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Today, the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) issued a report entitled, Student Attendance and Truancy Analysis 2020-2021 School Year, and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) strongly disagrees with both the premise and content of the report.
“I’m very disappointed that the State Auditor’s Office didn't operate within the scope of the General Assembly’s request. During the pandemic, it is well known that chronic absenteeism rates doubled nationwide and within North Carolina," said North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt. “This continued problem represents a barrier to the success of our students and our recovery from COVID-19. Instead of recommendations to get students back to school, our agency and six of our school districts have been unnecessarily reprimanded. Much of how this report was conducted is an example of how state government time and taxpayer dollars and resources should not be used.”
In November 2021, the General Assembly charged OSA with performing a detailed analysis of the attendance and truancy policies and procedures in six North Carolina public school districts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic no later than June 30, 2022. The intent of this legislation was to understand how student attendance was impacted by COVID-19 and remote learning, as well as to identify strategies and policies that could be implemented to support students in returning to school.
The report, released more than a year after its deadline, deviated from the topics stated in the legislature’s request. In addition, OSA wasted $350,000 of COVID-19 relief funding and well over 1,000 hours of NCDPI and public school unit (PSU) staff time creating a report that did not answer the questions posed by the General Assembly.
NCDPI strongly disagrees with the findings of OSA’s report as follows:
- The goals put forth by OSA did not match the directive of the legislature’s request.
- OSA claims the data provided by NCDPI “was not complete or accurate for five of the six districts selected for audit.” NCDPI maintains that the data provided to OSA was largely accurate but did not give a complete picture of student attendance because PSUs have significant local control over attendance policies and how attendance was recorded during the pandemic. Additionally, after repeated attempts to clarify the data and the policies from the PSU and NCDPI, OSA still did not understand the student attendance policies.
- OSA claims a delay was caused by NCDPI’s alleged mismanagement of the data, but the challenges in timeliness were in fact caused by OSA’s multiple changes in scope and lack of understanding of PSU nomenclature related to student attendance policies and the policies themselves.
- OSA claims NCDPI lacked oversight of the Student Information System (SIS) vendor, was unable to verify data provided to auditors, and did not monitor the districts and schools. This is false but is also immaterial given that NCDPI has limited statutory and policy authority over attendance data.
- Because of OSA’s flawed process and conclusions, their recommendations are largely without merit, and their report is without impact.
NCDPI’s full response to the General Assembly can be found here.
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