Last fall, the 21,000 students in Pittsburgh Public Schools faced back-to-back challenges while settling into a year of remote learning.

Instead of attending musicals or homecoming football games, students and families faced the real-world impacts of a national shutdown. As families searched for stability, students struggled to get and stay connected to online classrooms. And they had other priorities to juggle: new jobs to help their parents, mental health needs, caring for siblings or finding necessities like housing and food. Some new barriers made it difficult or impossible to show up to school.

Despite mounting barriers to virtual attendance, truancy citations summoned families and students to court, even as state lawmakers, researchers, local leaders and truancy experts urged for leniency.

Pittsburgh Public Schools [PPS] briefly paused truancy citations after buildings shut due to COVID but referred 952 students to court for truancy in the 2020-21 school year, according to data provided by the school district in response to a Right-to-Know request. This number does not reflect if a student was referred multiple times, which can and does happen when unexcused absences don’t stop.

Advocates note that truancy cases disproportionately involve students of color and those with disabilities. But the district said it doesn’t keep records of truancy citations broken down by race, gender or disability status, nor could it generate the records. The district isn’t required by law to track citations by group.

Parents and community members, along with PPS Board Member Pam Harbin, have raised concerns about a potential increase in absenteeism and truancy this school year because of the transition back to in-person learning, ongoing transportation woes and a controversial shift to earlier start times for high school students.

PPS says it worked to ensure schools were exhausting every effort to connect with families and address root causes of attendance barriers without court involvement, but in some cases, a court referral was the only way to engage a family.

Advocates dispute this, noting that the district has a responsibility to support students without sending them or their families to court. Getting them back to class, especially after lengthy remote learning, is critical.

Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, said schools will need to pay special attention to keeping students who are in transition grades (e.g. graduated from 8th grade and entering high school). Kids facing transitions could more easily drop off or face additional barriers as they change school environments.

“Transitions are really tricky and critical,” Balfanz said. “This year, schools are going to face kids with double transitions.”

What is truancy?

A Pennsylvania student becomes “truant” after three or more unexcused school day absences in a single year, and “habitually truant” after six.

The district’s 2020-21 code of conduct says the district notifies guardians after three unexcused absences. If absences continue, the district hosts a school attendance improvement conference (SAIC) and invites parents to create a plan to address causes of the absences and stop them. Further absence can then lead to a court citation.

Schools have the option to file a citation in court, but they don’t have to. Instead, they can also refer students to a school-based or community-based attendance improvement program, such as Focus on Attendance.

Once in court, penalties for truancy are up to the magistrate judge and include fines, community service or an approved program.

The citations are filed against a guardian in the case of minor students.

Last year, one Pittsburgh mom had five truancy cases filed with the courts between Oct. 1 and Oct. 23, court records show. She was found guilty in the truancy case in November 2020 and made nine payments to the courts totaling nearly $1,400.

Days before last Thanksgiving, a truancy case was filed against a 39-year-old mother. When all was said and done, in March 2021, she owed the court $100.

A few weeks later, just before Christmas, a truancy case was filed against a 29-year-old Pittsburgh mom. She pleaded not guilty. But when the guilty verdict was handed down, she owed more than $300 in court fees and costs.

Growing research shows good attendance is a key predictor and indicator of academic success. In 2014, the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy connected high rates of absenteeism in PPS high schools with dismal academic performance and outcomes. The research showed below-average scores on standardized tests and less proficiency in English and math when compared to neighboring districts. An October study by the group found many of the district’s schools have shown little or no improvement in absenteeism rates since 2014.

When a student is 18 or older, the truancy case is filed in their name. When they become court-involved, the impacts on their education and life can be dire. Experts say truancy cases can lead to further disengagement from school or repeated court involvement later in life. Because students of color and those from low-income backgrounds are more likely to be considered truant than their white peers due to bias, the effects are disproportionate. 

“Being absent alienates you from school, it makes you less prepared for after high school,” said Michael Gottfried, chair of the education policy division at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Varying approaches to truancy

It’s common for Pioneer Center staff to keep in daily contact with parents of their medically fragile students, so when they went days without hearing from students or families last fall, they grew concerned and jumped to action.

Pioneer Principal David Lott spent many days last school year alongside his social worker, knocking on doors of homes to track down kids who weren’t logging on to virtual school. The students faced technology barriers as well as needs for adaptive equipment, such as larger screens and keyboards or touch screen computers.

“We were trying to do as much as we possibly can to get the kids and students online as often as possible, participating as much as possible and being with the other students,” Lott said.

Still, some students didn’t show up online. Despite the school leaders’ efforts and viewing a court referral as the last resort, Pioneer Center ultimately referred 11 of 62 students (or their guardians) to court for truancy.

The occurrence of truancy and how it is addressed varies across the district schools. There are schools with no court referrals year-over-year and those where it is much more common.

Milliones 6-12, Carrick High School and Spring Hill K-5 all referred 15% or more of their student populations to court in the 2020-21 school year. Each school referred more unique students than it did in 2019-20. Small student populations at some of the schools like Pioneer can lead to higher percentages compared to larger schools that refer more students. The two schools that referred the highest numbers of students are Allderice High School (136, 9.5%) and Carrick High School (102, 15.45%).

Five district schools maintained zero truancy referrals year over year: Whittier K‐5, Montessori PreK‐5, Linden K‐5, Dilworth PreK‐5 and City Connections.

Experts in absenteeism and truancy who reviewed the data said the district’s overall 952 court referrals reflects a lack of leniency and underscores the need to shift from punishments for truancy to more restorative reinforcements. Growing research suggests that a punitive response to attendance doesn’t help to improve attendance or educational outcomes — and can sometimes lead to worse attendance.

Pittsburgh was a microcosm of a larger trend. Reports nationwide emerged throughout the pandemic of truancy cases piling extra burden on families.

The district’s challenge

District leadership described a balancing act when it comes to addressing truancy. They need to reach out to address attendance barriers. They need to show families grace during COVID. And, they need to take action when a student continues to be absent after less punitive efforts are exhausted.

Rodney Necciai, PPS assistant superintendent of student support services, highlighted that court referrals for truancy are down from the last full in-person school year. In 2018-19, the district referred 1,035 students, down to 756 in 2019-20, though the district stopped referrals after March 13. They resumed in 2020-21, with 952 students referred for truancy.

The pandemic referrals, Necciai said, can be partially explained by disrupted outreach processes, as many of the traditional ways to connect with families were lost under COVID restrictions and fears about gathering, even in small settings.

In internal conversations early in the 2020-21 school year, Necciai said district leaders told staff to be sure to exhaust preemptive, non-punitive efforts to address attendance barriers. Principals, teachers and counselors worked with families on an individual basis to address needs. Some students needed daycare resources to help care for younger siblings, Necciai said; others needed to be connected to food or housing resources.

When all preventative measures have been exhausted or the district isn’t able to engage a family enough, at some point, the magistrate is an option, Necciai said — “the very last option.”

“And I think it is. But I think we can do better by ... having a lot more tools in our belt on the front end of things.”

Reports first emerged in the spring that parents and students were receiving truancy notices.

“It is punitive,” Necciai said, “and you don't want to ever have to do that, but sometimes that brings a different weight to the conversation, I think, in terms of what we need to do to ensure that people are motivated to be engaged.”

A ‘go to school or else’ approach

Samantha Murphy and her colleagues at the county’s Department of Human Services [DHS] have a front-row seat to truancy hearings. They meet with families and sit in courtrooms to listen to cases.

“Parents love their kids, they want them to be successful. But there's a whole bunch of stuff in the way sometimes,” Murphy said.

“And so going at somebody with this 'go to school or else' mindset isn't positive engagement, right? It doesn't help you understand what's going on or what needs to resolve to get this kid to school. We feel like we've been offering an alternative.”

Tinisha Hunt and her colleagues at Macedonia Family and Community Enrichment Center have been seeing all kinds of families needing help with attendance barriers and accessing basic necessities.

Last year, Murphy saw more local school districts raising their hands for help with tracking students down, engaging families and managing attendance challenges. And families had many needs: in-home supports such as creating morning plans, teaching how to use technology, conflict solving or connections to resources.

Focus on Attendance [FOA] brings together the county’s DHS, the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, the court system and local schools to curb truancy by addressing attendance barriers without court involvement. Murphy said truancy legislation in Pennsylvania can create the perception that someone needs to be punished when a kid misses too much school. Working with FOA for a decade has taught her otherwise.

“I don’t think there’s a magic pill here,” Murphy said about improving attendance. “Except for positive relationships and positive engagement starting as early as you can.”

What experts say

When Pennsylvania truancy laws were revised in 2016, lawmakers noted that prosecuting for truancy should only be used when less punitive responses fail. The PPS code of conduct says schools will provide interventions and supports before disciplinary consequences.

Experts and advocates who reviewed the district’s truancy referral data say it underscores a fundamental problem in systems that respond punitively to absence.

Maria Searcy, who worked in the district as a member of the PPS Equity Advisory Panel, knows multiple students who struggled to get or stay connected during virtual learning due to technology issues and new life circumstances.

“Why would truancy even be an issue? Why would you be referring kids to pay fines when the system is so broken that kids couldn’t even get signed on?” Searcy said.

Others echoed her thoughts.

Ghadah Makoshi, a restorative justice advocate with the ACLU Pennsylvania, said she’s not surprised by the numbers considering how many stories she heard from parents receiving letters in the mail beckoning them to court. She also said the data may point to varying responses by teachers and principals created by a lack of more direct guidelines.

“PPS is a large district. And if there aren't guidelines, some minimum things that all schools have to follow, then it varies not just from school to school, but often from teacher to teacher, so there needs to be some basic guidelines,” Makoshi said. “And it's not like implicit bias doesn't play a role in these decisions, too.”

With 54 schools, each with their own culture, Necciai said he doesn’t know for certain that each school used truancy referrals as a last resort. But, he said, schools were encouraged to and provided a list of ways to respond to unexcused absences that don’t involve the courts.

Attendance-focused advocacy organizations, including the San Francisco-based Attendance Works, have pushed for legislative changes to truancy laws that remove punitive responses to absenteeism. And both state guidance and truancy experts say schools should get involved early on when students are absent to address root causes to missing school.

The state encouraged schools to measure remote attendance based on access to learning and completion of school work, but truancy-specific guidance mostly leaves decisions up to school districts.

What gets counted as excused versus unexcused absence is “incredibly biased,” said Attendance Works Executive Director Hedy Chang.

If there’s bias behind who receives an “unexcused” absence, and those absences are triggers for court involvement, “then you have a double whammy,” Chang said.

Gottfried added: “If some schools are more stringent or have stronger policies, then students in that school might be punished more severely. And we might be concerned about students from racial ethnic backgrounds or students from low-income backgrounds being punished more harshly because the principals in those schools have the discretion to say three truant absences and you're out.”

Gottfried said the data should compel policymakers to ask how these absence policies could be unfairly punishing students.

“If we don't have a policy that affects everyone equally, then that's a problem,” Gottfried said.

When Gottfried looks at the referral data, he’s surprised. His mind flashes through images from a year ago of students in other districts sitting on sidewalk curbs with laptops trying to connect to wifi in a McDonald’s or Starbucks to attend virtual classes.

For him, the data raised questions about how schools accounted for the unexcused absences specifically caused by the pandemic and how many students cited as truant from years past are still disengaged.

“Truancy in the pandemic didn’t mean the same as truancy in normal times.”

ABOUT THE DATA

PublicSource filed Right-to-Know Law requests with Pittsburgh Public Schools and the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts to learn about truancy referrals in recent years. Here are a few important details to know:

• Unique student referral numbers do not reflect if a student was referred multiple times.
• Unique student referral data for 2019-2020 was collected through March 13, 2020.
• Referral rates reflect the number of unique students referred at each school based on the 2020 school enrollment filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
• The district does not collect records of truancy referrals by group, such as race, gender or disability status, nor could it produce the records when requested. It is not legally required to collect referrals by group or status.

TyLisa C. Johnson covers education for PublicSource. She can be reached at tylisa@publicsource.org or on Twitter at @tylisawrites.

This story was produced as part of TyLisa C. Johnson's participation in the Education Writers Association’s New to the Beat program.

The post Unexcused: Pittsburgh Public Schools sent nearly 1,000 students to truancy court during COVID appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.