43
Area officials: Attendance data not likely to be rigged
By Denise Dick
youngstowN
While a statewide investigation examines data rigging in school attendance reporting, Mahoning Valley school officials believe safeguards are in place to prevent similar activity here.
Late last month, state Auditor Dave Yost announced that his office was launching a statewide review of attendance reporting practices including school districts, community schools and the Ohio Department of Education.
The investigation started after evidence surfaced that officials in Columbus City Schools falsified attendance records. That was followed by reports of similar activity at Lockland schools near Cincinnati and in Toledo.
Doug Hiscox, deputy superintendent for academic affairs at Youngstown City Schools, said the district has safeguards in place to ensure similar incidents don’t occur here.
“First of all, no building principal can withdraw a student,” he said.
In Columbus, district officials are accused of withdrawing students with many absences even though they were still enrolled in the school and then re-enrolling them, according to articles in the Columbus Dispatch. Those students’ test scores weren’t counted as part of the school’s performance.
In Youngstown, only the director of student services can withdraw a student, and that happens after multiple steps.
When a student is absent for multiple days, the school resource officer will visit the home to try to locate the student. Phone calls are made and letters sent to the student’s home.
Sometimes the district contacts the Mahoning County Juvenile Court and the county children’s services agency to see if the child is in either of those systems.
“We record all of that,” Hiscox said. “In these other districts where some of this was happening, there was no documentation of trying to do everything possible to locate the students before they were withdrawn.”
If a student is withdrawn, the city can show the documentation of the process undertaken before that action, he said.
All of those records are kept in the director of student services’ office.
“We watch it pretty close,” Hiscox said.
Michael Maurer, a spokesman for Yost’s office, said auditors are beginning the process with data mining, reviewing attendance numbers statewide and looking for any red flags.
Once that’s complete, the office will determine the next step.
“They will not be on site at every district,” Maurer said.
The annual release of state report cards, which include attendance benchmarks as part of each district’s rating, is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 29.
John D. Charlton, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education, said in an email that release date still stands.
Maurer said Yost plans to have as much of the audit done as possible before the November election “so districts that are on the ballot won’t have that question hanging over them.”
Vince Colaluca, Austintown superintendent, said the school secretaries take care of inputting attendance and they’re trained by the district’s Education Management Information System coordinator and assistant EMIS coordinator.
“When you have something like this, it goes back to integrity,” he said.
Liberty Superintendent Stan Watson said that in the districts where the problems were found it seems to be a thought-out and planned approach to manipulate data.
“Our approach is, it [attendance] is what it is,” he said.