September 26, 2024 10:00 AM – Interim Study Committee on Education

During the Interim Study Committee on Education meeting held on September 26, 2024, at 10 AM, several important topics were discussed:

Key Topics

1. Chronic Absenteeism:
   • Current state: Over 200,000 Indiana students (17.8% of all students) were chronically absent in 2023
   • Disproportionate impact on minority and low-income students:
     • 30.7% for Black students
     • 24.4% for Hispanic students
     • 20.5% for English learners
     • 25.9% for students eligible for free/reduced lunch
   • Strong correlation between chronic absenteeism and lower academic performance
   • Causes include health issues, mental health problems, family responsibilities, transportation issues, and school climate
   • Strategies discussed:
     • Early intervention programs
     • Personalized support plans
     • Family engagement initiatives
     • Improving school climate and student engagement
2. Senate Enrolled Act 282:
   • Requires schools to hold attendance conferences after 5 unexcused absences within 10 weeks
   • Implementation challenges:
     • Tight timeline (5 days) to schedule and hold meetings
     • Lack of parental engagement in meetings
     • Strain on school resources and staff time
   • Unintended consequences:
     • Some parents withdrawing children for homeschooling or virtual options
     • Potential overuse of truancy referrals to prosecutors
   • Suggestions for improvement:
     • Extending timeline for scheduling meetings
     • More flexibility in implementation
     • Focus on supportive rather than punitive measures
3. Data Collection and Analysis:
   • Need for standardized, detailed attendance data collection across all schools
   • Importance of distinguishing between different types of absences (e.g., excused, unexcused, school refusal, etc.)
   • Early warning systems:
     • Indiana Department of Education developing dashboard for schools
     • Some districts implementing their own systems (e.g., Warren Township’s $82,000 truancy platform)
   • Challenges in data interpretation and use for targeted interventions
4. School Support Programs:
   • Empoweru: Mental health and resilience program showing 90% of students making progress on goals
   • Communities in Schools: Provides on-site coordinators, showing 13% reduction in chronic absenteeism
   • City Connects: Comprehensive student support system, reporting 20% improvement in test scores
   • Funding models vary:
     • Some rely on school district funds (often Title I)
     • Others use mix of grants, philanthropy, and district funds
5. School Discipline:
   • Recognition that punitive measures often ineffective in improving attendance
   • Discussion of restorative practices and positive behavioral interventions
   • Multi-tiered support systems (MTSS) proposed as a comprehensive approach
   • Concern about disproportionate impact of disciplinary measures on minority students
   • Need for better training for educators in alternative discipline approaches
6. Resource Allocation:
   • Severe shortage of school social workers (1:1829 ratio vs. recommended 1:250)
   • Need for more counselors, especially in high-needs schools
   • Discussion of how to classify support staff in school funding formulas
   • Debate over attendance-based vs. enrollment-based funding models
   • Calls for state investment in attendance improvement initiatives and staff training

Committee Actions and Votes

• There were no formal votes taken during the meeting. The focus was on data presentation and discussion of strategies.

Additional Notes

• The committee expressed interest in exploring different funding models for schools based on attendance vs. enrollment.
• There was a discussion about the need for better training and resources for school staff to address chronic absenteeism.
• Several presenters emphasized the importance of addressing root causes of absenteeism rather than focusing solely on punitive measures.
• Positive Attendance Initiative: Beginning in 2020, schools were required to report detailed attendance data daily, allowing for more granular analysis.
• Real-Time Intervention: Schools will be able to see weekly data updates on absenteeism, making it possible to intervene sooner with at-risk students.
• Focus on Student Behavior: Chronic absenteeism is often tied to other behavioral issues, suggesting a need for holistic interventions, including mental health support.
• Staggering Absenteeism Stats: The revelation that 31 students had been chronically absent every single year since 1st grade was a shocking moment, highlighting the deep-rooted nature of absenteeism in certain cohorts.
• Impact of Absenteeism on Academic and Behavioral Outcomes: The data showing that 61% of students who failed the iRead test in 3rd grade had been expelled or suspended by 7th grade was a startling demonstration of how early academic failure correlates with long-term behavioral issues.
• Data Visualization for the Public: The upcoming public-facing attendance dashboard was a highlight, allowing for increased transparency and community involvement in addressing absenteeism.

(Note: No audio was detected at the beginning of the livestream. Transcript is based on speech that was captured when the audio became available)

It, it, it. It, it, it. Here, how many schools have, you know, less than one in ten fitting that criteria? How many of them are more than one in ten? More than one in one in four? More than one in three or more than a half or more? Right. So that’s what this chart does. It kind of breaks it out. If you want to see the improvement, you just pick a column and compare the green number, which is this year’s number, to the yellow number above it. These are denominated in terms of schools. So we do see some positive movement here. But if you take the number on the end there, on the right side, there are 74 schools that have more than half of their students meeting the criteria of missing 10% or more of the school year. All right, so this, you know, one of the questions that I think probably needs to be asked in the discussion about chronic absenteeism. I mean, the numbers are pretty startling when you think about 2800 school buses or if you think about 205,269 students being chronically absent. But one of the questions that we’re asking as part of this analysis is how chronic is chronic absenteeism? Because it’s easy to talk about improvement of a rate in year over year, in year over year terms. But it’s also easy to lose a student in that conversation. You say, okay, well, our rate went down 1.4% this year. That’s awesome. Or at least going in the right direction. But what does it really mean at an actual student level? So what we have here, if you look on the left side of the screen, the number 28,000 plus is the number of 12th graders this year that met the criteria for chronic absenteeism. And if you think of them as 100% of the chronic absenteeism cohort, the numbers, as you work toward the right of the screen, are how many of those same students were absent in the prior grade at that same level or higher. Okay, so when you go all the way out to the end, you’re at first grade. And so 31 of those students that are chronically absent this year have been chronically absent every single year. This just gives an example of. And we did this for all grades, but this is just, you know, and the pattern is really very similar. Right. So this. This puts a little bit of a different flavor on the idea of just year to year changes. Right? You think about the number of school days missed. And in general, when you start to see this, you realize that there are probably some students whose absence from schools really could be denominated in terms of years rather than weeks or months. Or days. All right, the next few slides are just breaking out our longitudinal data for the past five years from sort of different ways to sort of slice through the data. The first one here is with ethnicity. So you see how the different populations, the different ethnic populations are faring along chronic absenteeism. Again, same data just split by student population. Here we have that same breakout over free and reduced lunch. Here we have that same data with english language learners and non english language learners. So just putting all of those 205,269 absences on into one bucket or the other. Right. For the 24 school year. All right, so this is another part of our analysis. About how chronic is chronic absenteeism. So the 205,269 number that I’ve been repeating, we asked how many of those students were chronically absent more than once in the last three years. Right. So. And that number surprisingly kind of split right around right at the middle, practically speaking. Right. About 50 50. So there were in this year’s group. And this sort of bears out with that prior slide that shows, you know, that 12th grade cohort, sort of how many of them were absent successively or in successive years. So a good chunk of the 12th graders who were chronically absent this year had not been chronically absent in any of the prior three years, but 50% also had. Okay, so, again, we’re just trying to lend a little bit of context and depth to the understanding of chronic absenteeism. Right. It’s not just a rate that changes year over year, and we need to be going in the right direction, but we’re trying to give a little bit of a sense of the real magnitude of some of these challenges. So this slide just summarizes in narrative form the data that you are seeing in the prior slides. Right. So it talks about the year over year improvements for the subgroups. And so, you know, just as a reminder there, the second bullet, the highest, you know, 17.8% is our state, state average. Right. And. But the high school grades are. I know I did the math on this. I think that when I did 9th grade through 12th grade, it came in more around 25 if you add up all the grades. But you remember that senior. The senior year was at 32%. So again, there’s the tail end of the distribution there is significantly higher and is keeping our rate higher than we want it to be, for sure. But it’s a across the board issue. Okay, so that’s more like the descriptive, like, how bad is the problem? Where. What direction are we going? The next number of slides, sort of. You recall that circle at the beginning of the presentation where we talked about attendance and behavior and outcomes being related to one another? Well, now we’re going to talk a little bit about how to think about how chronic absenteeism is actually affecting student outcomes. So here’s that data crossed with iread for 23 and 24. And the magnitude of the difference between passers and non passers for iread is in the, you know, the order of magnitude that you’re going to see on the successive slides for other outcomes, like Ilearn and sat. Okay, so again, here we’re just showing the chronically absent students and how many of those third graders passed versus did not pass. So this slide, this slide actually crosses the attendance data with behaviors. So we’re looking at pass. So this is the reason this is in this section of the presentation is because it’s looking at the non passing students of iread over time. So think about a cohort and mapping out. How about the year after read, two years after I read, three years after I read. And the idea here is that if you can’t read in school, that’s probably going to come out in other behaviors as well. So this is, this is really showing. Mister Chairman, Mister Chairman. Some of these charts are literally inscrutable. This is one. And I would ask if, if the speaker could explain the gist of this because I can’t track what I can’t read. Sure. And to your point, Alice is in the process of printing the copies for you too, because of the ineligible. But if. John, if you could go ahead and. Yep, and I apologize. I’m going to need to turn my head and make sure I’m quoting the right numbers for. Hold on a second. On the right side of the screen, you have the 12th graders. So this is nine years. Thank you. This is nine years after they took iread. Okay. So what we’re saying is, what is the long term? There was a cohort of kids who took iread nine years ago, right. They’re 12th graders now. They were pastors and non pastors. And how many of them. What was the rate of expulsions and suspensions among those two groups? That’s what this is showing right. Over time. So again, the yellow line is breaking out the percent of students who are non passers who had at least one expulsion or a suspension. And then the blue line is showing the passers and how they fared over time as well. And we’ve, again, this is a representative of. We’ve did this for every grade level, but this just shows, like, a 12th grader now, looking back, actually a 12th grader last year because this data is of 2024. Does that help? Representative Delaney? I think I have it now. So you’re telling me that I need to look at the left. If it’s blue, I passed the third grade reading test. If it’s yellow, I did not. Correct. And then we’re going to track the chances that I get. What percentage of my group gets expelled over time. Expelled or suspended. Or suspended is that. It can’t be cumulative. So I’m looking at the peak at grade 761.6 have been expelled or suspended in that year. Or. Yeah. So I think this year there were about 7000 non passers because this was a while ago. And so think about it as 61% of those 7000 kids who didn’t pass, I read in that particular year, where it’s 61% got either had either at least one suspension or expulsion in that one year. Yes. And they may have shown up in the 51.5% and the 29.6 also. Yeah. Thank you. I think one of the things that Doctor Keller is trying to draw is the correlation between success on iread as a minimum benchmark and suspensions and expulsions and discipline issues. FYI, two for those, I again apologize. Apologize for the difficulty to read it on the screen. I don’t know if somehow along the line, our computer systems are not communing well with the monitors. It is available on IGA’s website, so you can track along with his by just opening your computer and looking at the interim study committee. So it’s available as well as. I’m having LSA print you a copy. Senator Yoder, did you have an additional question? Okay. Thank you for asking that question. It was a good question. All right, we’re going to advance here. All right. So here we are looking again, this is kind of harking back to the iread, but this is now ilearn. So again, folks who are in proficient on Ilearn in Ela and math and breaking that out by the top row is chronically absent. Those are the percentages of attainment for that population. And then the bottom row is the kids who are not chronically absent and their proficiency standings on ELA and math in the prior two years. So, again, as I said earlier, the difference is significant and pretty stable over time. Same idea here. Looking at college readiness for Indiana. That’s the SAT. And so here, again, chronically absent versus non chronically absent. Okay. So then this, this kind of, kind of comes back around to the chart that I explained earlier with, you know, iread performance and the cross between that and expulsions and expulsions and suspension. So this goes the other way and says how many of kids who are chronically absent are suspended or expelled at least once? Right. And so, again, think about the circle. So you have chronically absent students are more associated with disruptive behaviors in schools, and the lack of performance on iread is also associated with disruptive behaviors in schools. Right. So that’s why we’re. We’re talking about these all in the same sort of breadth because it’s a very integrated, it’s a really integrated challenge. And so if we ever, you know, we want to make sure that we’re not just talking about, well, kids need to be in school. Well, these are the whys that they need to be in school. Right. The performances differences are stark. Yes. John, to that point, what you’re saying is 17% of those that have been identified chronically absent have had in 23, had one suspension, and 16.2% of those had a suspension in year 24. Correct? Yep. Correct. And you don’t know. I know that I may be moving forward on a slide. We don’t know whether some of those suspensions could be related to their chronic absenteeism. Oh, yeah. It’s a good point. Representative Baining, we’ve done some looking at the reasons. There are about 26 reason codes that you can be that are noted for expulsions or suspensions. And one of those is attendance. So you can actually be suspended or expunged for poor attendance. So that’s what representative Manning is looking at there, or not looking at, but referencing. Probably should note here that again, when you’re looking at 0.6% over there in the third column, the 0.17 is, you know, four times smaller. Right. I mean, even though we’re talking about small numbers, the actual size of the, of the comparison still holds out. All right, this, this, again, I’m not going to read this slide to you. It just in narrative form, summarizes the data that we looked at on the last couple of slideshow. But certainly there are strong links between performance and attendance. Okay, so that’s all of the sort of data that I’m going to really be talking about today, but I’m going to now just turn into show a few pieces of work that the department’s been working on and that schools are using. John, before you go into this, could we see if there’s any questions about the data that has been presented so far that haven’t been asked? Seeing none. Go ahead, John. Okay. Well, if you think about some of those questions, I know some of you just got the handout. So as you look through those, I’m happy to come back to a question you might have as you’re looking through your presentation. So one of the things we’ve been doing in Indiana is beginning in 2020, we began collecting what’s called positive attendance. And the difference between positive attendance and how we used to collect is in the past, prior to 2020, we would just ask schools to tell us what was the number of days that a student missed, and we would subtract that from the number of days that they were enrolled, and we would create an attendance rate for them. And beginning in 2020, we asked schools to submit at least one record per day so we could tell if you were, say, if all of your absences were on Wednesdays or not. That that wasn’t the question we had, but the point is the granularity, right? So we know if you had 15 days of absences or 27 days of absences or whatever, we know exactly what days of the week, what actual dates those involved. And because we have that data now, we are able to create some products to share with schools to help hold up the mirror for any patterns that they may be able to see in their attendance. So it’s now actually possible for schools to compare this most recently completed school week to that same week in prior years. Again, the whole point here is that in a world where we’ve got to fill 2850 school buses to get all the kids who are chronically absent to school, we need to be looking at the data and understanding whatever patterns are there. I will say that at the state level, it’s difficult for us to make meaning out of the patterns. We can certainly tell the differences between two numbers, but we come up a little short when someone says, why is that happening? Because, as you can imagine, The reasons for why it’s happening are probably as varied as the schools that we’re serving. So what you see here is this dashboard is targeted for release to the public in October. October 11 is when we’re hoping to take that out. But schools have a version of this now, and this allows them to see all the schools in the state, how they compare to that school, to other schools around them on the map, and they can look at their attendance by week, by day. And that dashboard is updated every Sunday morning so they can see the week just completed, and they can compare their attendance rate and their attendance patterns to all of the data they’ve had over the past two or three years at the day level. And so what you’re seeing here, though, are, is a slightly different version of what the schools have and what’s coming out in October. But you see those, those charts there, those breakout free and reduced lunch ethnicity, and you’ll be able to, the public will be able to look at any school, select a school, and see how the populations of those schools, schools are doing on attendance. So our goal is to make sure that with this wealth of data that we have about attendance, that we are doing everything we can to hold up the mirror, encourage public conversations about what’s going on, encourage communities to assess if there’s anything that can be done. Because this is a, it’s an all of us challenge, right? This is not at all meant to. We can’t fix a problem we don’t know about. But now we know about the problem. What is the data that’s available to all of us to help work on it. So again, this is the, this level of detail will be coming out in early October. All right, so I’m going to get to try to find my spot in the presentation, too, go over some of these details, just kind of summarizing some of the benefits that we believe schools will achieve from having access to this, this data in near real time. Of course, it’s coming from their student information system. So the data that is updated every Sunday is only updated every Sunday because their student information systems are communicating to us. But what we’re doing with that data is then we’re holding it up and comparing it to all of the prior years, and that’s something that’d be difficult for them to do on their own. So how can this data drive improvement? Certainly, again, this is in the spirit of. Let’s get it. Let’s get thinking about this. This is an exhaustive, but we want to analyze student attendance data over time. No surprise there, because maybe there is a. Maybe there is something locally like, hey, you know, days after a certain break are really just terrible for us. Or this month is not good, or there’s something about this week, year over year that’s not awesome. We want to identify trends and patterns and see where data collection could be improved. Maybe there’s some issues in data collection. Maybe it’s something that needs to be fixed there. We want to work with a variety of stakeholders to identify root causes of poor attendance. And that’s really where the rubber meets the road. Like the why? We can look at the admire the problem through the data all year long, but we really need to start sort of rolling up the sleeves and saying, why is this happening? What are we going to do about it? We would encourage the review of attendance policies and utilize the data on daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis to inform short and long term policy decisions as just food for thought. You know, when you think about the group of students that have been chronically absent every year that they’ve been enrolled in public school, maybe the solutions to solve that kind of a problem are different than the ones for someone who’s just been recently absent at a high level. Right? So I think we’re going to have to have nuanced solutions and nuanced approaches to doing this. And I think that all starts with a look at the data. One idea, and I did share this at the state board when I presented some of this information, is the idea of setting goals. We did improve as a state, 1.4% going down. In this case, improvement. The arrow goes down, not up. We’re used to seeing improvement being going up, but this is going the other way. But just as a thought exercise, what if school district would say we’re going to double, we’re going to improve at twice the state improvement rate. Maybe you’ll make it, maybe you’ll beat it, maybe you won’t. But shooting for something I think matters, right? So we have a one point. The best thing we have right now is we have a 1.4 increase. So we know as a state, highs and lows evening out there, some schools have already improved at that rate. So maybe, maybe an improvement of 2.8% is a stretch goal for your school. Maybe your school improved already at 2.8%. That would be an inappropriate goal for a school. But the whole point is I don’t have a number that’s gonna have to be determined locally. But I think goal setting is a good thing, and I think we would see some benefits of that at the state level as well, but certainly at the local level, and then evaluate what is working and what is not working with a level of granularity of the data that we have that school are sending in, that we’re offering up for comparison in very many options of slicing and dicing. Really need to look at if what you’re doing is working. All right? So we don’t have to. Even though attendance data is certified at the end of the year, that the data that schools have access to on our attendance insights dashboard really is showing them in real time, near real time, how that’s working. And so it’s nothing. We don’t have to be afraid to abandon things that aren’t working. I think. I like the term strategic abandonment. Right. Look at the data say, hmm, that’s not having the effect that we really want. We got to try something different. But we’re going to have to figure out some, some short cycle and long, long cycle solutions to this issue. And the short cycle solutions, we should be able to see some evidence that something is working in the data that and the schools should have access. All schools have access to this dashboard, and the public will have a version of that coming soon. All right, let me advance to a couple more things. So this is also a platform that we just started piloting with a couple of schools. There are eleven school corporations in the state that have joined us in piloting an early warning dashboard. And the reason I’m talking about an early warning dashboard in an attendance presentation is that the general science and theory around early warning is that you look at three main things, attendance, behavior and course outcomes. Those are the three sort of main pillars of all early warning systems. And so we are certainly leveraging our attendance data as part of this early warning indicator platform. What does the early warning indicator platform do? Basically, what we did is we looked at thousands and thousands of students who had been in Indiana schools from all their career. We looked at which ones graduated and which ones didn’t. And then we looked at the data patterns of the students who didn’t graduate. And we are then taking performance on attendance, behavior and courses and comparing it to patterns that are associated with non graduation. And then we’re showing school principals, teachers, superintendents, we’re saying, here’s the kids that are associated with your school right now and here’s their risk of not graduating. And so we have eleven schools, corporations who are helping us to pilot this, working out, just even matters of like, are you seeing the kids? You should see these risk categories that we have. Are they ringing true with what you’re seeing? I mean, we’re just showing you the data. We’re not in the classroom with you. We don’t see the kids get off the bus. But we want to, again, back to something I said earlier, we want to make sure that we’re not leaving any data insights on the table, right? We can’t say that because a student has moderate risk that they’re not going to graduate. But what we can say is that in the data we’ve looked at, this data pattern is more associated with non graduation. And so we’re just saying, take a look at this student. It’s not like don’t necessarily treat them differently, but you need to know that the student is at risk at some level. And again, we want to just provide as much support as we can to schools so that they can use this along with other tools that they have to ensure that as many of our students as possible are successful. So what you see on the screen is sort of a landing page. I did just blur out the names of the schools and this is not ever going to be a public dashboard, right. Because for obvious reasons, this is very targeted at helping school professionals do their job. Even better. So here are a couple more screenshots from this, and you can see the one on the bottom right gives that student level view. So the students are sort of there in the middle of the screen. And then there are those risk categories out to the right. And attendance, behavior, course outcomes assessments are all part of the picture of a determining whether or not, whether or not students are. Need a second look. And so, again, we’re. The biggest question I get on this is like, when is everybody gonna have it? And I don’t know the answer to that because we want to make sure that we’re not running too fast here. There’s a lot of ways to get this wrong, and so we want to make sure we’re getting it right. So we’re piloting. One of the next steps might be an expanded pilot. Again, we just want to be. We want to make sure that it’s ready for prime time when we open the doors for everybody. But this is, this is a real boy, this is happening right now. It’s not like, hey, this is something interesting we’re working on or thinking about doing. There are real schools, Indiana, who have access to this right now, and we’re in the third or fourth week of a two month pilot with them. So pretty excited about that. One of the things that’s interesting here is on attendance. Kind of coming back full circle to this discussion. Discussion is that this dashboard, if someone is showing risk for attendance reasons, it doesn’t look at just the year. It just takes all of the enrolled dates and all of their absences and said, this kid has missed 319 days of school in, over the course of however long they’ve been in school in Indiana. So there, again, this will put on the bottom shelf for all, all the professionals who have access to this, a true picture of how chronic the chronic absenteeism is for a particular student. So it’s not just what’s happening with this kid this year. It’s like, what is the totality of attendance that we’ve had here? And again, that’s just one part of a more complex process for determining risk. So one sort of interesting statistic that I saw yesterday is that our current severe threshold, severe is our top level threshold. There’s a one in 800 chance that a student graduates at that threshold. So that’s sort of, that’s. We kind of look at the chances of graduation based on the data tier. And so severe is at that. At that level right now. And I thought, I don’t like those odds. Right? So severe sounds pretty severe a one in 800 chance. So anyway, that’s what we’re doing another way we’re dealing with. I think that’s the end of my slides, but that’s another tool we’re making available. So again, I’ll just close my remarks by saying that we have a lot of interesting and very, very granular attendance data in the state of Indiana, and we are leveraging that data in every way possible and putting it making available to schools and to the public to support an Indiana conversation about how to improve attendance. John, I have a couple questions. Suspension. So if I’m a student that gets suspended, that can add to my chronic? No, it does not. So in Indiana code, and I can’t quote the code here, but suspensions and expulsions are considered non attendance days. They do not add into the numerator or the denominator. So those are really behavioral issues. So if someone’s. None of that data includes students who were expelled, because that would be, you know, if you’re expelled at the beginning of the year, you might miss 160 days of school. That’s not how it works. So expulsions and suspensions are not driving up. They’re not driving up a chronic absenteeism. But we do know a number of students are suspended because they’re chronically truant. Chronically absent or truant. So we’re actually, we give them a day off and they will get penalized for it then, basically, is what you’re saying. It’s an interesting conundrum. Yeah. Makes no sense at all. One other question and I get your thinner rots on the slide. You have where it talks about how chronic is chronic absenteeism, where you went back and it’s a slide. I don’t know. There are 14 where you said students chronically absent in 2024, 1040. Four. Two. And then you had in the prior three years there were 101, 227. Do you have, I’m sure you have the ability to calculate exactly how much time then those students have lost. Because I believe at one point in time. You and I had talked that there’s some that have accrued almost three years of academic time that they have lost because of chronic absenteeism in their career. Yeah. Yeah. So as I was saying on the early warning dashboard, all of the students, by the way, I didn’t mention that early warning dashboard is only for grades six through twelve right now. But what we’re doing, we’re calculating the entirety of enrollment. So even I into early grades, even before grade six. And it was when I was doing some of the. Looking at that platform where I was looking at specifically the role that attendance was playing in risk that I noticed that there are some school, some kids who have missed 25 and 30% of all their enrolled days. Right. So when we’re talking about 10% as the chronic sort of threshold, we don’t spend a lot of time because it’s not a fun topic, but we don’t spend a lot of time about what the ceiling is there. Right. It’s sort of like you get to this threshold and you are in this 205,269 number. But if you actually did a graph like a spread and said how many of them missed? 15%, 20%, 30%, 35%. That happens. Right. That happens. And so when you start to look at it that way, it’s hard to overestimate the impact on achievement, particularly that that would have. Right. Because if you’re missing, literally, I saw some students that were you, could you calculate their absence in terms of years, like 569 days of miss school. Right. So what part of the curriculum did you miss during that time? Hard to tell. The other thing that would be really interesting to do a comparison on is on page eight when you do chronic absence. Bye. Grade level with those in kindergarten. It would be great if you could track them through and see how they are comparing them when they’re in 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade. I think it’s also of note that committee ought to focus on is that the largest. It is truly a bell curve, and the largest part of chronic absenteeism in our state starts in kindergarten, goes down, and then increases when it gets to high school. 32% of seniors are chronically absent. It’s a pretty staggering number. Senator Roch, did you have a question? Sure. First of all, I got to say thanks to John for his work on this, because it’s painstaking. And I’m just thankful that you’ve taken the time to go through and think of all these different scenarios and get it on paper for us to look at. Just for clarity purposes, the data that we’re looking at today, the public is not, they’re not eligible to look at this stuff until it’s certified. So just give everybody a little bit of clarity there. Yeah. So most of the slides that I just shared are actually already out because of the state board of education. But what Senator Rotts is referring to is that the attendance dashboard that I allude to has two sort of two versions of it. There’s a school version and a public version. The school version gets updated every Sunday morning. Right. And that’s, we call that transactional data. So there’s all the historical data that’s been certified from prior years. So, for example, the 2024 data is now certified. It’s final. It’s not changing. But any data that we’re getting between from the beginning of the school year till now could change. Right? For example, I mean, if you’ve worked in a school, you’re like, here’s an example. A kid gets an unexcused absence, and then they bring in a doctor’s note and they’re like, oh, well, we’re going to flip that to excused, right? Or, hey, I see you mark this as absent. They were in the bathroom when you took attendance or whatever. Like those kind of things change, right? And that’s why we’re not putting that out to the public, because we don’t have enough phones in the world to answer questions about why a number went up or down on Wednesday of last week, and it’s just not appropriate. That data is something that schools should be using to see if what they’re doing is working. So this data flows into us all the time, but we actually ask CFO’s and superintendents to sign off on it in July of each year. And we call that certification. So what that certification means is for each student, you are certifying, these are the days they missed and these are the days they attended. And it’s a dual signature process. It’s part of our end of year collection. We certify a lot of data at the end of the year. And once that has happened, then we can update what will be the public dashboard with a new year of data. And the public can look at that with. That the dashboard will be the same yesterday and today and tomorrow. So finally then, just the school districts, though, weekly. Then you take a, you collect the data on a Sunday evening and it updates. And then schools on Monday can look at what happened the prior week. Correct. Thank you. Yep. And the data really flows in all the time. We just. We don’t update it every day. We could update it every day, but we update it once a week. And also, to your earlier point, I’m fortunate to be able to share some of this analysis with you, but did almost none of it myself. So, you know, I want to make sure that my team gets the credit, because they are fantastic in doing this work. And so I’m very blessed in that regard. Senator Hundley. Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you, John, for the presentation. I know that we have clear definitions for chronic absenteeism, for truancy, but isn’t it true that each school district can set their own definition for excused and unexcused? That’s my understanding, yes. And so I’m wondering, as we’re looking at this dashboard, how we can really compare apples to apples, if, I mean, I represent five different school districts, every single one of them has a different definition for what unexcused means or what excused means. And so I’m wondering, how can we really use this data if we don’t have clear definitions? Yeah, it’s an interesting question, and my answer probably will not be 100% satisfying. But I guess given that we’re at 17.8% of chronic absenteeism, which kind of merges those two things together, I feel like the bigger question is neither of those kids are in school, whether excused or unexcused. But you make a good point. Like, if we need clear definitions, which I think I could make the argument that it would be great to have a clear definition, but at the end of the day, even a clear definition is going to be interpreted variably, so we can’t enforce. We could maybe create a definition here in this room for what is excused and unexcused. There would be interpretation needed. Like, well, I feel like this fits your definition, definition of excuse. And three people would say, actually, no, it doesn’t. So I’m. I feel like the biggest play here is to focus on getting the kids into school, and maybe we need to, you know, for the public, make sure that people understand, hey, these are. This is not like comparing two things that we all agree on as definitions, that there’s some variability here, and let that be part of the analysis. And the discussion. And I also think that there could be fertile ground, even if we don’t come up with a common definition, to re examine the local policy and say is an unexcused absence too lenient in its definition locally? I think there could be, there could be actually some advantage to doing that. So I’m skeptical about the actual lift to the state with a common definition. I’m more bullish on the idea of focusing on, hey, no matter how we define this kid, they’re not, neither one is in school. Let’s figure out how to. So I would absolutely agree with you that the point is they’re not there no matter what. But I think that what’s important for us to know is that there’s nuance to why they’re not there. And I don’t think that an overall blanket state definition would be helpful because it is so individualized. But I think that that’s where the role of your school counselors and social workers comes into play. Right. Because underneath every single one of those absences is a reason, and we need people power to help support our folks, to figure out why they’re not coming and then put these interventions in place, which I think is really the key of this early warning system. Right. It’s about getting interventions in place, but in order to do that, it’s great to have data, but we also have to have people. And so I think that part of weaving into this conversation has to be reducing that ratio between our number of counselors and our number of children, which we know right now in Indiana is, what, 650 to one, which isn’t going to allow us to really take on the lift that’s required here, which is individualized support. So thank you so much. Good points, Senator Byrne. Thank you. And I apologize for being late. You may have already covered this, but how many of these children move on to the next grade that have chronic absentees? Is there any data on that? We didn’t, in our analysis for this presentation, we did not control for continued attendance. What we focus on is more the, how prevailing chronic absenteeism is. So let me go back to, let’s see right here. Slide. So this slide, kind of working backwards, shows that of the 28,361 12th graders who were chronically absent this year, 15,000 plus of those students were also chronically absent in the year before. And in their 10th grade year, 9000 were. So this shows it sort of going backward, the chronic absenteeism. But this is only for, you know, only going to catch kids who have been continued to be enrolled. So as far as whether or not chronic absenteeism in one year leads to, like, say, a dropout or leaving Indiana, just not showing up in the data anymore, I’m not sure we would have great data for understanding, like, in the year following a chronic absenteeism designation, what happened to a kid? Am I getting your question right? Yeah. I mean, my idea was, are these kids actually moving on to the next grade? If you’re not there? I don’t know how you can move on. I don’t know how you pass. Yeah. So to that point, chronic absenteeism does not prevent you from, you know, we have the responsibility to provide a free and appropriate education. So if you show up and you’re the following year, you’re enrolled, even if you were chronically absent the prior year. Understand? But why should you go to the next grade level if you can’t pass? You’re surely not passing tests if you’re not there. That’s a good question. You’re not learning. That’s what my point was. Is there any data on how many of these kids are actually being held back because they aren’t achieving? Move on. So we would be able to tell that from someone who’s reported as the same grade two years in a row. So that’s something that we could look at and then compare that to how many of those students who have reported as the same grade twice? How many of them were chronically absent? And we would get a sense of a data based answer to your question. I’m not sure. Yeah. Representative clinker. Thank you, mister chairman. Your statistics on seniors one in three with sort of a chronic absenteeism. I’m wondering if that’s fair because many of our seniors are going out to colleges trying to decide what their future is going to be. Orlando, they have another stipulation where they’re working in their senior year because they took dual credits and can leave early. So I’m wondering if that one in three is actually fair for seniors when they have to leave for many reasons, and some of those are to find the college that they want to go to. Yeah, I think that to use a word that was used earlier, nuance is critical here, right? I mean, certainly everything you just said happens. I went with my daughter on a visit last week to a college. So yeah, 100%. This is where the whole idea of the reason for the absence becomes really critical. And again, a lot of the opportunity to learn for a student has already happened in 12th grade. Not to say that 12th grade isn’t important, but again, just go back to nuance. We were trying to hold up the mirror and say, this is what the numbers say, but at the local level, you have to determine what the numbers mean. And I think that’s the point that you’re making. Senator Yoder. Thank you, mister chairman. I’m curious. I hadn’t thought about doing this research and John, I thought maybe you might know. What’s the research say with income earning potential and absenteeism? Is there an argument to be made there? I think about the multitude of pressures on kids and families. If there could be a better argument made that because it’s good for you with students about, well, we know that those students who go to school make this much more money. I mean, you hear, you read these stories, the one offs who don’t go to school, and they’re the greatest entrepreneur ever, and those are the one offs. But the majority. Is there studies available that we could look at that data? I’m not aware of any studies, but I am confident that we could figure that out in Indiana because we have a statewide longitudinal data system. We have good collaboration with the, for higher education and Department of Workforce Development. In fact, on gps we are putting out median wage information. So I mean, these things do take time, but it would be not that difficult to say that median wage is actually presented at the school level already right in the out years from graduation. So it wouldn’t be. That much of a stretch to think about looking at cohorts of chronically absent students and how they compare to the state average, one, two, three and four years out to help make that. I would have a hard time. You know, if I was a betting person, I’d probably bet that there’s a difference. Right. But I’m not aware of chapter and verse of any existing studies that specifically make that connection. I’m sitting here trying to figure out, how do we come at this problem? Because it really is. There are external factors and there are internal factors, and what can we do as a state to impact any of these? But wanting to go to school does make a difference, to see that it makes a difference in your life, and maybe it’s, in the short term, hard to see. Yeah. I mean, I think you’re making a very good point that you think about as an adult. What are the reasons you do or don’t do something, right? And so there are lots of reasons why a student may not go to school, and some of them may be. Let’s put it this way, some of them, the school may be able to solve, and some of them the school may not be able to solve. And I’m a big fan of control your controllables. Right. So let’s do what we can out of school to improve the chances that someone wants to come to school. So that would be my sense of, you know, it’s a. I feel like holding up the mirror, providing sunshine to the data. Just saying here is. Again, this is not to shame anyone. This is just to say these. This is the rate at which our publicly funded schools are. The attendance rates that are publicly funded schools is. What can we emphasis on? We, not they or you. What can we do to address the issue? It’s because it’s. I mean, the idea that it would not impact us as citizens and in our economic competitiveness is ludicrous. Right. This has an impact all the way around. Seeing no further. I’m sorry, represent Delaney. I was gonna say, seeing no further questions, but I’ll let you be the last. Yeah, you should always look at four because I have a couple questions. First of all, does this data include charter schools? Yes. And I assume it does not include the voucher schools. It does include the voucher schools. It does, yeah. Okay. So every. Basically every student in this state has their attendance reported. That’s good. Okay. Have you aggregated that data separately so that we can look at those categories? We have. We have not. And I want to confirm, I’m pretty certain that includes the voucher schools. But I will get back to you on that. Yes, we, I mean it’s possible to split it out. Okay. Secondly, I’m struck by the numbers in the COVID era. I’m trying to get the right chart in front of me here. Could you speak into the microphone? I’m struck by the drop off in the COVID era. And so the chart I’m looking at is the ones called chronic absenteeism by socioeconomic status. I don’t know what number that’s twelve. It’s got a little number twelve in the bottom corner. And what struck me is that in both the free and reduced lunch category and those who were able to pay for their own meals category there was a dramatic increase. Is there something permanent as a result of the COVID issue that’s going to keep us from having higher attendance? Are we stuck at a higher level of non attendance? Yeah, I think that’s kind of one of the million dollar questions like has it established a new sort of floor that concerns me and part of the concern is when I look at those who are able to pay their meals, they’re still, and by the way, they went up as much or more than the poorer families during COVID I think people are getting used to saying we’ll go two days early for vacation. We’ll come back two days later after vacation. And Friday we got to go see grandma. So one of my concerns is not just with the schools, but we’ve got to get the message to the parents. Yeah. That you got to get your kid in the seat. There was a. I’m sorry, go ahead. Well, a suggestion we use this suspension thing as I understand a suspension means you’re out of the building. I think there’s in school and out of school suspensions. Okay, give me an example. What’s an in school system? And I would be happy to be corrected on any of this, but my sense is that you’re in a. Part of the building, you’re isolated. It might be in an office room in the back of the administrative area. You’re still expected to do work. I’m going to suggest that we need to look at what I’m going to call incentive suspension. So if you’re on the basketball team and you don’t bother to attend, you’re not on the basketball team, or you’re suspended from the basketball team, or if you’re in the chorus and you’re crazy for the chorus, but you don’t come to school, you’re off the chorus. And if there’s a way to do that to the parents, I don’t know what you could do to parents. They’re in a different category. I think somebody once suggested if your kid doesn’t attend, you can’t go to the basketball game, whether your kid’s playing or not. So we need to get the message, I think, to parents as well as to administrators and legislators that maybe we’ve all gotten into a bad habit. I mean, I remember when the incentive was you got a perfect attendance pin. People went nuts for that. That was a positive incentive. So I just wanted to bring up that issue. Is there also. We passed a bill here. I’m struck by this data. We passed a bill that says you can be sent to the prosecutor. It’s always been the law to some extent, but we’ve seemed to reinvigorated that. Are you telling me that if Johnny’s in the 11th grade and is doing very badly and it’s time to call him habitual and tell them, tell the parents, call the parents in and say your kid and you may go to the prosecutor, you can tell them all the way back to first grade what Johnny’s been doing or not doing. Yeah, we can tell. We get attendance level for each student each year. We’ve just in 2020 started getting it to know which actual days of the calendar were missed. But in total, we have that for all kids and we’ve collected that for a long time. I should think if a prosecutor was trying to decide who to prosecute, that would, that look back would be pretty interesting to them, so. Well, I appreciate what you’re doing. I’m just trying to figure out how the different categories, how the legislature uses this, how the parents use this. Your focus has understandably been on how the schools use it. My big question is the last one, I’m a legislator. I’m not going to get down to whether Johnny did or didn’t come this week. But I saw the chart that showed that there are some schools that have had chronic attendance where you’ll know the one I’m talking about. You got down to 78 schools, and here it is. It’s chart number nine. The number of schools in which one in two students are chronically absent has happily gone down, but it’s 74 schools. We, as a legislature, I think, need to look at how is that possible and what needs to be done. So I’m going to suggest that to us. And then this is a dangerous question. Probably, but your data does not tell us whether the schools that are in the worst categories, whether they’re heavily one ethnic group, the other ethnic group, heavily poor, heavily rich, whatever it might be. But I assume you can generate that data. Well, I may have to look at that. You touch raw nerves when you get into these things, but you could tell me. All right, thank you. Yeah, I think the culture, you raised the idea, again, back to the idea of nuance, you’re kind of getting at the idea that there’s a cultural component. One phrase that I heard in the last year, kind of in a discussion like this, someone made the comment that maybe some families are living their best lives. Now, like, to your point about vacation or things like that, and certainly that could be one part of it. But, like, I think you’re also just getting at the idea of the sustained commitment to daily attendance. Right. And have we lost something there? And, you know, how much can schools do about that part of the problem? Yeah, that’s a problem for enforcement, and it’s not a pleasant conversation to say, look, your kid’s doing fine, but your kid’s never here. That’d be a very interesting conversation. Representative Delaney, as well. Last this past session, I think the house did propose to look at athletics and post curricular activities, and it was not included in language. I do know the department actually is now working with IHSAA, and they’re going to start blending that data to see. See if there’s correlation to it. I mean, you also know, I think the flip side is post curricular activities and athletics are another way to get kids, keep them involved, but it also be interesting to see if they’re only involved when they’re playing that sport, and then after that, they follow up. So I know that there’s. We’re looking at other options or other ways to slice the data as well. So, representative baining, I do also think that either the IHC. IHSAA or schools have a policy around attendance on game day. So I think. I think there are some things in place that would prevent you from skipping school and coming to the game, but I don’t know the nuances of all of that. I think the IHSAA does have requirements in terms of grade point average, usually too. I think they have to maintain, but that hasn’t applied necessarily to post secondary, I mean, to extra curricular activities as well. Senator Ford, you are the last person, I think, who. Thank you, mister chairman. I appreciate that. And I apologize for being late. I was in the Roads and transportation committee earlier this morning, but wanted to ask you a question. So maybe you already covered this, but when the students come back to school, is there a staff member that’s recording what the reason for the absenteeism was? And is that reported somewhere? So I believe all of the student information systems that schools use have some kind of like either a dropdown or free text entry of a probably like a reason code. We’d probably refer to it as that. That’s not something we require schools to send to us, but it’s something that they can document. And I can’t really speak to the, the care that’s taken to do that for every time a student is absent, but that capability is common. Yeah. I think for me it would be really good to know that if schools across the state are reporting 90% mental health days, or whatever the case may be, then we now know that we need to address the mental health of our students, of our state. If students are being bullied and they’re staying home, or if physical health is the factor, I think that would be something that would be really good for us to know, to really get down to the root of the issue as to why the students aren’t in school. So that would be my first thought. My second thought is, and also, do we know by the data what schools are the worst and what schools are the best in terms of attendance rates? Yeah. So the attendance data that’s coming out on. Sorry, don’t get seasick here. October 11. So this is a platform that’s coming out, visualizations coming out in October, and you’ll be able to see everybody here. Yeah. Because I think if a school corporation is consistently low, then I think we should work with you and the DOE to really work with that school corporation to maybe it’s extra staff or funding or whatever the case may be, but I do think that that is going to be very helpful. Yeah, I think, again, the point here is to certainly just hold up, I used the term before like hold up a mirror, say this is what the data say. But again, we’re not going to be in a good position to say, here’s what the data mean. And so that’s where we think we really need to hoping this will encourage local conversations and really local intervention if possible. Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you. Seeing no further questions. Thank you, John. Appreciate the depth of details that you provided. I’m going to take a quick break and allow the members that have shown up after the initial introduction to introduce themselves. I’ll start with Representative TeschKa if you want to introduce yourself in your district. Jake Teschka. House District seven, which covers most geographically in St. Joe county, bits of Marshall and Laporte as well. Senator Byrne, thank you. Gary Byrne from southern Indiana, District 47, state senator carriers, Harrison County, Washington county, and most of Floyd. Senator Alexander. Thank you, mister chairman. Scott Alexander. Senate District 26, that’s all of Delaware county, all of Randolph County, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, up there in Winchester, home of the sugar cream pie over there. So I was scheduled for three committees this morning at 10:00 so. But I’m here with you now. You are. I know. Senator Hundley and Senator Ford were both scheduled for numerous committees. Senator Hundley. Thank you Mister chairman. Good morning everyone. Andrea HUndley State Senate District 46 here in downtown Indianapolis. Representative clinker. Sheila clinker. Lafayette, Indiana, District 27. Senator Ford. Thank you, mister chairman. State Senator JD Ford, representing District 29, which covers Hamilton, Boone and Marion counties. Okay, I think that’s everybody. Thank you for sharing. We’re now going to begin public testimony. Now that the department’s gone, I would again reiterate to everyone, it’s now 1115. Would appreciate being concise and as brief as possible. We’re going to begin with Katie Albrand from Empoweru and if you do have any material be distributed and haven’t already brought it up here, you can bring it up here and staff will go ahead and distribute it at the appropriate time. Hi there, thanks so much for inviting us to come and speak today. My name is Kate Albrant. I am the senior customer success manager at Empoweru. Before diving into how our organization is addressing chronic issues of absenteeism and discipline, I’d like to share a little bit about my background and my motivation for this work. While I lead the customer success team at Empoweru, I’m also a school psychologist. Three years ago, I made the decision to leave the public education sector after over a decade, and this was a choice that I made and it wasn’t one I made lightly. But I made it with a clear goal in mind, to be a catalyst for systemic change and to destigmatize the conversation around mental health support in schools, building not just resilient students, but communities too. You see, the biggest challenge that I faced in my work as a school psychologist was precisely what you’re here discussing today, the chronic systemic issues that are difficult to address on an individual level. I’m really fortunate now to work with Empoweru, a provider of mental health and resilient solutions to tailored specifically for schools. Our founders are school clinicians like me. They recognize the existing system wasn’t effectively supporting students. They developed a research backed program designed to transform student outcomes. Today, I’m here to show how it works and why nine out of ten students who complete empoweru make significant progress towards their goals. Let’s explore what Empoweru has learned as an agent for change in these spaces. Our program is built on three main components. Research consistently shows that personal support and facilitation are critical drivers for building resilience and academic success. Empoweru directly addresses this by helping students remove non academic barriers by building their resiliency skills to succeed not only in school, but in life as well. We use a research based methodology approach that combines three components to drive our student centered approach. The first is we’re people powered. Our empoweru programs, though they’re technology based, are supported by real people deeply rooted in human connection, which is what truly makes the difference. The second is intrinsic motivation. Our programs are all student focused, meaning that students set their own goals throughout their program, allowing them to be invested in their own personal growth and success. That, combined with our unique curriculum design allows students built in opportunities to apply their newly learned skills directly to their life. That final piece is those measurable outcomes. We utilize the transtheoretical model to measure student growth and achievement, allowing schools to have a tool to monitor student progress and evaluate program effectiveness. And here’s what we found in a recent data review involving tens of thousands of students across the US, we found that 70% of students selected goals in one or more of these areas through skill in application. Over 90% of our students made statistically significant progress on their goals. These goals help students feel better about themselves, which lead to successes like increased attendance, decreased behaviors, and improved academics. Let me illustrate how this works in practice for you. We partner with one of Minnesota’s largest districts who currently serve over 32,000 students. Empoweru was implemented as a targeted resilience intervention within their credit recovery program, specifically which assists more than 3000 students who are facing significant non academic challenges, including chronic absenteeism, and who are also at substantial risk for graduation. Through our program, students are eligible to earn high school credit for their work while simultaneously setting goals, building their intrinsic motivation and self regulation, all which contribute to increases in student engagement and success. We observed remarkable outcomes with this group of students. Over 97% of them made progress towards their goals without needing requiring higher intervention, and 98% of them found empoweru helpful to their well being. This specific cohort of students went from a 0% pass rate in their ELA courses to a 60% pass rate. All of this led to additional. Outcomes, including a 25% increase in graduation rates for this cohort. At the end of the program, students provide valuable feedback about their experience and I’d love to share a few direct quotes from these students with you today. The first is from a 10th grader. I have improved with balance in school, friends, motivation, self discipline. For example. I am motivated to go to school now. The next is an 11th grader. I improved in being more kind to myself. I started focusing on my strengths instead of my failures and it’s helping me to be more positive and motivated. This course equipped me with the effective strategies to manage my thoughts, emotions and behaviors, leading to tangible improvements in my well being and resilience from a 12th grade student. These positive results aren’t just limited to St. Paul, but extend to rural and urban districts nationwide. Our overall outcomes from tens of thousands of students over the past four years reveal that 90% of students made progress on their goals and did not require further intervention. 93% of students found Empowereo helpful for their well being and resilience, and 87% of staff reported improved student focus and well being. I’ll leave you with a quote from one of our partner districts. To find ways that we can put restorative practices into our schools is crucial for the success of our kids in our district. Empoweru is such a great example of what it means to restore students, to help decrease discipline referrals and restore our schools and communities. We’re really proud to be a part of the solution. Thank you. Thank you Kate. Seeing no questions. Thank you very much. I’m sorry, Senator Ford. Yeah, thank you mister chairman. I just had a quick question. So are we, are you already here in Indiana, working in Indiana schools? That’s a great question. We are currently in one non public setting in Indiana schools, but we work with a variety of states across the US right now. So we have one small school in Indiana now. Gotcha. And then my follow up question, if I can, mister chairman, is how does this work in conjunction with a school counselor? Yeah, that’s really great. I’d love to follow up specifically like with you, if that’s all right about that. It’s a little bit nuanced, just to your point earlier, Senator Hundley, every school district is set up differently. So what’s something that we do is we work individually with districts and schools to hear a little bit about what they need and then, and then figure out a solution that works well for them. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah. Senator Alexander. Thank you Mister chairman. I had an opportunity to kind of go through a Zoom meeting on this and kind of my takeaways on this is it checks a lot of the boxes of what we’re trying to get at this kind of an idea or this kind of concept, I guess. You know, I think she showed you. Could you talk. Pull that down closer. Sorry. I think she showed you some statistics here that are pretty good. And I kind of relate this to on a higher ed level, Senator Eckerty is working with scholar house up there and this kind of thing is helping to improve the lives of many up there, including a new collaboration with Ball State University up there that they’re looking towards on the, on the higher ed level. But what I really like about this is it doesn’t ask any more from the teachers, it doesn’t ask any more from the counselors. It includes the parents and the teachers, the counselors, because it can be as involved in this as they want to. And I think it’s kind of very interesting to consider a concept like this. Thank you. Thank you Lori. I’m sorry, Kate. Next I’m going to go ahead and call Lori O. I don’t know how to pronounce last name to my right. I’m going to go ahead and call two people at the same time. Lori will go first and then I’m going to have Matt Shoemaker from Newcastle if you can be on deck to my left, please. Good morning Mister chair and committee members. I am Lori Oduyoye and I am with the center for high school Success. I’m the Southeast Midwest regional director and at the center for High School Success we aim to ensure that 9th graders leave their 9th grade year on track for on time graduation by service of reducing chronic absenteeism, improving student behavior. In boosting teacher morale and retention and ultimately increasing graduation rates. And you might be thinking, okay, what does that have to do with attendance? But several the past two presenters saw the correlation between grades, behavior and attendance, and how that impacts graduation. And so, as a 30 year educator, this is very near and dear. I’ve experienced firsthand I working in the largest district in Tennessee. And so I do understand the urgency behind getting some strategies in place to reduce this issue that is not only here in Indiana, but it’s nationwide. In my current role with the center for high school Success, though, I’ve seen that being and having more proactive interventions, rather than punitive, really yield a higher impact and really embed a lot of these practices into school buildings so that they can create systems and environments that attract kids and want them to come to school. 9th grade. Why 9th grade? 9th grade is a pivotal year. It’s a transition year. And research has shown that 9th graders fail courses at a rate of three times more than any other grade level in high school. Also, their attendance rates or absentee rates quadruple than they did in middle school. And so for those reasons alone, the focus on 9th grade is crucial. So what we do, based on that research, as well as brain research, because students at that grade level and at that age range really have a strong need for belonging, have a strong need for social relationships. So when you peel back the layers of why kids are not coming to school, it’s shown that causes of absenteeism is really linked to a lack of belonging, a lack of having them feeling as though they have a trusted adult in the building. And so what we do is work with schools and districts to help them create those environments where students feel connected to their school, they feel as though they belong, and it makes them want to come to school. So we help schools really monitor, develop and track interventions to aim at such as those things. And using the research, I was very interested to hear the department of Ed having those dashboards available, because a lot of times schools are information rich, but don’t know what to do with the data that they have. And so having that data source, being able to use that data source to create those targeted interventions for individual students, because you have to look at root cause, it is no cookie cutter and no one size fits all. But having schools to really create those systems where they can look at that data, start to make some informed decisions around why kids aren’t coming to school, providing those interventions that are directed for those individual students so that they can improve their attendance rates, and then ultimately improve their graduation rates. As of just some data sources this past year. Our organization, we’re a nationwide organization. We do work with indie public schools. So we work with the four high schools here in Indianapolis. We’ve seen across our national network a 21% increase in attendance rates. We’ve seen a 13% decrease in chronic absentee. And so I’m thankful that this is a very intentional, directed, focused conversation. And I just ask that as you consider ways and strategies to combat this epidemic, is what I call it, that you consider more proactive strategies to address the issue rather than punitive. There is a one pager on our impact, on our organization. And you can see directly what we’ve done and what we’re doing that you will get after this session. But I am open to any questions that you may have. Are there any questions? Seeing none. Thank you very much for taking time. Next, I have Matthew Shoemaker to my right, to my left. And if I can have Joan washer Gish and Jillian Lane to my right, please. Good morning, chairman banning and vice president or vice chair, Rotts and esteemed committee members. We’re extremely proud and honored to be here today. And hopefully we can. Sure, yeah, pull that up a little bit. Good. Hopefully we can share a ray of hope. I’m Matthew Shoemaker, superintendent, Newcastle Community School Corporation. And I’m honored to be joined here today by Katie Smith, she’s our secondary attendance liaison. And Adam McDaniel, our assistant superintendent. Newcastle is the largest city in Henry county, which is ranked 78th out of 92 counties for median income in 2022. We have approximately 2900 students in pre k through 12th grades and we collaborate with several other nearby corporations supporting their special ed and career center students. In 2022, we applied for and received a $4.3 million school improvement grant from the Department of Education. The main focus of our grant work is to provide quality work based learning opportunities for our students and we’re proud of the fact that since the inception of the grant we have 14 new graduation pathways. We have more than tripled our local business partnerships and this semester alone we have 51 students who are actively participating in valuable internships. Two years ago, we had none. Mister McDaniel and misses Smith are two of the visionary leaders who give life to our grant. They will now speak briefly about how we’ve utilized the grant not only to build pathways and internship opportunities, but to decrease chronic absenteeism and to improve model attendance for our students. One thing that I would want to mention before Mister McDaniel comes up is we do not in Newcastle, we do not expel or suspend for attendance number one and number two is that our ratio of counselors to students is 255 to one, which is one of the best in the state. We’ve invested greatly in our counselors because we deem it important because our families are going through challenges. Even though we have that ratio and even though we have center stone which provides social support for our students in every one of our schools, we still needed an important attendance liaison. Thank you Doctor Shoemaker. As a result of receiving this NextGen school improvement grant from the state in 2022, we were provided with the opportunity to partner with students, staff, parents and other community stakeholders to create a comprehensive school improvement strategy. Through our education transformation team, which is composed of diverse group of stakeholders, we identified needs and spent a year planning for the use of the funds to establish rigorous and diverse academic experiences focused on preparing students for post secondary opportunities. A large portion of this plan included the hiring of nine new positions focused on improving student post secondary readiness based on feedback from our community employers. The most important skill to address for students was attendance because those community employers, they need their employees to show up. As a result, we decided to hire as one of the nine positions a secondary attendance liaison. This differs from the traditional attendance and truancy officer role due to the emphasis on relationships that is tied to data. When we found a candidate with a strong background in communications, we knew her ability to connect with students and families would be the most essential component of the attendance liaison role. In addition to her work with student and family relationships, misses Smith has partnered with our student management system administrators create reports to align her work with what the data is showing. We’ve learned that it is essential that we make every effort to guide the whole child by engaging the whole family to better serve the whole community. We have provided a two sided reference document regarding our school improvement grant attendance work. This includes our contact information in case we can assist any further. It is now my pleasure to introduce the leader of this work for Newcastle schools, Katie Smith. Thank you. As stated earlier, I find my role to be untraditional, yet incredibly valuable when it comes to connecting families with our school. This often feels like a bridge of communication, closing gaps of building trust with students and families. The beginning step to fighting the battle of chronic absenteeism is providing a clarity of expectation and policy here at our schools. It starts with educating our students and families while also having an understanding that chronic absentee behavior is a symptom to a bigger root cause occurring. My role is to uncover the barriers that families face and provide resources to aid and having consistent school attendance become a more reachable goal for students. Currently, I support middle and high school families serving grades six through twelve. However eager to share that, we are now launching this into our elementary schools during an implementation phase. As we know these interventions early on can make the biggest difference in the long run for our students and their families. While my daily intentions will always be focused towards relationship building, I do want to share a few data points that hopefully paint the progress that we’ve seen in a short period of time. Ideal model attendance, as you heard earlier, is 94% attendance or higher during an academic school year. Our high school saw an overall jump in 9% with overall increase and 20% since the year of 2022 in that model attendance number, while our middle school raised 7% in one year and 28% since 2022. While there’s still plenty of room for improvement, these numbers excite us that change is possible. Like most educators, the work I do is rooted in three crucial the safety and well being of our students, teaching students the value of their education, and helping them understand that showing up matters. However, what you don’t see from the outside looking in is the visual of the families that I support and their different stories. Most often, a student’s symptom of chronic absenteeism yields from their family environment and socioeconomic status. With roughly 61% of our students being on free and reduced lunch, many of the families I work with do not look traditional in many settings. Students are often raised in single parent households or by grandparents and even great grandparents. At some times, there’s even a heightened sense of responsibility on our students to obtain their own transportation, assist in childcare of younger siblings, or perhaps provide partial income to their student families as well. They don’t have education being their focal priority. These are also families who often lack access to consistent healthcare, food, and job security. If you haven’t noticed quite yet, you’ll hear me commonly reference the entire family. Chronic attendance, in my experience, rarely affects just one student in the household and even stems from the adults struggling to maintain consistent employment themselves through similar barriers. The real question, and most importantly answer we’re all searching for is how do we instill a sense of urgency and value of education in the lives of our students and families? It starts with gaining a true understanding of the barriers that they’re facing and helping find them resources to alleviate those. Allowing them to understand a solid education is the next step to education and sustainability in their lives. My work often starts with early warning data tracking systems that identify at risk students early on. This looks at students who arrive to a time to school on time, daily or consistently. In general. It also takes a closer look at students who do not have an adult advocating them on days when they are not present, establish communication with consistent phone calls, attendance letters, review meetings when concerns of potential chronic absenteeism arise. A variety of tactics are used depending on the individual circumstance and can include incentives and rewards along with more serious interventions. The work I do every single day changed for me the first time a student said to me, misses Smith, I didn’t think anyone would notice if I didn’t come today. My role allows me to walk alongside students and their families and advocate for an accountability partner through their education experience. Sometimes in regards to serious matters, it’s acknowledging that they showed up today and that I noticed and cared. I also have an excellent collaboration with our Henry County Juvenile probation system as it allows in partnering and holding attendance intervention meetings at our courthouse to prevent further traces of truancy and provide families with the help that is needed. While the data I shared earlier speaks on the improvement we’ve seen from this work, the true stories told in the success for each family who has a student see the value in their education and themselves. It starts by building trust. Once trust is established, a student dives deeper into finding passion and visioning a future for themselves. We’re fortunate to have top notch career coaches who partner with these students and families, opening doors for their future. The work I do alongside them helps them navigate their academic experience and learn to find value in their education. I partner with many stakeholders in the work of attendance, ranging from school employees, families and students, and our local community. Our local employers share the importance of having employees who show up to work. How this skillset needs to start in the school setting teachers express gratitude for having students be in their classroom and present in their seats. Administrators and counselors are partners alongside me as we carry the heavy lift of chronic absenteeism. Most importantly, parents are finding relief as their students now have futures ahead of them. While the first step to attending school for a student starts at home, their dedication to return each and every day starts in the classroom with teachers who inspire them to reach their full potential. We do this work for many reasons. However, it’s important to know we’re dedicated to instilling the value of showing up. Showing up matters and that when they do, we notice and we care. Thank you for your time, Senator Ford. Thank you Mister chairman. Thank you all for your comments and your presentation. And this could be for any one of you. What is the reasons that you are seeing at your school corporation? That’s my first question. And my second question is you mentioned in your testimony misses Smith, about the barriers. Can you talk more about that and what you all are doing to knock those barriers down? And then my final question is, is the work that you’re doing at school, at home? Both? How is that happening? You can take any one of those. Absolutely. And I will start. And please remind me if I miss a piece of those questions. Your first question, will you state that one more time for me again, just what are the reasons that you were seeing about your students not coming to school? I would say students don’t understand the value of their education. So a lot of it starts with just explaining that when you miss a day of school, you’re missing crucial instruction taught in the classroom that can be affecting everything moving forward. There was a comment earlier about students that leave for two to three days to visit grandma and grandpa, and they don’t understand why that’s, you know, a serious consequence. That’s something that we’re teaching every single day, that every day matters. And the information. That you get every day counts. And so I think first and foremost it’s helping them understand the value of the education and what a gift that is given. A lot of students say to me, well, I show up to work because I get a paycheck. Not quite understanding that showing up to sophomore year geometry class also provides a paycheck. It just looks different in the value that comes full circle barriers that students face. I mentioned that students are often raised in untraditional settings. I was fortunate to have two parents that brought me up and still support me to this day. However, oftentimes, rarely do I see students that have both parents in the household. And some, like I said, are even being raised by grandparents and great grandparents. So there’s just a lack of understanding of what school education looks like today and how that support can be provided and then just the work. How is that? You know, is it at school, at home? Where’s it happening? Yes. So I have been with Newcastle school systems. I started last school year. So I’ve completed one full year and I’ve jumped into year two. My work is primarily done inside of our school building between your eight to 3 hours. However, I live in our community and really passionate about knowing that the individuals, especially our high school students that are not too far in age from me, are growing into successful opportunities to be great neighbors, great citizens, great partners in our own community. So my work primarily happens in our school building. I have taken home visits with our school resource officer. However, we find meeting them at school is where we see progress. And I would say 90% of my work actually happens with the parents first and foremost. Got it. Thank you. So just to comment on Katie, she removes barriers, she builds trust, and that’s huge because that gets parents and kids open to coming to school. The other part of this is, and part of the grant was, is that we have engagement because you’ve got it. Kids have got to know what the purpose is for coming, right? She can lead them there and she’s really, their life coach is kind of what it is. But Mister McDaniel was the former principal at the middle school. He’s really tackled this work and he can talk about a couple of things that we’re doing from an engagement standpoint that really make them want to come to school. I was just kind of curious to see if like if you ran a report and you saw that this particular student isn’t been in school for a week, two weeks, does someone call, text, email, visit the home? Yes, that would be me. So anytime a student doesn’t come to school at all. For example, today is a hard day for me because I’m here, and I’m not sure who’s at school and not there today, but I make personal phone calls, probably upwards to 30 to 40 every single morning. And sometimes I have a parent say, oh, I’m so sorry, we’re at the dentist. I forgot to call. I apologize. I’ll get back to you. And other times I don’t get an answer. And that’s when that kind of alarm goes off. And so we track every single day, especially for those middle school students. Oftentimes mom has already left for work. They’re responsible to get on the bus themselves. And a lot of parents will say, I didn’t know they didn’t get on the bus this morning. Thank you. I will go home. They will be there in an hour. Got it. Thank you, mister Chairman. Senator Hundley. Thank you, mister chairman. And Doctor Shoemaker. We would be remiss if we didn’t congratulate you on also sending an excellent teacher to the legislature. So we enjoy having Representative Criswell here. Miss Smith, my question for you is, can you dig in a little bit deeper about your relationship with the prosecutor’s office and what that partnership looks like and what some of those, like individualized supports that have come out of that are absolutely. So it’s a new partnership for us. It just launched last year. And while I started at the same time as this, we’ve definitely been figuring out that relationship together. I work very closely with our juvenile probation officers more directly. And so what happens is, if we have a student that we have done all efforts to get to school, we’ve reached out to parents, a student, we’ve eliminated all barriers, and we’re still not seeing progress. We realize that they have a lot of resources when it comes to mental health support, along with kind of getting into the home, so we don’t necessarily have to as deeply. And so we would file formal truancy if a student met the qualifications, where then an open case is evaluated by a formal juvenile probation officer. And then they really can provide that 24 round the circus care for our families, whether it be wrap around services with counseling, transportation barriers that they’re also seeing. And we found great success in students. Nothing seeing anything further. We have had a case go further. However, that relationship is definitely blossoming, and they’re also seeing great success. And oftentimes, unfortunately, the students that I’m working with, they’re already working with as well. So that partnership has been very, very healthy so far. Senator Yoder. Thank you so much, mister chairman. Excellent testimony. I really appreciated hearing what’s happening in Newcastle. Was curious. You had mentioned something, Katie, in some of your conversations. When you do connect with students, that they’ll say, I didn’t know anyone noticed, and maybe this was shared and I missed it. I know we keep track of who’s absent. Are we tracking data of why they do show up? Because I’m in the classroom, but I’m also. So in a university, they’re older, but they’re also older, and they have to get themselves there. And one of the things that we do see and talk about, because I primarily teach freshmen, is we put them in teams right away. We have all of these relationships of accountability because students report that sometimes they don’t show up for themselves, but they show up because they know that a team member is counting on them to be there. Is there a way of capturing some of this data in the work that you’re doing? Yes. So, thankfully, we have excellent clerical staff that anytime a phone call were to come in of a student that’s not present. Right. We have those notes. We talked about that text box earlier where it says very clearly Johnny has strep. Johnny’s in Florida, missing grandma. Johnny needed a mental health day. All of those are things we see day in and day out. I think the bigger answer that we kind of search for is the why looks so different. We’ve talked about that nuance. It really depends on the student. But the accountability piece is crucial. When I meet with a student and they haven’t found a connection point, I like to be the bridge for them. Maybe the connection point is another classmate. Maybe it’s a responsibility at school every day that I have to help lead the pledge. So I know I have to be there. Perhaps it’s a teacher that’s willing to take an extra five minutes to dive a little deeper into the why behind that student. I feel privileged to be that person for a lot of students in the building. And so I think that’s kind of the bigger piece, though, is if this work was already working with the amount of counselors and the staff, then we wouldn’t have this problem. But there is a difficult barrier, and I kind of fill in all those loose gaps that sometimes fall through the cracks. Representative Delaney? Yeah. I want to understand the structural issues, and that’s why I’m addressing them to the superintendent. Is it fair to say that you didn’t have the funds for this kind of staff person under your normal budget, but you got it as a part of this CTE program, the next. Yeah. Next generation grant. Yes. But otherwise, you didn’t have the money. That’s concerning. And the second thing is, what’s the relationship between the, let’s call them the attendance cheerleader and. And the counselors. And counselors. She could probably better answer that question. But like I said, we not only have counselors, but we have new career coaches. We got three career coaches at the middle school, high school, level. She works a lot with them as well because our kids need to see the purpose. They need to have a vision of where they want to go in life and that helps her so they really work in tandem. Similar to a math department. I would like to say we’re our own department. So a lot of my meetings occur with the counselor or career coach present because they can answer to specific academic questions. Once again, it’s another person on that team. So when I meet with a student who is facing some chronic issues, I always have either a dean of students or an assistant principal present myself and a counselor at time. However, just as you can imagine a school, it’s not uncommon to get a knock on a door, that someone is having an emergency and that person gets pulled. And so I’m kind of that consistent layer. But I work incredibly closely with all of the above. And once I see a student that finds dedication to coming to school, that career coach becomes such a valuable piece, helping them figure out why they want to keep returning day after day. Thank you. Thank you. Just a second. Cinderatz, can you tell us what, you know, represent? Delaney asked about costs. What was the amount of the grant that you got and how many years was it for? So the grant we received was $4.3 million. And the first year was for planning and then three years of implementation following. Okay. The size of your school district, that’s a very sizable grant, I would say for sure with only 2000 students. Senator Rottsdev. Thank you. Mister chair. Simple question. Well, I want to make a comment first of all about the career coaching because that was exactly what part of our idea was that we would be able to take some of the gap away from the counselor student ratio by utilizing a career coaching grant. So I’m glad to hear that’s exactly what you all did with it. And the last piece is what is the one more time iterate for us, the decline percentage in absenteeism over the time that you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing. I can go from memory and that is just one year. And that is, I believe the state is a decline of chronic absenteeism of 1.4%. The middle school went down 7.2, I think, and the high school went down 11.5. So just in that one year. So it’s a significant improvement. I will say our starting point was not very good. It’s just, it wasn’t. Thank you. Seeing no further questions. Thank you very much. Next I have Joan Washer Gish, followed by Jillian Lane to my right and to my left. If I can have Tom Grisham come to my left, please. Good morning, chairman baning, vice chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be. Here with you this morning. My name is Joan Wasser Gish. I’m a director at the Boston College center for Thriving Children, which developed and housed city connects. On behalf of myself and my colleagues, I’m here to share with you the impact of city connects, an evidence based approach to integrated student support studied for over 25 years and implemented in Indiana schools for three years, CitiConnecks has demonstrated to positively impact areas of concern to this committee, including student attendance, school environment, and academic outcomes. I’ll provide you with a brief overview of city connects, including how it works, what we know so far regarding its impacts generally, and here specifically in Indiana. Developed 25 years ago through a partnership between Boston College and the Boston Public Schools, CitiConnect’s results in every child receiving a tailored set of prevention, intervention, and enrichment supports 2021 was the first year of implementation in Indiana schools. Since then, city connects has expanded and currently operates in about 60 schools across the state. Consistent with best practices outlined in the national guidelines for integrated student support, the city connects model has four principal review plan, follow up, and data informed decision making, all of which is really designed to drive at root cause at the individual level. A full time city connects coordinator, a school based counselor or social worker, is part of a school student support team. Each fall, they meet with teachers to review each and every student’s strengths, needs, and interests, creating individualized plans in close consultation with families and students. Coordinators connect students to a tailored set of services and opportunities, drawing on resources in their school and in the surrounding community, such as academic support, healthcare, after school programs, and food, ensuring that the right supports reach the right student at the right time over time. Data about student strengths, needs, and interests is used by school personnel to make decisions about student, classroom, and school level programming, partnerships, and priorities. Data is also used to ensure accountability for student outcomes. Peer reviewed studies show that city connects in elementary school leads to improved academic outcomes. You have in front of you a nice summary of those outcomes, but one thing that’s not included in that summary is a study that’s meant to come out in the next couple of weeks through the American Educational Research association, one of their peer reviewed journals. That study is a synthetic, randomized, controlled trial that allows for comparison between students who attended elementary schools with city connects and students who attended elementary schools without city connects. What that study shows is that students who received this kind of comprehensive, individually tailored student support performed better on statewide tests in third grade and fourth grade and fifth grade. And when compared to their peers who did not receive this kind of support, their statewide test scores improved by 20%. To put that in perspective, that 20% is equivalent to 90% of the average estimated achievement gap between black and white students. It is equivalent to about 50% of the average estimated achievement gap between children growing up in low income households and high income households. So the impacts that we’re seeing on outcomes are significant. Students in city Connect’s elementary schools also show lower rates of chronic absenteeism and miss fewer days from grade four through grade twelve compared to peers in non participating schools. These students are also half as likely to drop out of high school, a finding that holds for both black and latino boys, a population that we know is especially at. Risk for dropout students are also more likely to enroll in and complete post secondary programs from an elementary school intervention. Additionally, city connect students who had lower reading and math scores outperform their peers in grades three to five and perform significantly better on statewide assessments in grade five, with additional research showing disproportionate positive impacts for students who are learning English. In short, citiconnects improves student outcomes by more efficiently and effectively using existing school and community resources, many of which you and your colleagues fund annually through the state budget across education, social services, health, mental health, and youth development line items. Presently, across the country, there are 27 states at some stage of policymaking on integrated student support. Indiana is a leader among them because it chose a rigorously evaluated evidence based model. This choice set the stage for a successful partnership between the Boston College center for Thriving Children and the Marion University center for Vibrant Schools to create the Citiconnext Technical Assistance center. Led by Jillian Lane, from whom you’ll hear in just a moment, the Citiconnext Technical Assistance center builds local expertise and local partnerships to bring CitiConnect’s evidence based student support to Indiana students. Moreover, because City Connect is part of a highly regarded research practice partnership at Boston College, researchers at our center received funding from the Federal Institute for Education Sciences to collaborate with the Indiana Department of Education to conduct a robust evaluation of city connects and better understand whether and how Citiconnext closes gaps in achievement and supports engagement for students in Indiana schools. While that research will take some time to complete, preliminary findings from the first year of implementation of city connects in Indiana showed that english language learner students had significant improvements in math proficiency compared to peers in schools without city connects. Additionally, 6th and 8th graders in city connect schools demonstrated statistically significant increases in english language arts proficiency in comparison to their peers from city connect schools from non city connect schools. Since that time, Indiana schools have gotten a lot better at implementing the city connect’s model, suggesting that participating schools are on track to produce the significant positive gains for students that we know are possible. Moreover, 100% of Indiana’s principals and 90% of Indiana’s teachers surveyed said that they were satisfied with city connects. We know from other research that principals believe that city connects helps to improve their school’s climate, that teachers feel more supported in their jobs, have a deeper understanding of their students, and greater empathy for them. All of these effects contribute to an environment conducive to educational success. Thank you for the opportunity to share this with you regarding the impacts of city connects and to share with you preliminary results for schools in Indiana. I appreciate your time and I welcome your questions. Jillian, chairman and the committee, thank you for having me. My hope is that I can give some additional local context to what Joan shared. So, my name is Jillian Lane. I’m the executive director of integrated student support and center strategy at Marion University’s center for Vibrant Schools. We launched city connects in 2021 in about 30 schools across the state with the help of the Indiana Department, Department of Education’s learning loss grant. And so we, over time, were able to expand to about 60 schools like Joan mentioned, in several different locations across the state, which includes Indianapolis, South Bend, Muncie, and a small town called Jasonville, Indiana, if anyone is familiar. So the other key piece about city connects is that we it also supports all grade levels. So it supports pre k through twelve and also supports any variety of school setting, public, charter and non public schools. And as a part of my role, as Joan mentioned, I work collaboratively with Boston College to ensure implementation is done with fidelity, and that we hope to see the impacts which are looking very promising. That the long term research has shown. Historically, what makes city connects unique is that every child can benefit, not just those that are in need of crisis intervention. In the 23 24 school year, city connects in Indiana served more than 17,000 students in early childhood through high school. In the same academic year, schools partnered with 697 community agencies across the state, and between those community partners, as well as in collaboration with the site coordinators in the buildings, were able to deliver over 118,000 services to students in the last year. And as Joan mentioned, those services are determined by looking at root causes, as well as student interests and strengths and needs. And so this evidence based systematic approach will really start to show positive outcomes over time, which we are already seeing. One of the early outcomes of cityconnects, as mentioned, is improved attendance of the schools that began implementation of city connects in the 21 22 school year and have had consistent implementation since then, have seen a great decrease in chronic absenteeism. As of the report this past September, that or the current month, the Indiana Department of Education released about chronic absenteeism across the state, there was about a 3.3% increase in attendance, whereas in city connect schools, there was an average of 13% increase, or, excuse me, decrease. I apologize. So the state saw a 3% decrease. We saw a 13% decrease. So, finally, since the beginnings in 2021, we’ve gained great traction with the US Department of Education as well. From the Marion perspective, they have been very eager to learn more about the work that we do because of the strong implementation as well as the strong data driven decision making that we’re able to utilize to inform the work that we’re doing. And then also, the overall systematic approach because of that, allows for really high quality data, not just a lot of it, but high quality, meaningful data as well, which really helps to grow the progression of that partnership with the US Department of Education. So, overall, we’re confident that Citiconnext has a proven track record and it’s continuing to invest in these evidence based practices are really important. And city connects is a great example of that, to continue to see gains in Indiana. So thank you for your time and willingness to listen to my testimony, and we are open for questions. Thank you. Any questions? Represent Delaney? Yes. I want to understand your program. First, I did hear a reference to grants. Is your funding coming from? Grants from the Indiana Department of Education? It’s a mixture for Marion’s funding. It’s a braided funding stream. Some schools are supporting it. We have some funding through the Indiana Department of Education, which is ending here shortly, which you all are very well aware of. But then we also have philanthropic and federal funding as well. So we really just work with schools to try and determine how can we support and eliminate barriers to accessing city connects, but also trying to kind of get creative with how we ensure long term sustainability as well. And do the schools pay for your services? Yes. So the city connects practice has a licensing fee, and then it’s funding of that site coordinator so that full time employee. In several instances, schools have given city connects as a structure for an existing social worker or school counselor. So in a lot of cases, schools aren’t hiring new staff. City connects is kind of the systematic approach in which they’re conducting their roles. In some cases, schools have decided to hire an additional staff person, and that city connects coordinator would have similar credentials. So a master’s of social work or school counseling would be the desired background. So what percentage of your revenue comes from state grants? A small portion. Let’s see. I would say maybe. Maybe 5%. Is there some place I could look to get a report on your revenue sources? Yeah, I can pull that together and send it as follow up if you’d like. Absolutely. Because my concern is, assuming your program is valuable, I can’t figure out how we get it into all of our schools, and I’m not even sure that’s your goal. Is that your goal, to get it into all of our schools? I mean, I think we know that city connects is appropriate for any school. Which I think is what’s really great. But it is a systematic approach, so there is a level of commitment from leadership to make that happen. It’s thinking about doing student support in a slightly different way. And so in a lot of cases, we’re serving a lot of high needs schools and districts. But like I said, it’s appropriate for any school. But one of our determining factors is their interest. Do they understand the larger vision that city connects brings to delivering student support and how that addresses the larger picture? Joan, I don’t know if you have anything you’d like to add. Yeah, thank you, Representative Delaney, for the question. I just want to add a couple of things. One is because Indiana has started implementing, and because you have a wide variety of schools governance structures across the state, it’s been a good opportunity to ensure that Citiconnext is able to work, which we have elsewhere, in a national network, in urban, suburban, rural communities, in public schools, in charter schools, in non public schools. And so because it’s able to work in such a wide variety, I think it really gives you as policymakers options in terms of really thinking about potential growth. There are other states across the country that are taking slightly different approaches, some of which are starting with a state level requirement that all districts engage by implementing a system of integrated student support, but haven’t necessarily yet taken the steps to support actual implementation on the ground. I think you are well positioned with a variety of approaches within Indiana to think constructively about the potential for this to be an approach to student support that becomes more widespread. Well, I’m back to the numbers. I have the pleasure of also being on the ways and means committee, and I’ve also been studying what we’re putting on education. So let’s start with a simple question. What is the licensing fee you charge through a school that wants to use city connects? How much is that? It does vary a little bit depending on the size of the school. What’s the range within Indiana? Sure. So the licensing fee is a $23,000 fee for the first three years, and then after those three years, the fourth year, it gets cut in half. And that goes towards several different things. So one of the things we didn’t mention is kind of the structure of support that’s a part of city connects. So we have the site coordinator that’s an employee of the school and works in the school, but as a part of the technical assistance center, as Joan mentioned, there’s a program manager that’s assigned to each and every school as well. So that’s someone that has the background and experience in student support, social workers, school counselors, and they provide ongoing training, coaching, professional development. So it’s a very engaged type of partnership that we create. So part of it goes to that support and all the professional development tools as well as implementation tools. And then the most crucial part is the database cloud system that we have as well. So all of the student support plans are housed in a system called MyConnects. So those are living, breathing documents that sync with student information systems. All of that, that fee really goes towards the professional development and support of staff, but then also all of the tools that are available in the database system that allows for the use of the data to be more. Is it $23,000 for each school building? Correct. So if a school district with ten schools, they’d have to pay 250,000, roughly 230,000. Do you have any district wide connections or contracts? So we’re almost district wide in Muncie community schools. But because of the learning loss funds that happened, our implementation has been a little bit more piecemeal. And districts have chosen different approaches in how to do that. Some districts have focused predominantly on, like in South Bend, for example, they focused on an elementary, middle and high school that feed into each other so that they could support some of the highest need students that they know are moving through those. I’m trying to stay on the money. I’m trying to stay on the money and all the subtleties of the details. Okay, so if a school assigns a person to you, I take it that’s on the school’s budget. If they assign a counselor to work with you, that’s on their budget, is that right? Yes, that’s how we would like it to look in some of the cases right now, we’ve kind of got the startup funds through the grant funds that eventually that staff person will be absorbed into their school budget. So we were preparing for that Esser Cliff. Essentially, they’re getting grant funds and the grants come from this Indiana Department of Education, is that right? The Indiana Department of Education? The US Department of Education as well as full. How much money is the. US Department of Education giving for the Indiana portion of your program? Yeah, let’s see. Right around 20 million. $20 million. And what’s the total from the state Department of Education? The state is right around three, I believe, $3 million. And bear with me, I’m trying to recall. And how many school buildings, since you seem to count by buildings, how many school buildings are you active in? Around 660. Okay. So besides those two grants, which together add up to 22 or $23 million, is there philanthropic money being put into this program, and how much is that? So, philanthropy? We are right around 500,000. We have some opportunities still pending. All right. And does Marion University get revenue from this program? It purely supports the implementation of the initiative. But do they get revenue for that? They do not. They do not share in this. $25 million specifically goes to fund the city connect’s technical assistance center. So the staff, the school staff, and then the licensing and implementation. But those are employees of Marion University. There are. So to Jones point about the structure of the technical assistance center. So because of the way that some of the early grant funds came in, we were kind of a mixture of schools and across various districts. So one of the options that we have is to potentially house a program manager in the district, which is another opportunity for cost savings. But because of the variety we’ve not. You’re getting way too deep. My question is, does Marion University have staff on its payroll that are funded through this program? They do. They do. And what’s the value of that? The dollar value. I don’t mean the moral value. Yeah. I can’t give you a solid number off the top of my head, but we have six staff members. Okay. Well, I want to thank you for providing this information, and I want to be sure that you understand that I’m going to be very curious about this, how it. Who we’re helping here and how we’re helping them, how it affects our students and how available this program would be to our. I don’t know. We have over a thousand schools in this state, school buildings, I don’t know, maybe 2000. It’s a big number. So I’m trying to figure out how this is applicable, and I’m also trying to figure what this does to our school funding formula. So thank you for your help. Yeah. Appreciate the questions. Senator Byrne, you mentioned that the $20 million grant from the feds, how many years is that for? Five. And it’s multiple grants, to be clear. So it’s five years. Five years. And that’s the total grant for the five years over three different grants. Yes, seeing no further questions. Thank you. Next we will go to Tom Grisham, followed by Abby Grace Kane and from Valpo to my right, please. Thank you, chairman, vice chairman, members of the committee, my name is Tom Krishan. I’m the general counsel and legal director for Indiana Disability Rights. One of our practice areas is educational advocacy, where we provide no cost legal representation to students with disabilities and educational disputes. I will be very brief. I appreciate the time to touch on an aspect of this and to identify how this very important topic might specifically impact students with disabilities. After Senate enrolled Act 282 went into effect this summer, which, as was mentioned earlier, can result in referrals to the prosecutor for habitual truancy, we received a few contacts from families with students with disabilities with concerns on the implementation of the law. One school appeared reluctant to include the need for anticipated absences due to the child’s disability or complex medical needs within the child’s IEP. They specifically cited Sea 282 for the reason another school mandated that the family obtain a separate doctor’s note each time the child was to stay away from the school due to the disability, citing requirements of Sea 282 as being the reason for the request. This was even though the absences were anticipated based on a permanent condition, the new language in Indiana Code 2033.6 defining an absent student as one being absent without, among other things, quote a note on file from the student’s doctor, therapist, or other professional requesting frequent absences. Be excused seems to contemplate a singular note, but some students appear to be interpreting it as extraordinarily narrowly as to ensure compliance with 282. Additionally, there is already an allowance in Indiana code 2033 218 for the parents to produce a physician certificate of the student’s illness or incapacity to attend school, along with the DoE created form. Yet this form or that process is not currently contemplated in 282 or the required truancy prevention policy. The goal is certainly a worthy one, ensuring proper attendance and combating chronic absenteeism. However, it would be helpful if it was clear about the exceptions for absences, specifically due to a student’s disability or diagnosis, in that school districts are educated on the same. Thank you. Representative Delaney, is the core of the problem that we don’t have regulations or the regulations. The problem, why are we, in effect, stretching or using this bill, this very useful bill that we passed to somehow impact the disabled children? So it’s a really good question, and I’m not sure the exact answer. I think a lot of school districts are extraordinarily concerned about compliance with it and ensuring that they are doing what they need to do. So they’re probably being overly cautious and narrowly interpreting it. So in situations where it’s clear that these individuals with, say, complex medical diagnoses are going to be absent, they’re still kind of pressing on with the 282 requirements as opposed to trying to utilize some of the exceptions. I’m just asking you then, if you would write us with your suggestions as to how to resolve this, either by changing the statute or getting a regulation or getting a sort of a guidance out of the Department of Education somehow, because I think we should address your concern, and I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of opposition. So I thank you for bringing it to us, but please do send us something that we can. And also the follow up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Next, I have the Alpo university team, followed by Amy Boone to my left. Please go ahead. Thank you, chair Benning and all the members of the committee for having us today. We are here today from Valparaiso University work department, and I’d like to recognize all of our peers in the audience who helped with this research presentation. So if you all could raise your hand for recognition. Amazing. Thank you. And before we begin, we’d like to formally introduce ourselves and our backgrounds. My name is Abby Manik, and I am a senior social work major at Valparaiso University, and I’m also an intern at Valparaiso community schools. In district five. My name is Grace Roberts and I’m also a senior social work major. Additionally, I’m currently a social work intern with the Laporte County Department of Child Services. Hello, my name is Kane Holderead. I’m from Elkar, Indiana. I’m a junior sociology major and my name is Eleanor Grchowski. I am a political science and history double major from Hebron, Indiana and today we’re here to address chronic absenteeism for Hoosier students with a variety of approaches to solve this issue, including the benefits of hand washing, on site flu shot availability, and a multi tiered behavioral system to keep Hoosier students in school. We believe that chronic absenteeism is an important issue in education and should take priority in legislation. By proposing increased handwashing at school, the option of onsite flu shots, and less punitive behavioral systems, we can directly target chronic absenteeism and improve educational outcomes for the current Hoosiers who are our future leaders, scientists, and maybe even legislators like yourselves. Previous legislation, specifically Senate Bill 282, absenteeism in school attendance, focused on truancy in elementary schools by clarifying the role of a truancy officer, additionally outlining what constitutes an attendance conference if a student is missing school. While this bill did make large strides in improving school attendance, there’s still work to be done. We must focus on the bigger picture issue beyond truancy, which is chronic absenteeism. While truancy implies deliberately missing school due to behavioral issues or delinquent behaviors, chronic absenteeism counts all absences to determine a pattern and recognizes that there are outside circumstances that might be keeping a child from school. The focus on chronic absenteeism matters because at the end of the day, regardless of reasoning, missing school is missing school, and further legislative action is needed to diminish this issue. According to the National center for Education Statistics, over 70% of schools in the United States saw an increase. In chronic absenteeism during the pandemic. This directly correlated with a drop in both reading and math scores between 2020 and 2022. Chronic absenteeism, often caused by barriers like poor health and frequent suspensions, have significant long term effects on a student’s academic progress. In 2021, upwards of 240,000 students, or 21% of all Indiana students, were chronically absent. Today, that number has decreased but maintained itself above 200,000. Before 2021, that number had never reached 125,000. This year, in Marion county, chronic absenteeism has reached upwards of 37% of students, according to the Indiana Department of Education. The lack of general health resources, including mental health assistance and physical well being, are contributing factors to students chronic absenteeism. Things like hand sanitizer, foaming soap, and the ability to even talk about the stress of school and at home issues are compounding elements to this issue. According to the Indiana center for Prevention of Youth abuse and suicide, Indiana’s suicide rate has been higher than the national average every year since 1999. Moreover, 22% of girls and 12% of boys surveyed in grades nine through twelve seriously considered attempting suicide within the last year. Another issue in relation to the lack of health resources is a lack of access to flu shots. An article published by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that of three studies that compared absenteeism for students who received flu shots and students who had not, all found that absenteeism was reduced for students who received flu shots. Benefits were also reported to extend beyond children who received flu shots. The same study also found that absenteeism was reduced significantly among high school students when elementary students receive flu shots. Suspensions and expulsions are also a key contributor to the chronic absenteeism issue. According to the idoE, roughly 7% of students in 2022, or 70,000 kids, had to sit out of the classroom for disciplinary reasons and increase from 27,000 the year prior. In 2021, 850 Indiana students were expelled from schools. In 2022, that number jumped to 2500. As presented by this data, it is clear that action needs to be taken to target chronic absenteeism. We are proposing the following three recommendations. Hand washing three times a day in schools a flu shot program on site at schools which was piloted in the state of Texas, and then a multi tiered behavioral support system piloted in both Ohio and West Virginia. So our first solution we proposed mandating hand washing in schools, specifically occurring three times a day at the beginning of the day, before eating lunch and before leaving school. A lecturer from Indiana University, Tim Scales, taught high school students from Wayne county how to wash their hands properly with the visual aid of a black light, and they were surprised at how long it took them to clean their hands completely. So then, thinking about younger children using that black light, it could take four or five more times washing their hands than children predict to fully clean them. So it is clear that students need to wash their hands more frequently in order to stay healthy and be in school. And the CDC states that schools who promote hand hygiene have less GI and respiratory illness and fewer missed school days. There was a 2009 study done in Denmark where they found that students five to 15 years old who were required to wash their hands for that three times a day. There was a 66% drop in students who missed four or more days of school and a 20% increase in students with no absences. Additionally, we want to propose the idea of schools implementing the use of foaming hand soap rather than liquid hand soap, as we found that foaming hand soap costs less than one penny per wash, which is half the cost of liquid hand soap. All right, our next recommendation comes from a flu shot pilot program in Texas. The flu is very expensive for hoosiers. For every 100 children, 63 days of school are missed during the flu season, and parents miss nearly one day of work for every three days their children miss. That’s a major economic impact. When 262 Texas schools began delivering flu shots, schools with the highest rates of flu shots saw the greatest drops in absenteeism during the flu season. Texas schools receive aid based on attendance, meaning that this program saves schools money. Altogether, approximately $500,000. Preventing children from getting sick in the first place is not only the more cost effective option, but keeps kids happier and healthier in the first place. And it’s a. In this map, you can see the presence of the flu in 2024 was high in Indiana compared to other midwestern states, and this effect can be translated to our schools as well. Our next approach addresses a multi tiered support framework. Multi tiered support is a framework for supporting students at different need levels so that they can succeed. One state that has implemented multi tiered supports is West Virginia. SB 568, passed in 2024 and required schools to implement tiered supports like community resources and encouraging engagement with parents and community leaders. In Ohio, HB 318, supporting Alternatives for Fair Education act, was passed in 2018 in which students must implement positive interventions like positive reinforcement for good student behavior and outreach through things like visits by social workers to find the root cause of student absenteeism. Indiana has made some great progress in implementing multi tiered support systems. The Indiana Department of Education had a grant from Project aware and it made great strides in improving mental health infrastructure in schools, but the grant ended in 2023. As you can see on this map, it was active in 19 schools, including Wayne, Vanderburg, Westfield, Elkharke, Avon, La Porte, and Pike schools. It’s crucial that Indiana continues to support the existing infrastructure around these programs. Could you get a little bit closer to the microphone? Oh, yeah, sorry. It’s crucial that Indiana continues to support the existing infrastructure around these programs and expand them to include whole community based supports like flu shots and hand washing, so that Indiana can save money in the long run by avoiding having to build these support systems up from the ground up at a later date. As you can see here, schools under project aware, represented by the yellow line, had significantly fewer students who considered attempting suicide or who made plans to attempt suicide, dropping the number from nearly 37% to 14%. In the case of making a suicide plan, this program was highly successful, and if Indiana chooses to continue to fund this, it will ensure students can continue to get the help they need. And just before we close, I wanted to share an example of this multi tiered behavioral system within my own experience. Right now, I’m an intern at Valparaiso community elementary schools in district five, and just this past week, we had an opportunity to enact this multi behavioral approach. A student, a first grade student, was sent out of class for a physical altercation and originally sentenced with a five day out of school suspension. And within meeting with myself and the social worker at the school, we were able to enact behavioral skills, keep the students safe in and outside the classroom, positive intervention, and also limit his suspension from a one day out of school suspension to two day in school suspension, still working on schoolwork. And this limited his own abilities to be a part of that chronic absenteeism rate. And so that’s what we’re trying to enact with that multi behavioral system. And to close, we firmly believe that chronic absenteeism, again, a student missing 10% or more of school days, is severely affecting Hoosier students and their long term academic progress. And we believe that frequent hand washing, on site flu shot availability and a multi tiered behavioral system can keep Hoosier students in school and on a path to success. Thank you for your time seeing. No questions. Thank you. I hadn’t really thought about the health aspect. Washing your hands was a different notion that I had never thought about for absenteeism, but thank you for the insight. With that next, I have Amy Boone to my right, followed by Crystal Thorpe. I mean, to my left, followed by Crystal Thorpe to my right. Please. All right, I guess it’s not morning anymore, so good afternoon. My name is Amy Boone. I serve as the principal of Southport High school right here in Indianapolis on the south side. I’m also an active member of the Indiana association of School principals. Todd Bess and his colleagues had previously scheduled a board meeting today so they could not participate, although I do understand that they’ve shared information with Chairman baning and Chairman Rotts. I also wanted to personally share the impact that Senate enrolled act 282 has had on us and our schools. So thank you so much for this opportunity to share some of the positive and struggles with 282 and its implications for addressing the chronic. Absenteeism and the required systems in our schools. On the positive side, this legislation has heightened awareness around absenteeism with parents and community members, leading to more students attending school on a more frequent basis. It’s encouraging to see the impact increased focus can have on attendance rates. I do know from colleagues, however, that some parents have reacted by withdrawing their child and enrolling them in 100% virtual or homeschooling, which is obviously the opposite of what we’re looking for. And while we know that 282 was targeted for elementary school, we’re also attempting to implement this and systems at all levels. We’re encountering significant challenges with the systems that are in place. The law introduces a system where students who accumulate five unexcused absences within a ten week period trigger a meeting. While the intent is to engage parents and address the issue early, the reality is quite different. Often the meetings we schedule do not resolve in a parental attendance. This lack of engagement is concerning and hinders our ability to provide the necessary supports to students. One of the biggest struggles we face is the tight timeline. Parents must be notified of the meeting scheduled and held within five days of the fifth absence. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a rolling clock scenario where we must schedule meetings without adequate parental involvement and time to schedule for their availability. Additionally, we’ve noticed that many parents are not showing up to these crucial meetings, leading to a loss of valuable instructional time. Our teachers, attendance office staff and social workers are already stretched thin and trying to manage these meetings during their prep time and before and after school is very difficult. We’re also faced with the challenge of diverting resources away from students who are in attendance to support managing clerical tasks related to the attendance expectations. This is particularly concerning for our social workers who are very dedicated to assisting all students and feel like they’re not engaging with our students who are present. Despite the ongoing effort to notify parents, making phone calls, emails, using certified mail, and sometimes attempting home visits, many still do not engage. The tight timeline of the meeting within five days of the five absences also means many parents receive the required certified letter after the meeting has already been required to take place. I think signing off on the attendance plan is essential, yet it often falls flat when our parents do not show up. While 282 has brought much needed attention to the chronic absenteeism, we ask that you please ensure that the processes and systems in place effectively engage our families and our students at the secondary level, it’s very important to make sure school is an attractive place to be. I try to do that myself, hope I do the student is ultimately going to be the main stakeholder in ensuring attendance. Giving them reasons not to miss out in school will ultimately be the deciding factor. If I have one suggestion, it is to use the lessons that we’ve learned from the literacy cadre with early literacy and support statewide initiatives for colleagues to collaborate and learn from each other. I’m sure my colleagues at the association of School Principals would be eager partners in an attendance truancy cadre. Together, we can create a more supportive environment and encourage attendance and ultimately benefits our students educational experience. Thank you again from hearing free, and I appreciate your time. Senator Yoder, thank you so much and thank you for being here. I’m curious about the five days. What would be more reasonable? What would actually end up with the result of, I think, what the legislature was hoping for, but what you’re saying is actually not engaging parents. It’s making it impossible. So what would that language, how would that language, what would be your recommendation for how that language is crafted? I think that’s kind of a, in a perfect world, I think being able to have a little bit more of a flexible timeline, the five days is definitely limiting. Of course, there’s going to be times that even within a ten day, 15 day, you’re still going to struggle to get some engagement. But being able to maybe at least double that timeline or within two to three weeks of that time, being able to schedule that meeting, because then on top of that, it also states that if students again get another five absences, then there’s supposed to be another meeting where if the parents didn’t already engage the first time, utilizing the resources again. So I think extending it will give more time to have more parents engage. I know it wouldn’t be perfect, but extending it by at least another week or two would be wonderful. Representative clinker. Thank you, mister chairman. Where did your school corporation find the dollars. Needed for your program? Well, I am a title I high school. So the supports that we’ve been putting in place has been from title one funding. So for us, make sure I don’t forget some. We already had some programs in place that we had utilized with some Esser dollars originally that we have kind of funneled into title one. We were identified as a title one school last year. We work with the University of Chicago and the NCS for freshman success. Kind of what one of our groups was talking about earlier, about trying to make sure that we engage students early and keep them on track. We also have focused support during our school resource time for our underrepresented students, our black and latino students, to make sure that they’re receiving supports and getting pushed for advanced placement in dual credit courses. And also we fund two interventionist positions, one for academic and one for behavior, to try to be proactive. And we’ve created as staff some proactive lessons for our freshmen to try to engage them and make sure that we’re creating relationships to make sure that they stay engaged at school. Are you receiving grants? We are not. This is paying for this your school corporate, correct? Yes, it’s Perry Township. Schools here in Marion county represent Delany. Consistent with that series of questions, representative, can you get closer? Consistent with that series of questions, the federal title one money would have been put to educational purposes, I assume, if it wasn’t being put to this issue. Is that fair? Yeah. And I think, I mean, obviously, attendance is connected directly to education, so, yes, we could have utilized it for other additional supports for our very diverse population that we have in our school. Is it fair to say that to some extent, our perfectly legitimate effort to get kids to go to school, which I voted for, is becoming an unfunded mandate to you? Yes. And it’s not only costing you money, but it’s diverting staff from things you’d rather they be doing. Yes, correct. The more clerical than the direct impact on our kids. Yeah, yeah. I thank you for bringing that to our attention. We need to know these things. Thank you. Seeing no further questions. Thank you, Amy. Next, I have Crystal Thorpe to my right, followed by Katie Smith to my left, please. All right. Good morning. My name is doctor Crystal Thorpe and I served as the principal of Fisher’s junior high school for 16 years. I am here representing the Indiana association of School Principals as the past president, Doctor Todd Bess, our executive director, and our more than 3400 school leaders who are also members. First, I would like to thank you for your attention to this critical issue of student attendance and for making it a priority during the last session. As school leaders, we know that when students come to school, students get the vital instruction that they need and they learn. We appreciate how the state has set specific guidelines to support schools with chronic absenteeism. It has elevated the responsibility for schools and parents ensuring regular attendance for students. We now have clear expectations of our role, and it has helped create stronger partnerships with our families. School districts, the Department of Children’s Services, the juvenile justice system, are expected to collaborate in supporting all students in Washington Township. I now serve as the director of teaching and learning for grades six through eight, and our wrap around services for our k six chronically absent students include early communication with parents, a comprehensive attendance plan with early notifications, solution focused conferences with parents, home visits by our school social workers, and referrals to our community resources such as mental health therapy, faith based organizations, and healthcare. Sea 282 is a great start for K six, but there are some areas for improvement. The law adds more responsibility for schools, and some districts lack the capacity to implement this plan with fidelity. A few concerns include social workers are inundated with attendance concerns that take them away from servicing other needs, often at critical timing. If a school makes a home visit, often they take their school resource officer with them due to safety concerns and away from the school where they’re needed the most. Most likely, DC’s will screen out a call on absences just due to the volume of calls they receive and the priority that they must give to other situations. School leaders have shared that some prosecutors may not become involved on chronic attendance issues, again due to the sheer volume and the seriousness of the cases that they deal with from day to day. 25 years ago, I was an assistant principal in charge of truancy in Wayne Township. Parents and students were taken to truancy court with a judge that held everyone accountable and effective strategy in curbing student absences. We know that there are communities that are all in with SEA 282 and are having much success with the families. Those models can provide the resources that DC’s and the prosecutor’s offices need to ensure that what you intended with SEA is accomplished. IASP has made this a topic a focus for our fall district meetings and will raise up those successful models as resources for others. We will work collaboratively in the way that SCA 282 was written to support all students because we know when students come to school, students learn. Thank you. Seeing no questions. Thank you for your time and your thoughts. Next, I have to my left, Katie Smith, is that right? And then to my right, if I could have Braskeva. Thank you chairman Bayman good afternoon. My name is Katie Smith. I currently serve as principal at Union Elementary School in Johnson County. I am also an active member of the Indiana association of School Principals. I appreciate that you are taking the time today to focus on the important issue of absenteeism. When I was a child, going to school was a non negotiable. It was ingrained habit each day for 13 years. Unfortunately, following the pandemic, it seems like many families and students no longer prioritize attendance. Attendance is important in our school. Every day counts. At union elementary, we’ve experienced a rise in chronic absenteeism among our students. Some of the reasons for these absences include families going on week long vacations, often because the parents work remotely. We also have children taking care of their siblings or just missing the bus. Students, especially our young students, struggle to keep up when missing one or a few days at school. Teachers are spinning their wheels trying to play catch up every day. Chronic absenteeism affects more than just the absent student. While teachers help absent students catch up, the students with regular attendance are negatively impacted. Teachers are struggling, are juggling instruction for absent students, which causes a level of frustration. I believe that our policies on attendance have continued to get much lighter over the years, often due to parents being able to call school with an excused absence. For a variety of reasons, I believe that this is complicated for schools to track. If you are sorry, if you are at school, you are present. If you are not at school, you’re absent. We can record the reason at the end, but everyone just needs to be at school. We ask for good attendance for 180 days a year. One of my colleagues shared that the attendance letters, calls and meetings don’t work for the families they target. This only makes parents angry with the school. They will openly tell us nothing happens from the legal side and continue to not show relationship. Trust and communication from the entire school community plays a crucial role to ensure that we have students attend school daily. We need to be very clear, both from our schools and the state level, that attendance in school is extremely important. We need to make reestablishing regular attendance a top priority. Our elementary school has a supportive and a very positive school culture, and even our list of absent students continue to grow each day. We need to set clear expectations and continue to partner with parents or our attendance rates will never improve. One suggestion I have is to help leverage existing networks like our association of School Principals to brainstorm and share success stories and even share what hasn’t worked. Thank you again for bringing attention to this very important topic. I offer to be a resource to you now and in the future, and thank you seeing no questions. Thank you for taking the time to be here today. Next, I have reskiba to my right, followed by Gwen Kelly to my left. Please. Thank you, Chairman Banning and vice chair, Senator Rotz and members of the committee, thanks for the opportunity to speak today. I’m Russ Sciba, professor emeritus in the school of Education at Indiana University. I’d like to argue today that the problem of absenteeism is really about school engagement. Not only how we get kids to school, but how we get them, keep them engaged once we get there. Once they get there. I’d like to focus on three things. First, why we want to move beyond a focus on consequences. Any legislation around chronic absenteeism is essentially a problem of behavior change. How do we change the behavior of students, families, schools and school districts? So everyone is working together to get more kids to school. There’s this temptation when we try to change behavior through policy, to resort to harsher consequences, make consequences so tough that folks want to avoid it. But one of the big lessons of psychology is that punishment is a poor method for changing behavior. There are so many side effects that it makes it hard for it to work habituation to a certain level of punishment. So that we have to keep. To keep punishment working, you have to engage in harsher and harsher consequences. But the biggest side effect is escape. All of us, whether we’re rats in experimental mazes or students in school or adults, want to escape punishment. So it wouldn’t be surprising if we found that many parents faced with the punishments in SB 202, excuse me, SB 282, would just seek to pull their kids from school and rely on homeschooling. The psychology of behavior change tells us to really get people to change. You want a lot of carrot and pretty judicious and limited use of the stick. Second, what does the data say about kids whose engagement is so low they become chronically absent? Nationwide? In the 2022 school and 2023 school year, chronic absenteeism rates across states range from 16.6% in New Jersey to 45% in Alaska. Indiana, interestingly enough, is among the lowest rates of absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism in the nation, between second and third. Lowest for most years, 8th lowest one year. African american, native american, and Latino English language learner students are typically overrepresented compared to white students. That’s an almost universal finding. But I want to highlight one of the more interesting findings in the recent literature. In a piece published in 2018, Connery and her colleagues conducted a study of state truancy policies with really interesting findings. First of all, they find no evidence that stricter truancy policies were associated with lower rates of truancy. We think we can fix truancy sometimes by getting tougher, but it ain’t necessarily so. Even more interesting, they found that the disparity between black and white truancy rates, the attendance gap, we might call it, that gap is lower in states with less severe truancy policies. That shouldn’t be surprising. Chronic absenteeism is really complex. There are so many different variables that contribute to truancy on so many levels to chronic absenteeism. At the individual level, bullying, chronic illness, exposure to violence, low academic achievement, mental health issues, and substance abuse have all been identified as possible causes of chronic absenteeism. At the family level, a child with caregiving responsibility, food insecurity, lack of supervision, a parent with negative school experiences, parent work schedule at the school level, cultural barriers, economic disadvantage, poor school climate. As we heard from the representatives of the Department of Education, school suspension, or an unsafe route to school, there is no one cause for truancy. So we really need to focus on school teams and this idea that so many speakers have talked about today, finding the root causes. What are the causes of truancy for any particular individual? Finally, I want to focus on a very interesting model out there for addressing chronic absenteeism. It’s a model policy on chronic absenteeism from the American Legislative Exchange Council, Alec. It has a number of components that really are our model policies, our policies that really are worth considering. First of all, it suggests that each district be required to create a. An attendance policy including a multi tiered system at tier one, all students programs to cover attendance for all students, tier two, students at risk for chronic absenteeism at a five to 10% level, and tier three, chronically absent students. Second, they suggest that any Department of education establish guidelines, first of all, to keep students in educational settings prohibiting out of school, excuse me, prohibiting out of school suspension for truancy. We have around 8% of our suspensions in this state are due to truancy at this point. Third, assisting the family in removing barriers to truancy. The next component in the ALEc model is interventions for students in tier two and tier three. We don’t simply use that early warning system to punish students, but rather we use it to assess student and family needs and reach out and match the services for referrals to healthcare and school service for involving the community, and for employment, family crisis, and mental health counseling as needed. Finally, developing early warning systems, including attendance, course failure, and suspension. That information can be used to guide the team in identifying appropriate interventions. James Taylor, I think in his presentation, will be talking about an early warning system in place. So, in conclusion, chronic absenteeism is getting worse. But on the other hand, we’re not the worst state by any means. What that means is we can allow ourselves not to be rushed into quick fix punitive responses that may sound appealing, but ultimately just may make things worse. We have the time to develop comprehensive and effective systems for addressing issues of school engagement. And if we want to address the racial ethnic gap in school attendance, we need to remember that states with less severe policies have lower racial disparities. Second, there is no one cause. This may be due to individual factors, family factors or school factors. We need a team based root cause effect analysis. And third, Alec’s multi tiered approach of comprehensive planning and family support is a promising model. It is comprehensive. It provides supports to families instead of punishing them, and recognizes that the best approach is to understand that every child with attendance problems is unique. We could do a lot worse than the ALEC model. Thank you. I’d be happy to take any questions. Seeing none, I didn’t think you’d ever quote Alex Russ. Surprised me, too. So next I have Gwen Kelly to my left, followed by John O’Neill to my right, please. Yes, I am Doctor Gwen Kelly. I serve as the NAACP state conference education chair. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. The NAACP is very concerned about absenteeism because of the distinct correlation between student achievement and school attendance. IDOe data revealed in 2023, the rates decreased for the year before to 19.3%, while it remained high for black students, 30.7% hispanic students, 24.4% and english learners, 20.5% and students eligible for free and reduced lunch, 25.9%. You saw those numbers. I also remind you that 11.7% of black children passed ilearn grades three through eight combined. We remain hopeful that lawmakers, you all, will consider four important points that I want to talk about, and we stand ready to join you in supporting those four points. The first one is understanding the root causes of absenteeism, and many people have talked about that today. I’ll just share from attendance works, which is an organization that is focused on resolving attendance problems. They have identified four barriers, four areas that explain absenteeism. One are the barriers that children face, the aversions that they face, the disengagement that they experience, and misconceptions about what really is absenteeism. The misconceptions include absences are only a problem if they are unexcused. There are many children who are getting excuses, but they still are absent from school. Missing two days per month doesn’t affect learning. Yes, it does. It adds up. You lose track of understanding total absences. You assume students must pay, must stay home for any symptom of stress, and parents are keeping kids home for sniffles. I talked to a principal and she was saying that the children are because of COVID They started just little things, keep them at home. Attendance only matters in the older grades. We saw that’s not true. The numbers are high. Kindergarten through first grade for absences, and suspensions don’t count as absences. Well, we’ve heard that they don’t, but still the kids are out of school. So these four challenges that I just shared bring attention to health, mental health, learning gaps in disengagement, health and safety concerning concerns like bullying, financial, family strains leading to homelessness, and rent goes up. I know a family right now that’s in the process of moving and they want the kids to stay in the same school, but they’ve moved to another district. The rent went up so much, the mother could not afford to stay where she was. And then transportation costs, her car breaks down all the time, but yet she’s got to get the kids back to this other school because there’s no transportation. Some of these other things people have talked about earlier, but one thing that is very important with improving student behavior and preparing the school environment to be more welcoming and engaging place for learning. So the second thing I want to talk about is working to provide prevention and interventions before punishment. And Doctor Sciba touched on that quite a bit. But I want to add that restorative practices, established routines, mental health counseling, and finding food and health assistance for parents does make a difference in a child’s life. And most of all, building relationships is the key factor. We work with a group of young people and they told us that they don’t trust the people that are in the school they’re supposed to talk to. And when they make appointments, they only get about a half an hour and they can’t see that person very often and it’s booked down the road. So there is definitely a need for more counselors, more social workers and more nurses to help our children. So the third point is supporting families and students. And part of what I was talking about before was having enough people there to support them. One district has hired a person just to handle attendance and others are using their school liaison person to the family liaison to go out in the community and work with families. So schools are doing creative things that we’re hearing about. We heard one story about a mother who received a note after five days, an automatic system was in place, and she had sent and called the school, and she was very upset that they didn’t realize why her child was out of school. So that individual touch is very important. And the last thing I want to say is we’ve got to provide adequate resources to improve attendance. That promotes improved academic achievement, which I am very, very concerned about. We’ve got to look at preschool and helping our parents get in the routine of coming to school on a regular basis. And kindergarten in first grade sets that pattern for coming to school. The National center on Poverty found children who miss more than 10% of days in kindergarten are less likely to read proficiently in grade three middle school children. Research shows who are absent chronically are more likely to be disengaged, drop out, and be involved in risky behaviors. The NAACP believes reducing chronic absenteeism is a good thing. However, we believe that there must be positive measures. Taken to implement every available avenue to work with parents and students to help them see the value of regular school attendance before punitive measures occur. Punitive measures are preventive measures, not punitive. Preventative measures are more effective for most students. As doctor Schiba said, rather than court involvement, we want to be sure that we keep our children out of the school to prison pipeline, and this attendance for some of these children will be, will be their first touch with the court system. We support all the concerns that we’ve heard in the efforts, and we stand ready to help and support in any way that we can on behalf of the state. President Sadie Harper Scott, who’s in Tippecanoe. Thank you, Senator four. Thank you, Mister Chairman. Doctor Kelly, it’s good to see you, as always. Can you kind of zone back in on the why it’s so important for us to have pre k and getting the child accustomed to a routine going to school? Why is that so important? Well, the attendance patterns are showing that those are some of the highest numbers. And so if a child gets used to not being in school and, you know, they can say, I don’t feel good, and I have another family that I work with, and the kids say that, and the mother stays home from work, and I’m wondering, how does she have leave to stay home so much with her child? But people just give in and say, okay, they don’t feel good, so I’m going to stay home with them. So that’s a pattern that develops. And the research shows that if they have this 10% absence, that it will, they’re more likely not to be reading proficiently and ready in school. Something’s going on. Usually in a school. I think this one child is being bullied, and so she doesn’t like to go to school, but the school’s gonna have to take care of that. And really, they’re supposed to fill out a bullying report every time something happens, but that’s not happening. You all. It’s not happening. Yeah. My final question to you is that you were one of the lead authors on the 2022 NAACP black excellence in education plan, so thank you for your work on that. I think we need to adopt a lot of the stuff that you all recommend in that report. But how does that report and this topic of absenteeism go hand in hand? Well, we support the law when it first came out. Where’s? I don’t see Senator Donato. She’s over here. We were able to talk with her. Another organization, children’s policy and law initiative, that I worked with. And we were able to say that this law is palatable. It’s not as bad as we thought it was going to be. The punishment aspect with going to the prosecutor had been there already, but it just became, like more blown up. But there are preventative things that were happening. So the plan does include, you know, making sure that our kids come to school. So we’ll be talking about that. And I’m getting, there’s something that’s getting ready to be in the works about what the NAACP is going to do, like a campaign on absenteeism in the urban communities. So we’re talking about that. Got it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Quinn. Next, I have to my right, John O’Neill, followed by Rachel Van Alstine to my left, please. Well, thank you, chairman Banning and committee. John O’Neill, representing the Indiana State Teachers association. Just a few things to start. I could really just second a lot of the comments from Doctor Sceva and Doctor Kelly that were just made and sit down. But I do want to add a few additional things. We certainly look at that model legislation as possible start to some recommendations moving forward as we explore this topic further into the 2025 legislative session. The second issue is I, you know, my impression was that we were going to be discussing absenteeism today as well as discipline. And so I’m going to allude to comments on both topics. But, you know, we see that as a connected set of issues. And so what I say on one more or less. Applies to both policies. So in terms of absenteeism in particular, we certainly, like our association, advocates for this multi tiered model or approach that includes things like an early warning system, wrap around services with targeted student interventions, but interventions that are proportionate and appropriate, level of consequences, rather than being overly punitive to where we’re looking at putting kids out of school, which the research shows has a very detrimental, negative effect on multiple levels of academic growth as well as social well being, I will say that ISTA acknowledges the state board’s and Department of Ed’s work on their dashboard. It’s a very interesting presentation, the state board meeting this month as well as today, on the sort of predictive modeling that can be used to really delve deep into data analysis around, you know, which kids are missing and why and what days, and looking at patterns and ways to create local policies around correcting those issues. So that’s sort of the framework so far on absenteeism. And just as I mentioned, you know, we look at discipline kind of in the same measure. Absenteeism and behavioral problems are certainly an issue that I’m sure everyone’s heard about. ISTA members are very concerned with some disciplinary problems in their schools. I’m sure that you’ve seen the Department of Education’s teacher injury report that came out a few weeks ago that shows just the number of physical incidents that occur each year. And so again, we want to ensure in these, whether it’s state or local discipline processes, policy development for absenteeism and discipline issues, that educators have a voice at the table and, you know, the experts in the classrooms that live and breathe this every day or in classrooms, and also have a seat at the policy discussions because there’s a wealth of knowledge that they can share on these topics. We all agree, I think, that safety has to be a top priority in who’s your classrooms. I mean, that’s really the most basic starting point. If kids can’t be safe in schools, you know, it’s hard to have a creative and effective learning environment if we don’t have that basic starting point. Of course, some of this will require resources and services, and we have a budget year coming up. So I’m sure that will be part of the conversation. I do want to just mention again that when you look at the research on some of the harsher consequences for incidents, especially those incidents that are nonviolent in nature, research is pretty clear that if you expel and suspend students and have all these punitive measures, not only does it disproportionately affect low income and students of color, but it really has a negative effect overall in their learning outcomes. The National Academy of Sciences had a quick quote. I’ll read that exclusionary discipline, and again apply this to absenteeism as well, can harm students in society. Suspended students show a heightened risk of depression and civic engagement, and causal evidence indicates that suspensions exacerbate misbehavior, harm academic performance, and lead to both juvenile and adult incarceration. Economic analyses indicate that suspensions cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars each year due to lifelong government expenditures and loss in tax revenue, so, you know, just very much along what others have said so far. On the other hand, a study from the American Institutes for Research, who I know our own idoe contracts with for various things, has found that using a restorative, proactive approach to these issues is much more beneficial and positive with student outcomes. And so finally, I will end with just, I think Doctor Kelly also mentioned there are sort of a set of a handful of key core principles or concepts that really work into this multi tiered. Approach. And that starts with parental and educator support, exploring root causes underlying these issues around attendance and discipline and why they’re happening, developing greater student engagement resources, and then finally using informative, proportionate and appropriate data analysis, which I believe, again, the department has started. Started. So all that being said, we look forward to this, you know, becoming a possible legislative issue next session. And ISTA certainly stands open to conversations and working as much as we can on this topic. So thank you very much. Rips and clinker thank you, Mister chairman. John, do you think that we’re going to have the number of educators we need to implement some of these programs? I’m worried about that because I see in Lafayette, which is a great school corporation of prejudice, but where my daughter teaches, three teachers left in January part time. So I’m worried about not only implementing some of these programs, but the dollars and cents that it’s going to take to hire some of the folks that are going to be. Do you see any positive steps in the future for our teachers? Well, thank you, representative. Yeah, that’s a tough question because, I mean, you know, I think we’ve been talking about the teacher shortage in Indiana for, you know, about a decade now, and it’s not unique to Indiana. I mean, it’s certainly an issue here, but it’s a national phenomenon. You know, we’re doing all we can to try to advocate for pipelines in the teaching and recruitment and retention policies, higher pay, you know, better working conditions, things that really attract and keep educators in the classroom. I can’t speak to what is coming this session necessarily yet. We don’t know exactly what will be happening. But it’s a budget year, so obviously fiscal issues will be on the table for teacher pay and school funding formula issues. We would like to see incentives around attracting and retaining teachers. But, you know, and districts vary, of course, in terms of these policies. But so I get, I, you know, I’m hopeful, but again, I can’t really answer specifically. I, you know, we’ll see how the session goes with, you know, ideas around fixing some of these problems. We have to have some attracting features. Absolutely. To implement many of these things we’re discussing today. Thank you. Thank you, John. Next I have Rachel Van Alstine. Is that right, Rachel? And then Mark Datima to my right, please. Thank you, chairman and committee. My name is Rachel Van Alstine and I’m a parent from northern Indiana. In April 2023, my twelve year old son woke me in the middle of the night with suicidal ideations. As I held and consoled him in his fear and pain, crying so hard he could barely breathe. He told me he didn’t want to live anymore. By morning, I had uncovered that he had been horribly abused and bullied at school by a group of boys that were telling him to kill himself for almost a month. He said he feared telling me because he knew I would do something and he thought he could handle it himself. I immediately contacted the school the next morning and reported the incident. This resulted in an investigation uncovering a horrific, unhealthy school environment of 17 children that were participating in these behaviors and abusing not only my son, but other children. I was told that because so many children were involved, no consequences were given. I additionally reported my concerns to the administration and the school board only to receive no response. To this day, if you pull my son’s school record, there is no proof this ever happened. I’ve contacted Doe only to be told that the districts police themselves pointing me back to my district. They also took it upon themselves to contact my school district and tell them of my attempted complaints and told my superintendent to handle me. I’ve made several DC’s reports only to be told that they were screened out and never investigated as this is protocol for most institutional complaints. Again being told the district’s police themselves, we cannot talk about education and child safety without addressing the correlation to the broken DC’s system. I’ve contacted local and federal legislators which also pointed me back to my district. When I expressed to one of our federal legislators that I didn’t realize children’s safety was open for negotiations in Indiana. He literally smiled, laughed and explained everything is open for negotiations in politics and has ghosted me ever since. This is the experience of a mother in Indiana attempting to protect their child while going to school. My son has missed countless days of school due to fear and mental health issues from the ongoing abuse. Where is the district’s accountability for his absences and loss of learning? It’s been explained by legislators that educational law is merely recommendation as the majority of the laws have no teeth and no consequences if not followed. And these districts answer to no one. The system is broken from the top down and as thus, as above, so below. Knowingly, knowingly leaving our children in immense danger, which is in fact systemic child neglect behind closed doors. These districts will tell you they are educators. They are not equipped to handle these behaviors. Hence their response is merely to suspend and expel children with behavioral issues, which is one of the contributors of the high absenteeism rates in Indiana. They will point to the state and say they don’t have funding or resources to protect our children. The teachers are silenced in fear of losing their jobs. If all adults tasked with ensuring our children’s safety are moving in fear, self preservation and in some cases, personal agendas, what does this mean for our children? Trust me when I say I fully understand fear. There is no greater fear as a parent than the fear, or even more horrific, the reality of losing your own child. The love of our children must be greater than our own personal fears and worrying about the discomfort of others. Our mission is far too great. We have the ability to choose another way, which begins with honoring our children’s voices and their truth. To ignite this child safety movement. Parents and citizens across the state have started a petition compelling the state of Indiana to declare a child state of emergency, making Indiana the first state in the country to make child safety our number one priority. We can promise y’all love and truth wins every time. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel next, we’ll go to Mark Datama, followed by Joel Weineke to my left. Hello. My name is Mark Datama. I also live in Elkhart. I’m here to share my experiences with disciplinary measures in Indiana’s public schools and how a lack of intentionality contributes to chaotic classrooms, ultimately undermining the educational experience for all students. With over a decade of experience working with behaviorally challenged children, I have, as a residential social worker and also a paraprofessional in the public school system, three different school systems. I have seen firsthand the challenges our educators face. As a father of a bullied child, I am particularly concerned about the system systematic failures in protecting our children from bullying and assault. When my daughter started. She was full of enthusiasm and eager to learn, but it wasn’t too long before we noticed concerning signs she came home with scratches and bruises reporting that other kids were throwing things at her and calling her names like stupid and ugly. There were even instances where she was physically harmed, being punched in the stomach and face. This is kindergarten in first grade. That’s how young this is. By the end of the first grade, her academic performance had significantly declined, and my wife and I believe that her experience of being bullied played a direct role in the setback. As a parent, witnessing your child come home hurt is devastating. I have consistently seen how disciplinary matters take a backseat to managing classrooms overwhelmed by disruptive students. This results in teachers being forced to divert their focus from instruction to addressing behavioral issues. I know many educators across the state who share similar frustrations. The current approach often fails to address the root causes of disruption, leading to a culture where bullying is overlooked due to teachers being distracted with disruptive students and managing the classroom and subsequently the safety of our children is compromised. I believe the value of integrating behaviorally challenged students I do. However, those who engage in bullying emotionally, physically, or sexually must be dealt with decisively and separate from the classroom. Implementing meaningful rather than arbitrary disciplinary measures is essential for redirecting disruptive behavior, leading to better outcomes for everyone. Schools need the authority and tools to remove students who disrupt learning environments and threaten the safety of others. Increasing the amount of paraprofessionals can help to manage classroom environments. However, when severe disruptions occur, it’s crucial that we do not sacrifice the safety and well being of general education students for the sake of including everyone only to check a box. We need to create a safe and supportive learning environments where all students can thrive. If we fail to act, we risk perpetuating substandard educational experiences that will have harming effects on our children. This has long term implications, affecting not just individual students, but our entire community’s future. Let’s make the necessary changes how to ensure that our schools are places where every child feels safe, respected, and able to learn unencumbered by the behaviors of disruptive peers. I do have a couple examples as a parent attempting to navigate through the public school system. Due to my experience in working in residential and other public schools, I became very aware of the skill building programs PEM, which is psychoeducational model, and boys town is responsible for that program, and then skill streaming is sometimes used in Indiana school systems for those children. But due to the nature of knowing that there is a way to reach out to these children who are bullying others. I advocated for our family and for the bully of our daughter, suggesting that not only he need to or not only he need to work on his skill building with the school system, but that our daughter as a victim would be offered services for those type of skills so that she can navigate through her school experience and know how to address being bullied in the future and bring that up as needed. One of my recommendations was a ten foot rule and several several classes for them to do the skills building. The other was that if the behaviors of the assaults continue, that bully be removed from the classroom and the school system’s response to that was well, we don’t have the way that your classes work right now where this bully is in with your daughter. We don’t. We can’t adequately move the bully to a different classroom because we’re just going to redirect the problem. So they suggested to our family that we move our daughter, the victim, and completely uproot her entire, all the relationships that she’s developed with her teacher, the different students in the classroom to cater to the bully. One other example I’d like to stress would be while working as a paraprofessional at the Concord community schools, there was an incident where I was out at recess and there was one boy fondling another boy. And I brought this to an administrator’s attention and I was gaslit throughout the day. Working previously at Basher Children’s Home in the residential programming, I knew how important it is to contact law enforcement and make that be known. I was told repeatedly over and over and over again, you don’t know what you’re talking about. What you saw is not correct. At the residential facility that I worked in, I worked at a sexually maladaptive unit. So I very much know what fondling looks like. So throughout the course of the day, again, I was gaslit to sweep it under the rug, only to find out from the other administrator that the boy doing the fondling was the son of the teacher who was a paraprofessional. So I just want to point out that structurally in Indiana, in many different ways, you have administrators and paraprofessionals who are silenced, or teachers that are silenced so as to not create a messy situation for the school district. And the people that pay for that are the children. So if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. Thank you for sharing. Sorry about the situation you have going on in your life. Next, I have Joel Weineke, followed by Hadley Moore. To my right, please. Thank you, Chairman Banning. I’m Joel Wenicke with the Indiana Public Defender Council. I’m the staff attorney who primarily focuses on juvenile delinquency issues for the council. So the main gist of my testimony this morning is just going to be to remind you of what you probably already know. To the extent that we want to use the threat of prosecution or the potential for prosecution as the stick that solves the school absentee problem, that comes with consequences as well. It comes with some resource issues for public defenders, and we know of at least one county right now that came out of compliance with the Indiana Public Defender Commission caseload standards for their juvenile PD’s because of an uptick in filings in juvenile court and that causes problems. We have a shortage of public defenders across the state, shortage of prosecutors, much like there’s a shortage of teachers as well. And I know you’re going to have to make the policy decision as to where to go, but Professor Schiba shared some, some good insights about the limitations in using the threat of punishment in order to solve these types of problems, but just a broader insight into the resource issues that we’re talking about. When I was a frontline public defender in Putnam county, one of the cases that I worked on was with a young boy who was being prosecuted for truancy issues and his mother. And he felt like they had been unreasonably targeted by the school. They felt that they were being ostracized. They thought it had to deal with some poverty issues, some cleanliness issues and other types of things. But it was more about that than the actual absenteeism. Well, it’s, you know, that caused some antagonism with the probation officer. So a case that likely would have otherwise been a quick fix or an agreed resolution turned into a trial, which then turned into an appeal. I ultimately got a favorable decision from the Indiana Court of Appeals saying that this issue had already been solved before it came to a trial, and this child should have never been declared or found to be a delinquent child by the juvenile court. Well, that’s fine and good. And I’m sure that my client was very happy and felt vindicated about that. But by the time we got there, we would have had a couple of meetings with the probation officer. At least three trial court level hearings. You know, one, for an initial hearing, he had to request a public defender. Then we have a trial, and then we have a follow up dispositional hearing, and after that, then we have the appellate resources. So we have a prosecutor involved, a public defender involved. I did the appeal as well, but then we have a deputy attorney general who represents the state in the appeal, the trial court, juvenile judge, a three judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals, their staff that’s working on it. It’s a big deal, but due process attaches even to juvenile status offenses just as much as it does to any other time that the government wants to say, we are going to use the prosecutor to try to fix a problem. And so that’s just a reality that I hope you keep in mind as you work through this solution. I know it’s important to get kids to school. I had some problems in my high school career in finding value in education. Thankfully, later on in life, I realized the value in education. That’s why I’m able to stand here before you today and say that I’m a senior level staff attorney for one of the state agencies. But dovetailing with that this year, the juvenile justice and Delinquency Prevention act from the federal government, which actually was originally authored by Senator Birch, by. From Indiana, turned 50, and it’s provided a lot of valuable resources to help in the juvenile justice system. But one of the key initial legislative findings that spawned that piece of legislation was the reality that kids who aren’t in school commit delinquent acts at a much higher rate. They end up on the wrong side of the law. About 50% of kids at that time were actually being prosecuted in criminal court, not just juvenile courts. And so it’s very important to get kids in school. We just gotta make sure that while we’re doing it, that we’re not using or over using the power of the prosecutor in order to make that happen. So with that, I’ll take any questions. Represent Lee first, counsel. Thank you for that. And I put my hand over my face because I see how the legal system can grind people down. Representative, can you get in? I see how the legal system can grind people down. I’m a lawyer, and I’ve observed it, and I’m sorry this happened. Could you tell me the citation to that case, because it sounds instructive. I can. I just looked at it this morning in preparation for this. So the child’s initials were Cs. CSV state. 953 northeast second. Hold on 1 second. You’re moving too fast to me. All right, cs versus state. And the citation is nine. What? 953 right northeast second. Right. 1144. Thank you. I’ll be taking a look at that. And, you know, I want to defend myself and the institution to some extent on this. I believe I voted for this enhanced. You still need to get close. I believe I voted for this enhanced sanctioning, or focus on sanctioning. And let me explain what our dilemma is, because I don’t think it’s been articulated here today. Parents have obligations to children. No question. The problem is that the state school system and the legislature are, in effect, trustees to those same children. Here’s where the problem begins. So we want those children protected, and we have a duty to protect them, the parent, when they fail. What’s our choice? Ultimately, we need to make them comply, or at least we want to try. And so that’s. Please understand, I think our motives are correct. It’s just we’re trying to figure the right balance, and you’re helping, but pointing out where it can go off the rails. So thank you. Well, it’s very important to get kids in school if we want them to be good, productive citizens. We had some great testimony from young people today, and they’re clearly in school and getting a valuable education, and they’re going to be leaders of Indiana someday. And so that’s why we’ve got to do this hard work. See? No further questions. Thanks. Next, I have Hadley Moore to my right, followed by James Taylor to my right. Left, please. Good afternoon, and a most sincere thank you to chairman baning and vice chairman Rotz for the opportunity to speak today. Hi, my name is Hadley Moore Vlaho George, and I am the executive director of communities and Schools of Indiana. Chronic absenteeism and its many causes have been discussed today, but what is less obvious is the range of solutions available to reverse that trend. Ultimately, a key way that our schools and communities can reverse the tide of chronic absenteeism is by providing extensive wraparound services that meet the unique and individual needs of students by prioritizing and providing integrated student supports, a term that you’ve already heard today. As the Indiana State office of the National Communities and Schools Organization, we make a noticeable impact on chronic absenteeism rates in the districts that we support. Communities and schools has been operating in the state of Indiana for almost 20 years in your k through twelve public and public charter schools across our state in Marion, Monroe, Johnson, Montgomery, Tippecanoe, Wayne and Lake counties. CIS has dedicated site coordinators and these are professionals who do not need an advanced degree, license or credential. Inside each of these schools that we serve, working with educators, counselors, social workers, the communities and students to encourage and track progress. We conduct needs assessments and create support plan processes individualized for students and their unique circumstances. We schedule home visits to families, conduct door knocking campaigns, and invite and encourage them to attend school and community events. We ensure that any and all communication is respectful and accessible for our diverse communities. CIS nationally compared pre and post pandemic attendance rates in a study conducted with the American Institute of Research in 2022, which measured the impact of our work in CIS schools against non CIS affiliated schools. We found that students were 13% less likely to be chronically absent when we had these wrap around services and additional supports provided in Indiana. Because what’s the point of hearing statistics from other states? You want to hear what’s working here? You’ll see that you have a card with our 2022 2023 school, your data and you’ll note that 77% of our case managed Indiana students made progress on their individualized attendance goals. At the end of the day, there is no one magic answer or easy fix, but CIS has a tried and tested approach that we’ve seen move the needle nationally for over 50 years. Now in 27 states, over 3000 schools, and serving over 2 million students, we invite Indiana legislators to explore a public funding investment in this program like states including Virginia, Texas and West Virginia have done to combat chronic absenteeism and improve educational attainment rates. It will take time and it will certainly take investment. It will take pulling back the curtain and surveying needs district by district, school by school. It will take commitment to ensure high expectations for success and achievement to build the 21st century workforce that Indiana needs. Tailored support leads to greater opportunity. Students want to show up and learn, and it’s on us to help eliminate the barriers to do it. Each of the committee members have received invitations to site visits that we’re hosting next month across the state. If those three dates don’t work for you and your schedules, please don’t hesitate to reach out and we can schedule something one on one that works better for you. At this time, I welcome questions and the opportunity to continue the conversation. Delaney well, in all fairness, I’m going to kind of ask you the questions that I asked a similarly named group earlier. City connects. So do you charge school districts for what you do? We charge them a program fee, but it goes directly to the state. It goes directly to communities and schools. In the state of Indiana, there is no licensing fee and no money leaves the state of Indiana and finances another institution and simply funds our operations. What is the fee? It depends on the number of schools a district has, but it is between five and $10,000 for a district, for a school building? For a building. We are scaled in multiple school districts in all of the buildings, and we work with those school districts to get different grants and to get different private funders to lessen the burden of that. But most of our schools, in fact, all of our schools, pay for our program fee and any staff using their title funds. Title one funds. Title one funds, yes, and some title four funds. And just so I’m clear, it’d be fair to say you’re a competitor to city connects? It would be fair to say that, yes. Okay. This is a very interesting business. The schools must determine if they’re using title one money. They control that money. It’s not from the state, right? Correct. They must, in your opinion, I guess, assume that your services adds to what they’re already paying for. Correct. Which is why we’ve continued in the districts that we serve, even past the original grant funding that might have brought us into the district. So, again, going back. So do you start out with a grant in most districts, or do you start out with title I money? How do you get this done? In most districts, we start with a grant, especially because our national office is so adept at receiving private investment in our work. We have $165 million right now from the Ballmer group to grow to 1000 more title one schools across the country. And so that funds the program at 50% over three years. But that requires the district match. So again, it’s not just districts having something for a few years and then moving on to the next shiny object. Does your group get grants from the Indiana Department of Education? We have not applied for any grants recently. Historically, districts have used idoe grants to pay for our services, but we ourselves have not applied for any of those. Are they currently doing that? Do you know? The last district to do that was MCCSC, and that just expired last year. And give me that district in English. Sorry. Monroe County Community School Corporation. She’s sitting next to me. The center is sitting next to me. Is elbowing you. That’s why she was poking you. Yes. All right, so that’s your funding mechanism. And then I take it you work with the already existing counselors at the schools. Is that who you work through? So, no. What’s kind of unique about communities and schools is the site coordinator that coordinates this. The coordination of resources does not have to be a licensed professional. They don’t have to be a social worker or have a master’s in school counseling or any of those things. So it can be a community member. Some of the best site coordinators that we hire are parents, you know, who stayed at home with their kids when they were young, and then they’re looking for something to do. So we remove that barrier to coordinate community resources. It should be a community member. They are generally employees of their district. We have a couple employees that we hired, and we compensate them. In the district, reimbursement reimburses us for those. But as we’re growing and scaling across the state, especially with this major investment from the national office, we are requiring the districts hire and compensate their own site coordinators. We will then pass through funding back to them during the grant from our national office. But we find that they get the best people. They get their own community members, and they get people that they’re going to keep on and sustain long term by having that model. We’re not bringing a stranger to a school building and telling them everything. That is a challenge in that community. But that site coordinator must work with the existing counselors and teachers and so forth. Right. And you’ll note that in the needs assessment that the site coordinator conducts, there’s not only is there an asset map, but there’s also the opportunity for them to ensure that there’s no duplication of services, because school counselors should be able to focus on students mental wellness. That’s why they have that advanced degree, and that’s why they have the credentials that they do. They don’t need to be spending time tracking down the room that the Girl Scouts are going to hold their meeting in and making sure that everyone’s in attendance and making phone calls, calling home to get kids there, etcetera. Are you only after attendance, or are you after other issues? No. There’s actually three areas that we track our data. That’s on our data card, and that is attendance, behavior, referrals, and academic attainment. Those are the three core areas that we track data towards in setting individual goals with our students, who are case managed, as well as we have a school wide goal. So a lot of our school wide goals, candidly, right now, are focused on attendance. That’s what districts want. School wide goals. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. See? No further questions. Thank you. Next, I have James Taylor to my right, followed by Carolyn gentle Genetti to my. I mean, my right. I’m sorry, you’re to my left. Good afternoon. I’m James Taylor, director for student services for the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township. My friends call me sweet baby James. You can call me that. You got a friend? I seen fire and I seen rain. Anyway, with that being said, I have 35 years in social work in Warren Township. I’ve worked in Indianapolis public school system, and in Warren Township, I’m the director for the Moorhead Community Resource center. I’m going to give you my brutal, honest opinion based on my experience. I’m not a contractor. I’m a person who’s worked in the schools, who work to resolve our own issues. Principals and superintendents are ultimately responsible and accountable for their attendance and their enrollment. What I want to say to the committee is that you all took two years to study this. You had to learn, you had to listen, you had to unlearn some things. We have some superintendents and principals who haven’t learned anything. They don’t want to hear what you have to say about attendance because they want to do their own thing. So what I’m going to say to you all is that they have to be held accountable. We always talk about the parents being held accountable. The superintendents need to be held accountable. So I thank you all, the committee, for bringing this to the forefront. Now, Doctor Giannetti, who’s going to speak after me, she’s been studying this for over 20 years. I’ve been studying attendance for over ten years. So we started way before this. So let me tell you what we’ve done. I’m going to give you the how to do it. People talk about the why and the what. I’ve heard that for 2 hours. How do you become efficient in executing a mandate from the legislators? That’s the question right there. And it deals with money. Okay? Not money. I don’t want to put down any other organization. Not money to contract with an outside organization, because sometimes we need to contract with an outside organization to get the help that we need in our school system. So I applaud. City connects community and schools and all of those organizations. However, the school system is ultimately responsible for their own kids and their families. In saying that, Senator Donato, I want to thank you personally for listening to us. In the past five years, we’ve held five attendance conferences across Indiana. We held the last one in May at the Marriott north. We just held one in northwest Indiana, Ngarri area. We had over 800 participants. We asked them to give us information on what I like. I wish, and I wonder about attendance, and here’s what they wrote. I wish we all had a platform that leveled the playing field and brings coherence to the state of Indiana. That’s what they want, money. All school districts can look at data the same way. Personally, I love Mister Keller, but here’s what I got to say about that. I’m giving him the data to put into his platform for me to look at. That doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s my data and ultimately I’m responsible for analyzing my own data. So here’s what we did in Warren Township. We studied it. We studied to understand attendance and the root causes of attendance. Once we learned what we learned, just like you guys, we created a process. You guys created a mandate. So with the process, that’s called training everybody. That’s the second thing that our administrators and our social workers are asking for. You’re asking them to go out to do something that they don’t know how to do. It’s not your mama’s and grandpa’s attendance back in the sixties and seventies. It’s a different animal after Covid. They need to be trained. So let me get back to the money issue. Give us some money so we can have training, so that we can certify attendance officers, counselors, parent liaisons, social workers to be trained on how to deal with everything that’s going on. We surveyed rural counties and we surveyed urban counties and they all said the same thing. As proof, I can give you the cards. You were at the conference to show what they said. So if we want to invest our money in a good way, invest our money in training for our superintendents first, because all b’s starts at the top and it trickles down. They need to learn how to understand what you guys took two years to understand. Let me say something. At every conference that we’ve had, the social workers, counselors and the teachers can’t do anything without the permission of the superintendents. So they can attend every conference they want. But if the superintendent is not on board and the principal’s not on board, nothing’s going to happen. So I implore you, if you’re going to make a mandate, mandate them to come to a training so that they can learn from people that know. Doctor Giannetti is one of the international researchers. We held two international summits and we talked to the UK, we talked to New Zealand, we talked to all of these different places around the world. And what we have in common is chronic absenteeism. Now, let me correct doe again. The legislation put a policy into play. That talks about unexcused absences, not chronic absenteeism. They’re two different things. Two different things. In Warren Township, we focus on chronic absenteeism because that’s all absences. We don’t care if you took your child to Florida. We want you here 90% of the time. We know you had a great educational experience and you counted it as a field trip that talked about the birds and the bees, but we want you at school. So what’s the difference in you taking your child to Florida? As I say to Doctor G believes, because you have the money to do so, you have the cognitive ability and executive functioning skills to do that. But yet, every day I’m dealing with families who lost their job. Every Tuesdays and Thursdays in Warren Township, over 100 families, parents are being evicted. Per every one family member, one parent, which are mostly women, there’s four kids. I’m responsible for transporting those kids to Avon, if they lived in Warren. Now all of a sudden, I’m out of $200,000 because the kids started out in Warren Township, became homeless in Warren Township, and moved to Avon because it was the best place to live. I’m responsible for that transportation as a school district. So, money. We’re talking about money again, we don’t have the money to transport our kids because so many of our kids are migrant. So these are the real life practical issues that we face. Now, let me be brief but brilliant in my final, in my conclusion. We created a resource center, one of the first resource centers in Marin County, Fort Wayne created one. They have a beautiful resource center. We created it during COVID to meet the basic needs of our families. For every family who’s evicted, we partnered. Let me say this, we are resource rich in Indianapolis. That doesn’t mean we’re resource rich in other places. Here’s another. How. How do we mobilize the resources to serve the school districts? For every partner in the community, they represent money. They come to us as volunteers, but they’re working for an agency. So that’s called the bundling effect of money. So when you partner and have relationships, you’re technically bringing in money and services. So, but what we did in Warren, we purchased an $82,000 truancy platform, money. When we purchased the platform, it reduced the labor that our teachers and our administrators have in identifying early interventions for families. We hit a button, it gives us all the names of kids who have one to ten absences. We hit another button, it gives us tier two kids. We hit another button, it gives us tier three kids. We’re so happy we bought that platform, but it costs money. So when I sit down and I talk to pike and Lawrence and Washington and IPs Lake county schools, they don’t have the luxury of that platform. So their people are manually trying to keep up with these reports, which we call lag measures. They get to report when a kid hits 30 axes. There’s no early intervention because they don’t have the manpower. So if we invest in a platform for all of Indiana, they do it in California, they do it in Texas, then we can all be on the same page. Okay? And we can all help our kids the same way. At least you all would know what we’re working with. And then the other thing is invest in training for our people to teach them about all of these things. We don’t have to import people from the outside unless we have the funds to do so. Because most of those organizations, they get grant money when the grants end, then we have to sustain all of that. So I’m not taking anything away from anybody, but that’s my brutal, honest truth. Thank you. Questions? Rips and Delaney. Well, I think I got about 95% of this, but I’m a little hung up on why you’re paying to transport what kid to wear with Avon. How’s that happen? This is called McKinney Vento, and the federal law states that if a kid starts school in your school district, you are considered their home school. And that family, in their displacement, can move any place in the city of Indianapolis and sometimes out. And we’re responsible for transportation. And if the parent can get them in the Avon schools, then you don’t have to pay. Parents always have the first right of refusal or choice most of the time, because the parents are comfortable in the school district that they’re at. They want to stay. Yeah, I understand. Thank you. You’re welcome. Seeing no further questions. Thanks, James. Thank you. Next, I have Carolyn gentle Genetti, and the last person I have is. Misha, wide to my left, please. You’re not on my list. Good afternoon. It’s a pleasure. I know you’ve been standing for a while. I want to make sure that I’m cognizant of all of you that have gone through lunch. Carolyn gentle. Gennedy. Gennedy pronounced like Kennedy. I’m a professor and dean at Butler University. I have about 20 years working in all sorts of youth development, but within the last 15 years, primarily in attendance and absenteeism. I’m known as a national, as international network, as international expert as well on attendance and absenteeism. But you’ve heard a lot of conversations. Not my aim to go through any of those again. But I want to make sure that we’re clear on what we’re tracking here. So if you allow me to peel back the layers and go back to the beginning, we understand chronic absenteeism. And Hedy and I, Hedy Chung from attendance works, have had this conversation consistently because chronic absenteeism tracks excused and unexcused. But the challenge with that, when we amplify the numbers, is we are displaced. The numbers become a driver. That’s not quite accurate. So all of you who’ve missed one day at school, for whatever reason, raise your hand. And that’s probably all of us. We’ve also had individuals, for whatever reason, have chosen to miss school during the pandemic, which is where we’re coming off. So all of our data right now are flawed. And any hat we hang on, it means that we’re hanging on a sinking ship, just simply because the DOE also chose during that time not to collect data. It allowed a flex process for many school systems. So the decrease that you’re seeing now, from 20 to 19 to 17 people are coming back to school. It’s expected. We also have a middle class system in the US that says between eight and five or nine and four, whatever the work schedule is. For most individuals who have kids, then it means that the school system is a place where they would want to send their child because it’s somewhat of a babysitting structure. We understand that. So when we’re looking for a place to make impact, it is not on chronic absenteeism. The data in itself says only about 17% to 25% of that number really reflects students who are unexcused. The others are the doctor’s note, the friend, the working at the state house, working at the state fair, all these extra pieces that we have built in with codes, that means we must understand when we’re using terminology appropriately. So. Attendance and absenteeism are not the same, and they should not be used interchangeably. Attendance tracks only presence and absence. That’s what the schools are responsible for. Collecting absenteeism is everything around the why of that absence. That’s where we do not have any resource at all, why schools have to go out of their way to find those resources. When we look across the US, we also have to be consistent with where we’re pulling policies and ideas. There are two models that are used throughout the US. One is average daily attendance and the other is enrollment based. Those are two funding models. In Indiana, we’ve chosen one that may need to be revised. So, average daily attendance means that based on the number of students that attend at that particular period of time, we give them a portion of the funds. The state holds back the remainder of those funds to respond to collecting, working with, going out, and bringing back those students into the school system. So if this is a true conversation about money and support for unfunded mandates, this is an opportunity we have in the state. We use an enrollment based model, which means around October 10, based on the number of students, we give them the 100% of the money. So if they’re supposed to get $100, we give them $100. On the AdA model that’s used, those states give 85%. If that ADA is 85%, those states, there are only six of them in the entire US. Idaho, California and Texas, which we already know about. But Kentucky right next door, Mississippi and Minnesota, there are several states that are close by. But I must put a caveat there. They too are struggling. Some of those states have said, look, we probably want to do a little bit of what you’re doing, and we’re saying we want to do a little bit of theirs. When you put them together, it means that there’s an opportunity here with this summer study to look a little bit deeper about how. Best to support our students beyond just numbers. Thoughts, questions, comments? Yeah, let me just let you know. We do not do Adm exactly. We do enrollment data. So it correct. Ada versus enrollment. What happens in Indiana if you enroll and are expected to attend? You are funded. Correct. It is not based. So I don’t know how schools are not being penalized at all. If a kid does not show up, they get that you’re funding time. Yes. And you’re suggesting we should go the other way where if a kid, it’s based on seat time. If they don’t show up, they should hold back the funding. I am not making any suggestion other that there’s two models that exist nationally and both models are not working effectively. This is an opportunity for us to see what works best to ensure engagement and supportive learning for the student. It’d be interesting if we could see what states use, because I know Senator Rotts and I just had this conversation yesterday with the department about this and which states use an actual AdM count based on the count date. Correct. And just for clarity, it’s ADa and not Adm. So it’s Adam and enrollment, which is the ADM that you’re talking about. We call it average daily membership is what we’re talking about, correct? Correct. And I can provide any data or information on those six states, again, that use that model, particularly California and Texas are the one that’s been cited the most. Okay. Senator Ford, thank you, mister chairman. Thank you for your testimony. What state would you say is getting it right right now? There are no states that are getting it right simply because of the impact of COVID Much of the data itself has been flawed. There have been some inconsistencies. I wrote an article just the other day that was published looking particularly at Indiana and Connecticut. So there’s some semblance that we can adopt there, but it requires more because we had limited data. Even in Indiana, we took about 20,000 behavioral data points just to figure out through that structure, what’s the challenge? And what we found was that peer relationship was the number one driver in absenteeism. So the number one driver, whether that’s respect for property, showing up in school, bullying, fighting, teasing, teacher support, fairness, all of it led back to peer relationship as the key factor along those. What we also saw were four factors that are not well done. And if I may go a little bit deeper, when it comes to defining absenteeism, there are four general types. We have consistently talked about truancy, which is very discipline based. You miss ten absences. There’s a punishment, very clear structure for truancy. But we also have three other, like school withdrawal. School withdrawal are those anecdotal comments that we consistently hear about where a parent chooses to withdraw a child from school for whatever reason, including fear and others that we’ve heard. The other is school refusal, which is very personal. Autistic anxiety, psychosomatic factors, whole bunch of factors that come up. And then on the other side, when you do school, you have school avoidance. And that’s what’s happening within the school climate itself. Where there’s increase in school shootings, there are more challenges happening in that school environment, and the child does not feel ready to be in that process. It has nothing to do with the student not liking school, not wanting to be there, but it’s what’s happening in the climate. What we see right now in Indiana and across the US consistently is that we’re collecting those data, those data points, but we have the front desk staff person inputting those reasons, not categorizing that data and not doing anything in terms of an intervention, but yet we want to be able to make long term action based on the multi tier systemic approach or any one of those, but we don’t have the right or correct or consistent data to do so. Okay. And also, if I could, mister chairman, you talked about the definition of just being attendance and absenteeism versus absenteeism. Right. And you said it’s like kind of what surrounds being absent, correct everything around the why. Right. So can you talk a little bit about that? And what do you think we need to do to help address that? To be very clear, the first is we can mandate or suggest or highly recommend to schools that they start collecting all of those excused and unexcused absences and the reasons for those in a categorical structure that we can then take action. Many schools do not categorize. So you may end up punishing a student who may have more. Psychosomatic structures or factors related to school refusal incorrectly and may cause more harm than good. So that’s the first. Yeah, I think for me, it’s like I kind of thought that that was already happening. And then part two, it is. Someone is analyzing that and kind of running reports, as that gentleman mentioned earlier. That doesn’t sound like that’s happening. It is not happening. Not at all. What we see is when we go into school systems, we would ask what codes they use. And teachers themselves only have two codes, present and absent. All the other codes are managed by that front desk staff person who enters. And we don’t provide consistent training to those individuals. We rarely invite them to anything at all, to be honest. But yet they’re opening the door, answering the phone, waiting until the ending of the day to input that data. And it’s really just random thoughts about what they remember or perceptions that they have made. Yeah. For me, it’s like, what would it look like if all of the central staff of our buildings were taught and trained and given one set of codes. Right. Or codes and then maybe a miscellaneous where they can go in and explain if it didn’t meet the other criteria for the other codes? So that’s kind of what I was. Yes, and I think your thinking is on point. If we’re able to do that, we will then be able to have data to react to and provide the appropriate one, resources in the school. But two, those community resources that we’re talking about, we can activate them in a better way and leverage the dollars that we do have. Because right now we have unfunded mandates, $0, an increase in attendance and absenteeism with no clear opportunity in sight to see that some wins are coming. I will say that. I mean, that’s clearly a great recommendation. The problem is we won’t be able to get data from that for several years. So for us to be able to make any decision saying we have to wait to get that data, just really, we know we’ve got a crisis and it may not be categorized. Always the right way. We know. Senator Rotts and I, talking to the department yesterday, found out that the single or second largest option that schools select for discipline was other. Correct. And there’s like 25 categories. And I’m like, but they. The department has said that schools, there’s always this, you know, they did this for this reason or that reason. So it’s hard to narrow that down. But I agree with what you’re saying, but I don’t know how that’s going to help us today or tomorrow, because it’s years before that’s going to have an impact. You’re absolutely right. And this is where AI comes in. So if you’re able to source that data into a general data lake, you can run a basic system, and that’s what we’ve been doing, and Warren has been a good partner in doing that. We were able to look through their codes, pull some data together, and begin to organize. So you have an opportunity here. Thank you as well, for the time. Thank you. Is Misha. You’re Misha. Okay. Misha. Yes. Representative Delaney? Yeah. I have two difficult questions, but I hope they’ll be short. The first difficult question is, doctor, do you have any information on the fiscal impact on those schools in the states where you get paid for attendance, not for, quote, enrollment? What happens to those schools that don’t do real well on attendance? The schools who don’t do real well struggle. But there are many that have claimed back, and I could pull reports that we’ve worked with some of those institutions. They’ve claimed back 40 million, 30 million. So many of them make really good money to be able to continue this work and support students. It’s the smaller school systems that struggle the most, and they have come up with creative ways of ensuring that they continue to grow by partnering with community partners like the Moorhead Community center and others. That’s very interesting. The second we’ve had repeated references and documents indicating that absenteeism is greater among our minority communities. I’ve heard all these things. That’s wrong. You know, kids bully, the Internet’s bad. Kids get sick, parents work. I’ve heard all those things. They would appear to me to apply across all ethnic groups. You would be asking, what’s going on here? Why do we have a different number for the minorities? Because we collect more disciplined data than we do regular data. Which is why the move to chronic absenteeism help us look at all absences together and equally where all individuals show up, regardless of wealth or low wealth or any other. And that’s why this move, again, applauding this committee for moving in that direction. If we are consistently able to gather the data, we’ll be able to see, because when you look clearly at individuals with wealth, they have access to a doctor. So as soon as they’re in a position of sickness, they’re able to get a note, which then they get an excuse. And you see the pattern with that conversation. Well, you’ve made a. Pretty good argument for why we want to drill down into this data, because I’m troubled by this distinction and I want to understand it. And I would hope that we might learn that whether there’s more bullying in one group or less bullying. And I think your point was just well taken. If you don’t have a doctor to go to and you feel sick, you’re not going to get an excuse. You’re going to lay home and moan, and you’re going to be considered to be unexcused, absent. Correct. All right, well, you’re helping, but this is not. I can avail myself wherever you see fit. I know we’re bringing together 20 world leaders to discuss absenteeism in general in New Orleans, October 30, for those who are interested. And again, this is not a topic that’s just local. I’ve been called by the minister of the UK for their department of Education to talk about this issue. I can share the press release or the article from that, but this conversation is happening globally. The student referenced the MTSs, the multi tiered systemic approach developed by a colleague of mine, Chris Kearney, out of Las Vegas. We have a lot of work that’s going on, and we’re not just doing it here in Indiana. The entire world is saying, what do we do? How do we track this? Where do we go? So, this is a great opportunity for us to do that. So, thanks again to the committee and to you, chair. Thank you. Nisha, you can take it over here on the left. And I, Joel, you can do the right. While everybody is waiting for Misha to start speaking, if you have your per diem sheets in front of you, LSA would like you to get them turned in or you will not be recognized for being present today. Go ahead, Misha. Thank you, chairman to the committee. I’m Misha wide. I am the executive director of Children’s Policy and Law Initiative of Indiana. Our mission is to advocate for systemic changes for children so that programs, policies and practices are developmentally appropriate, equitably administered and fair, and provide the necessary support for child’s successful transition to adulthood. CPLI works to dismantle the school to prison pipeline and reduce suspensions and expulsions. We work with educators and school service providers to share strategies that attend to the student needs and encourage better understanding to create an environment that is safe and thriving for our students. One of the ways that we recommend that this approach is advocated for creating safe school environments is by investing in school counselors, trusted mentors, therapists to support students. We do this by our program. It’s a positive school discipline program, and some of you may have received a handout about it. A positive school discipline program is a trauma informed, culturally responsive practice that is a year long training initiative for schools with a master trainer program. It’s embedded in reforming disciplinary practices and promotes student academic success. We support a school trauma lead for each school that is there. With our training, we receive additional training and online materials to help the school sustain the work beyond that first year of the program. We currently have a generous grant from the Indianapolis African American Quality of Life program that’s allowing us to provide this training for free to Marion county schools. Outside of that, schools throughout the state are also invited to participate. We’ve seen success with this program. In just one example, indie met in the first year saw an average of attendance increase from 75% to 83%. Just with that training. In one year, they saw the graduation rate increase from 38% to 90% in that one year. Students on track for credit attainment improved from 54% to 72% in just one semester. Suspensions decreased by 50%. Students receiving additional services in the school went from 3% to 33%. The families that were once receiving 0% went up to 14%. So if that tells you anything about the increase of services and just culturally responsive staffing in the schools, how much that impacted them. The school also saw a decrease in expulsions go from typically 20 to 25 in one year down to five. This program will actually kick off this semester in November. We have an information session coming up on October 3. Topics that are included in this training include aces trauma and toxic stress regulation, deregulation and resilience, teacher and strategies relationships through accountability. Comprehensive plan for implementing the trauma Informed school program, which is a nationally recognized program at this time. If you have any questions about the program, I’m welcome to those. Now I don’t see any questions. Misha, thank you for your comments. Last is Joel Hand. Thank you very much, chairman baning members of the committee. My name is Joel Hand, and this afternoon I’m here representing the Indiana School Social Workers association. We’ve all been here a long time today, so I’m going to keep my comments pretty brief. We’ve heard a lot about school social workers from some of the other people that testify. And we want you to know that we as school social workers are here to be a support and to help with addressing the issue of school attendance as well as school discipline. One of the biggest hurdles we face as the School of social Workers association is numbers. The number, the ratio of students per school social worker in the state of Indiana is 1829 students per school social worker. That’s way out of line with what the federal guidelines would recommend of 250 students per school social worker. That would put school social workers on par with the same national recommendations is what exists for school counselors and school counselors. Indiana’s done much better. We’ve driven that ratio down to 497 students per one school counselor. But now with school social workers, that’s the next area we really need to work on driving down that ratio. Of course, that’s not going to happen without there being additional resources and additional help. But there is one thing that you could do to implement that would make it easier for school districts to hire more or give better salaries to school social workers. And that has to do with how we figure the calculation for purposes of budget, of driving those dollars to the classroom. Right now in Indiana, when we’re trying to promote this policy of driving more dollars to the classroom, school social workers are not included to be that within the classroom piece. School counselors are, but school social workers are nothing. Classroom teachers are, but school social workers are not. If the fear is that school social workers are not spending direct one to one time with students, I can assure you that we are working on trying to develop some statistics and some data right now in Indiana to show the amount of time that our school social workers are spending directly with students. And our early results are showing those percentages to be extraordinarily high. In excess of 80% of their day is spent in direct contact with students. So we would ask that you consider that as when you look through the budget calculation this upcoming budget year, we would ask that you consider learning more? And I passed out a brochure about school social workers here in Indiana and the things that school social workers do, we interact with and serve as a conduit between the families and the school and also the community and the support services that are out there available for these students and their families. School social workers are frequently the ones who are asked and tasked by the administration to drill down into the reasons why an individual student might be absent on a chronic or a regular basis. So they are the ones who are having that direct contact then with the families helping to interview those students to find out what’s going on causing them not to come to school. Are school social workers the silver bullet? They’re going to solve this problem? No, absolutely not. But they are a critical and important piece of that puzzle of putting together a solution for improving our student attendance. With that I would appreciate. Any questions? Thank you, Senator Ford. Thank you, mister chairman. Joel, you mentioned about how the dollars that are going to the classroom in terms of counselors and social workers are not the same. So how do we fix that? It’s simple because I thought we tried to do that before the house. I think recommendation came over with it in there and I think the senate’s the one that took it out. Correct? Gotcha. I worked with Denny Kostarison and there’s just been a debate as to whether or not it should be or not. And I know that the provision that we sent over did include it. Okay, thank you. So you can fix it. Are there any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Seeing none, there’s no one else is left in the room? Just about, but no one else has indicated an interest in testifying. So with that, the interim committee is adjourned. And I do not have a date yet for the next meeting. Senator Raatz and I will collaborate and provide that within the next couple of days. Thank you.

• Senator Robert Baning –  (Committee Chair)
• Senator Jeff Raatz (Vice Chair)
• John Keller (Indiana Department of Education)
• Kate Albrant (Empoweru)
• Lori Oduyoye (Center for High School Success)
• Matthew Shoemaker (Superintendent, Newcastle Community School Corporation)
• Katie Smith (Secondary Attendance Liaison, Newcastle Community School Corporation)
• Adam McDaniel (Assistant Superintendent, Newcastle Community School Corporation)
• Joan Wasser Gish (Boston College Center for Thriving Children)
• Jillian Lane (Marian University Center for Vibrant Schools)
• Tom Grisham (Indiana Disability Rights)
• Abby Manik, Grace Roberts, Kane Holderead, Eleanor Grchowski (Valparaiso University students)
• Amy Boone (Principal, Southport High School)
• Crystal Thorpe (Indiana Association of School Principals)
• Katie Smith (Principal, Union Elementary School)
• Russell Skiba (Professor Emeritus, Indiana University School of Education)
• Gwen Kelly (NAACP State Conference Education Chair)
• John O’Neill (Indiana State Teachers Association)
• James Taylor (MSD of Warren Township)
• Carolyn Gentle-Genitty (Professor and Dean, Butler University)
• Misha Wide (Children’s Policy and Law Initiative of Indiana)
• Joel Hand (Indiana School Social Workers Association)