PORTLAND — Oregon schools are stymied by the huge numbers of students who miss 10 percent of the school year or more, and years of inaction have kept the problem from lessening.
On Tuesday, after years of promised action, the Oregon Department of Education unveiled a website, fliers, yard signs, tip sheets and other tools designed to help schools combat the problem.
Called “Every Day Matters” and featuring stock images of happy children, the website contains messages and tip sheets aimed at both educators and parents to help get young children and teens to school almost every day.
No other factor — including poor test scores and family poverty — is more closely associated with failing to graduate from high school in Oregon than a student’s track record of missing too much time in school. It’s not a coincidence that Oregon has both one of the nation’s highest rates of students missing 10 percent of the school year and the nation’s third-worst graduation rate.
The Oregonian/OregonLive first highlighted Oregon’s epidemic of chronic absenteeism 4 1/2 years ago with a five-part series, “Empty Desks.” The series showed exactly how massive the problem is, explored its causes, showcased attitudes that exacerbate the problem and highlighted strategies that work in Oregon to solve it. It also detailed the rates in every public school in the state.
The Legislature mandated in 2015 that the Oregon Department of Education and the Chief Education Office come up with a plan to do better. Since then, the education department promised action and Gov. Kate Brown created a highly paid new role in her administration, education innovation officer, specifically to lead the way on improving school attendance and raising graduation rates.
But the rate of chronic absenteeism did not improve in 2014-15, 2015-16 or 2016-17. If anything, it got worse. And Brown did away with the innovation officer role, saying the Oregon Department of Education could handle the work.
Brown picked a former Eugene-area school superintendent, Colt Gill, who had been her education innovation officer, to run the Oregon Department of Education and oversee schools beginning last November.
The website is online at www.every-day-matters.org.
