Dallas ISD could lose out on thousands of dollars in funding after student absences spiked in January.
More than 15% of the district’s roughly 138,900 students were absent on Jan. 21, according to records requested by KERA, and the percentage stayed in the double digits through the end of the month.
Absences were more than double what they were during a similar period last year, when absences fluctuated between 5.9% and 8.3%.
Texas funds districts based on average daily attendance, and DISD applies a flat $35 per student for each day missed. The district did not respond to KERA's questions about what the absences could mean financially or grant its request for an interview.
While county health records show flu and RSV activity accounted for some of the absences, community activist Susanna Garcia says many families kept their kids home in the days after the Trump administration announced schools were no longer “sensitive locations” protected from immigration enforcement.
“There were rumors at the school,” she told KERA in Spanish.
She sent her own 11-year-old daughter to school at Uplift Academy.
“I told her, you're an American citizen and all you have to say is you're an American citizen,” Garcia said. “I do know of other moms that kept their kids home.”
Dallas ISD – where 70% of students are Hispanic – has said no immigration-related arrests have taken place at any of schools.
Dallas ISD school board President Joe Carreon told KERA that campuses are “welcoming places, and students should show up to class every day prepared to learn and prepared to be welcomed in a safe environment to learn.”
More than a quarter of the district’s students were absent on Feb. 4, the “Day Without Immigrants,” the Dallas Morning News reported. The district is requesting a waiver from the state to leave that day out of its average daily attendance calculation.
Bill Zeeble is KERA’s education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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