Roughly 12,000 students that Dallas ISD officials expected to be in class last week did not show up, district leaders estimate.
Administrators, desperate to help kids recover from COVID-19 disruptions, are working to track down missing students. They know they’re up against families’ fear of what it means to return to school amid a surge of coronavirus cases driven by the highly contagious delta variant.
Educators are calling families to say, “‘Hey, where’s my baby?’” H.I. Holland Elementary Principal Shanieka Christmas-McDonald said. “We’re really connecting with them in our conversations, letting them know we miss the student, we want to see them here and that we’re going to take care of them as much as we can.”
But that ongoing concern over the pandemic helped push the district to launch a limited online program for kids too young to receive the coronavirus vaccine and those who are medically fragile.
The number of students the district is looking for “changes every day,” said Tiffany Huitt, the DISD’s chief of school leadership. Attendance figures are preliminary and total enrollment likely won’t be finalized until mid-September. Who shows up to school has implications not just for students’ learning but for the district’s finances.
This year, district officials project they’ll serve about 146,000 students, down from previous years.
Dallas schools opened with three different start dates this year, as small cohorts of campuses rolled out an extended calendar model aimed at combating learning loss.
At those early-start schools, attendance lagged behind at first, worrying district leaders.
“We had sort of a rough start,” Huitt said.
Christmas-McDonald welcomed about 270 kids on Aug. 2, the earliest start date in the DISD. She expected about 360.
In the three weeks since then, they’ve built attendance back and are now on track to potentially exceed their enrollment expectations.
Some families weren’t aware of the early start, Christmas-McDonald said. Others were still away on summer trips. And some were nervous about sending their children back right away, as safety protocols in Texas schools continue to shift.
The Dallas ISD is defying an executive order by Gov. Greg Abbott that attempts to ban school districts from mandating masks. Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said masks are necessary to protect children and staff, and he will require them on campuses “until there’s an official order of the court that applies to the Dallas Independent School District.”
The back-and-forth over mask mandates is tied up in both state and federal courts.
At H.I. Holland Elementary, “I’m always communicating the things we’re doing on campus to keep everyone safe,” Christmas-McDonald said. “We don’t have a mask issue here on campus. Everyone wears their masks.”
Dallas ISD officials announced Thursday that they would launch a limited, temporary online option for students younger than 12. They’re prioritizing the families who haven’t shown up to class yet this year.
“We are reaching out because our records show that your student hasn’t been in class during the 2021-2022 school year that started recently,” the district emailed certain families on Thursday.
“While we recommend as many students as possible participate in on-campus learning due to the benefits, we understand parent and student concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic,” they wrote, along with sending a link to register for the Virtual Academy.
District officials know most kids learn best in person, so they’re trying to impress upon families that they’re taking safety precautions and continuing to enforce mask wearing. Still, some continued to ask for a remote option and administrators didn’t want kids missing out on learning entirely.
Deputy Superintendent Susana Cordova said the district has been monitoring enrollment closely. “At the elementary level in particular, we’ve talked to parents who are concerned about sending their children back to school because they can’t get vaccinated,” she said.
Christmas-McDonald said she knows of at least two families from her school community who have signed up for the virtual option after not initially showing up to class. When students didn’t come, teachers and administrators called and sent parents texts and emails to check in.
Texas’ public schools saw significant dips in enrollment last year, mostly at the pre-K and kindergarten levels, which are not required grades. Throughout the state, enrollment dipped by more than 120,000 students from the previous year.
The district traditionally gains a few thousand students over the course of the first few weeks of classes as families re-enroll.
Fewer kids showing up than expected matters not only because the district wants to catch students up on instruction time they missed during the pandemic. Schools are funded on how many students come to class, so there are big budget implications.
A bill that would’ve funded virtual learning similarly to in-person school died in the final hours of the Texas Legislature’s regular session, but it may have enough momentum to get through the latest special session.
“We think it’s in the best interest of our students and the community that we get kids in school, even if it’s virtual, and even if it’s unfunded,” Cordova said.
Huitt said the DISD’s preliminary enrollment numbers already look better than they did last year. Those in pre-K and kindergarten are “returning at a higher rate this school year.”
District officials are working to suss out the reasons why older students might be missing.
“Many of them we know last year sought employment and they have jobs now,” Huitt said. “We’re exploring what we can offer those students so they return to us to continue their education.”
That could mean hiring high schoolers to serve as tutors for younger kiddos, she said.
“We’re hoping that brings them back in,” Huitt said, “gives them the time and space to be in school, but also continue to make money.”
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.
