Student attendance at Malheur County’s schools last year increased by 3% to 93% in 2024, according to newly-obtained figures collected by the school districts.
The Adrian School District had the biggest increase overall, followed by Vale. Nyssa’s rate was slightly down by half a percentage point, while Ontario, the largest district in the county, posted an average attendance rate of 93%.
Consistent attendance is essential to academic success and is directly tied to nearly every positive education milestone, from graduation rates to competency in math and reading, according to Mark Redmond, superintendent of the Malheur County Education Service District.
Education officials attribute the increase to a countywide truancy ordinance, passed in 2023 after attendance rates began to slump in 2017 and continued to plummet post-pandemic. School officials also saw that reading, writing, and math scores were tanking.
Redmond said the truancy ordinance, coupled with education officials’ placing consistent attendance at the top of their “priority lists,” factored into the gains school districts saw in attendance rates.
He said the ordinance enabled local entities, including the state Department of Human Services, the local mental health service Lifeways and the juvenile court system to help families address the issues that drive chronic absenteeism.
“All the players were in the room,” Redmond said. Having the justice of the peace enforce conditions put a “little bit of teeth” behind the effort, he said.
Margie Mahony, Malheur County justice of the peace, said about 25 students were issued citations to truancy court in the last school year. Most, she said, came from Ontario, the largest school district in the county.
Nyssa and Adrian officials said their districts didn’t refer any students to truancy court.
Meanwhile, Taryn Smith, public relations and communications manager with the Ontario School District did not immediately turn over records regarding the number of students issued truancy citations, but released the records on Monday, Aug. 5 – two months after the newspaper’s request and after the district was ordered to do so.
Vale’s truancy court is separate from the county, according to Mahony.
In Vale, Superintendent Alisha McBride said 12 students were issued citations for truancy. The district issued citations in each grade except for kindergarten. Sophomores saw more citations issued than any other grade, with five.
Ryan Hawkins, Nyssa superintendent, said the district came close to issuing citations a couple of times, but the officials worked with families to address why students were missing school. He said those issues ranged from transportation issues to, in one instance, an employer requiring a student to work late into the night.
Hawkins said every student has a “story” about why they’re missing school.
“We know the story and we work with the parents,” he said.
Under the ordinance, a parent or responsible adult can be fined up to $500 for the first offense and a second penalty of up to $1,000 for a second offense.
A parent or responsible adult can petition the Justice Court to defer the fine under certain conditions set by the justice of the peace.
Mahony said no more than five parents or responsible adults were issued a fine. She said she only imposed a fine when a family did not follow through with the court’s stipulations to address the reasons behind a student’s chronic absenteeism.
Mahony said she did not want to make it harder for parents and families to get their kids to school, especially given that Malheur County is the poorest county in the state.
I don’t want to hurt people financially more than they already are,” she said.
Mahony said there were different reasons students had been missing so much school. For high school students, the majority of absences were related to mental health issues or difficulties in their home lives. For others, she said, some students had gotten to a point where they had missed so much school that they did not feel like they could catch up.
Mahony added that there were success stories that came out of the hearings. One student who had fallen behind worked hard to catch up on his studies and attended summer school. That student will get a high school diploma if he passes his summer courses, according to Mahony.
She said he is supposed to follow up with her at the end of summer school.
“After I see them in court, I have them follow up with me so I can see how they’re doing and make sure they’re attending school so I don’t have to go fine them,” she said.
Getting the attendance records
The Enterprise filed a petition with the Malheur County District Attorney’s Office to pry loose the attendance records from the Ontario School District, who cited an embargo from Oregon Department of Education until October.
The Ontario School District denied Malheur Enterprise’s June 10 public records request for attendance data, citing a message on the Oregon Department of Education’s website that regular attendance data will not be publicly released until October 11, 2024. With that, the state education agency wrote that attendance data, which each school district tracks locally, “should be considered embargoed until that time.”
BY THE NUMBERS
Attendance data released by districts showed that schools in Malheur County did better than the rest of the state in getting students to attend regularly. The state education agency will not release attendance data from the rest of Oregon until October. Last year, the state’s “regular attender” rate – students who show up for 90% of school days –was 62%.
Ontario:
2024 attendance: 93% (2,250 students out of 2,420)
The district’s 2023 average daily attendance was not available.
Vale:
2024 attendance: 92.1% (934 students out of 1,009)
2023 attendance: 91.4% (895 students out of 980)
Biggest increase by grade level: Juniors, who, in 2023 had an attendance rate of 87.6%. In 2024, they improved to 92.7%
Adrian:
2024 attendance: 92.9% (277 students out of 298)
2023 attendance: 91% (264 students out of 290)
Biggest increase by grade level: Eighth graders, who, in 2023 had a rate of 85.8%. In 2024, the rate improved to 93.8%.
Nyssa:
2024 attendance: 90.6% (Nyssa did not provide enrollment data for the school year)
2023 attendance: 91.2% (1,204 students out of 1,329)
Biggest increase by grade level: Eighth graders, who had a rate of 89.4% in 2023. In 2024, the rate improved to 92.6%.
Ontario balked despite order
One school district resisted disclosing its attendance information.
The Ontario School District initially refused to provide the information sought by the Enterprise through a public records request.
Taryn Smith, the district’s communications officer, justified the district’s decision not to release its own information because of a message on the Oregon Department of Education’s website. The state education agency wrote that attendance data, which each school district tracks locally, “should be considered embargoed” until October.
The newspaper contested the district’s decision, petitioning Malheur County District Attorney Dave Goldthorpe for an order requiring the district to release attendance and truancy records.
On July 18, Goldthorpe ordered the records released to the newspaper, writing that the school district was not citing a “valid and recognizable” exemption that allows keeping public documents confidential. The district subsequently released the records.
Goldthorpe also ordered the Ontario district to release records showing the number of students referred to truancy court under the countywide ordinance. The district complied with the order on Monday, Aug. 5, nearly two months after the records were requested.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE
Malheur County schools fare better than state in regular school attendance rates
School districts, police agencies express support for proposed truancy ordinance
School officials seek Malheur County law to curb high student absenteeism
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