Salem schools made modest gains in the share of students attending class regularly last year, but local students are still missing far more class than their peers across the state.
Across all grades, 570 more students were regular attenders than the year before.
Numbers released Thursday by the Oregon Department of Education also show 44% of the Salem-Keizer School District’s students were chronically absent last year, meaning they missed at least 10% of school days. The district had about 37,000 students.
Across Oregon, one in three students were chronically absent last year, the new data showed.
The attendance gains are spread across schools. All but 10 of the 65 schools improved attendance rates last year. Rates at four were flat and six declined, district spokesman Aaron Harada said.
“I feel proud of the progress, and it’s hard-earned progress,” said Superintendent Andrea Castañeda in an interview with Salem Reporter. “We, not just the school district, but as a broader community, have to figure out what the next steps are, because it’s more than a school issue now.”
Attendance numbers are part of Oregon’s annual “report card,” released Thursday which show how individual schools performed on attendance, graduation, state tests and other metrics.
Look up your child’s school
Report cards for individual schools and school districts can be viewed on the state Education Department website here.
The state compares that performance with state averages and shows changes over previous years. They are intended to give parents and others a way to assess the quality of education in local schools.
The data shows that the Salem-Keizer School District is seeing declining enrollment, with about 1,740 fewer students in 2024, and lags behind state averages in most performance measures.
Last year’s showing is an improvement for the district. During the 2022-23 school year, 48% of students missed class regularly.
Research shows students who attend school regularly during the first years of elementary school are much more likely to read at grade level by third grade.
For both Oregon and Salem, attendance remains far below pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, three in four Salem students were in class regularly.
State and local leaders see improving that number as a key step to improving everything from students’ reading abilities to graduation rates.
The state tracks attendance and other data by gender, race and a number of other factors that affect students’ lives.
Among those groups, Salem students who are currently or have been incarcerated posted the lowest attendance rates at 21%. Homeless, Pacific Islander and non-binary students also had high absenteeism.
Asian students, gifted and talented students, those with a parent in the military and Black students had the highest regular attendance rates.
Attendance varies widely between schools. Rates are lowest in high school, and generally lower in schools where more students live in poverty.
At McKay High School, just one in three students attended regularly last year. West Salem High School posted the highest attendance among high schools, with 54% of students in class regularly.
Among elementary schools, regular attendance rates varied from 52% at Auburn to 79% at Brush College and Candalaria.
The factors shaping student attendance are complicated, and often involve factors outside school.
At Scott Elementary School in northeast Salem, for example, school leaders last year said a shortage of bus drivers made attending regularly hard for some families. Bus schedules were delayed, meaning families with inflexible work schedules couldn’t see their kids off to the bus.
What local schools are doing
Last year, schools worked to boost attendance. Many dedicated employees or teams to look at attendance data regularly and reach out to students and families missing lots of class to see what could help them get to school.
Scott, for instance, set weekly attendance goals for some students, focusing on those missing at least one day per week. They used grant money to buy rewards like Chuck E. Cheese gift cards for students who improved attendance.
The school’s behavior specialist and outreach worker conducted weekly home visits for some families who were especially struggling to get kids to class.
Last school year, 53% of Scott students attended class regularly, up from 39% the year before. That’s about 50 more kids coming to school most of the time.
This year, the district is centralizing some of its attendance work. Many schools last year sent letters to families with data on how much class their students had missed.
“It feels different to learn that your child has missed 20% of the school year than to just hear that they were absent one day,” Castañeda said.
That’s now being done at the district level via a mostly automated process. A second round of letters are due to go out Friday, Harada said.
Letters also invite families to reach out to the school if they’re having challenges getting kids to class. And they explain why coming to school regularly matters, particularly in early elementary school when students are building routines and habits.
Graduation readiness
The new state data also shows four in five local high school freshmen – about 2,400 students – were on track to graduate, meaning they completed one-quarter of the work to earn a diploma.
That’s a slight decline from last year’s figure of 82%, and remains below pre-pandemic levels. But it’s well above the pandemic low of 70% in 2021.
Castañeda said the district needs to balance earning required credits to graduate with ensuring a diploma means students are actually prepared for life after high school.
“For years we’ve really been paying attention to graduation rate and on-track status in Oregon and Salem-Keizer, because it matters. Now we’re trying to also introduce equal attention to the completeness of the learning that goes along with that credit,” she said.
That means ensuring all students have high-quality curriculum and standards are clear across schools and classes, she said.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
