Even though there’s been a spike in failing grades during distance learning at the Long Beach Unified School District, school officials say there’s some good news based on a recent study about online attendance.
Attendance in other major urban districts has suffered—with the LAUSD’s attendance dipping below 89% this fall and the New York public school system saying it’s still missing 2,600 students who’ve never made contact at all this school year—but LBUSD officials say their attendance is relatively steady despite the challenges of online learning.
LBUSD data provided to the Post shows that attendance has been hovering near 95%, right around where it was through the fall of 2019. In October, districtwide attendance dipped 1.6% to 94.6% when compared to 2019, but that number improved in November (95.6%) and December (95.0%).
“Attendance rates in December 2020 were actually better than for 2019, but of course virtual attendance criteria are different than for in-person,” said LBUSD spokesperson Chris Eftychiou.
When school is in session on campus, physical presence for the day is required to mark a student present. The standards are much easier to meet for distance learning, according to the LBUSD’s “Attendance During Distance Learning Guidelines,” which state, “If the student attended the session (for any amount of time), or if the student turned in the work by the end of the day, the student will be marked present.”
Those guidelines were put in place to allow students who are completing work asynchronously to still be marked present on days where they participated in class activities.
That being said, even with the lower standard to meet for being marked present, the district’s continued high marks stand out. Other urban districts across the country are struggling with the distance learning phenomenon of “missing children,” formerly enrolled students who’ve completely dropped off their districts’ radars.
A study by education research firm Bellwether Education Partners found that 3 million students across the country fell off the grid this fall. Bellwether found that as many as 20% of students in Boston are not participating in distance learning, and that as many as 500,000 students statewide in California are unaccounted for by their school districts.
At LBUSD Board of Education meetings this year, the school district outlined its plans for making sure it knows where students are, including email and phone call campaigns from teachers and administrators, and even in-person door knocking by school officials to make sure students have laptops and mobile hotspots to allow them to participate in distance learning.