Although the Los Angeles Unified School District has ramped up its efforts to keep students in school, a new report shows that thousands are still skipping class routinely, and the problem is rampant in a few low-performing schools.The report is the first in what is intended as a series of monthly accounts that will track truancy and absenteeism in every middle and high school in the district — something that has not been done in such a systematic way before.
The information is considered critical because students typically begin skipping school sporadically before dropping out altogether. L.A. Unified is trying to tackle a dropout rate that is officially 24.1% but has been estimated at close to double that.
Several numbers leap out of the first report, which tracked students who missed school in January.
A single school, Washington Preparatory High School near Inglewood, had 170 students with 10 or more "unresolved" absences that month. Another, Belmont High, just west of downtown, had 167. An unresolved absence is one for which a student does not bring a written excuse and the school doesn't contact the parents.
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