The Kentucky Department of Education released the 2022 - 2023 Kentucky School Report Card. KDE reviewed the assessment with the Interim Joint Committee on Education.
Kentucky’s interim Commissioner of Education, Robin Kinney, says, "We do have challenges. And it's all part of the whole when we think about it. The teacher shortage and having recruitment of high-quality teachers is the best thing that we could have in the classroom, is a high-quality teacher. And then absenteeism and truancy."
Kinney says the data "paints a complex picture" of progress and room for improvement. The president of the Prichard Committee, Brigitte Blom, says it's time for educators to articulate what works and what can be improved.
She says, "The good things that are happening in school, the areas of quality they can point to where students are striving and thriving and doing well and feeling connected to school. While at the same time, calling out the areas where our leaders -- school and district leaders -- have concern."
A big theme of the committee meeting was truancy. In the 2022-2023 school year, 198,524 students qualified as 'chronically absent.' Senate Bill 200 made changes to the juvenile justice system including the creation of "FAIR" teams that are meant to help keep youth out of the court system. County attorneys explain that truancy diversion programs, as they are now, are slow processes and can keep students out of school even longer. They also add that current programs aren't always the best at enforcement.
Hardin County attorney Jenny Oldham says, "So, a successful diversion with a fair team on a truant case could mean you've done what's suggested but you're still not going to school and that's a problem."
Oldham says that truancy is the leading indicator of adult criminality. The Kentucky Court of Justice released this data showing the number of truancy complaints filed by fiscal year and this data showing the median days absent at truancy complaint filing.
Oldham says, "We have kids who are falling out of school, going into juvenile delinquency and we feel like we don't have the tools and so we need, tools to provide the best resources at an early point in their lives."
The interim commissioner of education says that leaders have to find a solution to chronic absenteeism, saying that the goal is to have every student engaged every day.
Kinney says, "You know when we have chronic absenteeism at 29.8%, those are times when we don't have the opportunity to provide that quality instruction to our students."
