Dotting I’s and Crossing Absentees: West Virginia’s Professional Charter School Board reviews truancy procedures
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CHARLESTON -- With all eyes on the relationship between home school students, county school systems, and state compulsory attendance requirements, the board that governs public charter schools in West Virginia received a briefing on how charter schools handle truancy issues.
During its regular virtual monthly meeting Wednesday morning, the Professional Charter School Board received a briefing on how the state's four brick-and-mortar public charter schools and two statewide virtual public charter schools track unexcused absences and report those to county school systems.
James Paul, the executive director of the Professional Charter School Board, explained that the PCSB bylaws require all public charter schools to have policies in their bylaws regarding unexcused absences in compliance with State Code and compulsory school attendance laws.
Three unexcused absences in a row require the public charter school to make meaningful contact with the student and their family and determine steps to help the student fall back into compliance. Five unexcused absences trigger another meeting between the public charter school and the family.
Once the student reaches 10 unexcused absences, the public charter school is required to make contact with the county school system and/or a county attendance director to organize a home visit or take further legal actions.
"The county board of education's attendance director has to be notified about the address of this student so that the county board of ed can organize a home visit or take other action that the attendance director feels is appropriate to make sure that someone has eyes on the student," Paul said.
In the case of the two statewide virtual public charter schools, those schools have disenrollment policies when students fail to participate in required instructional activities. If a student is disenrolled, the statewide virtual charter schools are required to contact the county school system where the student resides.
"I've also spoken to leaders of the virtual charter schools to ensure that they have policies for disenrollment, and even more than just having policies, that they are committed to making sure that no children are falling through the cracks," Paul said. "If a student leaves a charter school, we expect the charter school to do all it can to help that child find their place in the next educational option that's going to work for that student."
The review comes after recent scrutiny over the death in April of 14-year-old Kyneddi Miller, who was pulled out of public school in Boone County in 2021. Miiler was found in a near skeletal state by Boone County deputies. Her mother and a pair of grandparents are facing charges related to her death.
According to State Code, homeschool children are exempt from laws governing compulsory school attendance as long as the parent and/or guardian submits to the county superintendent the results of the child's academic assessment for grades three, five, eight, and 11 by June 30 of the year the assessment was administered. Parents who do not submit the required assessments could be found to be in violation of the compulsory school attendance law and face criminal misdemeanor truancy actions.
According to an internal investigation, Miller's family had not filed her eighth grade assessment with Boone County Schools and the county never followed up with the family. State Code leaves jurisdiction over compulsory school attendance laws up to the individual counties.
According to the state Department of Education, State Code does not outline specific requirements or permissions for county attendance directors or superintendents regarding homeschool families who don't comply with submitting the required assessment. State leaders and lawmakers are considering tightening up State Code to require county school systems to follow up when assessments are not turned in.
Paul said public charter schools are also running into a similar problem with county school systems when it comes to communication, though he said the state Department of Education has been working to improve communication and relations between the public charter schools and the county school systems where those charter schools are located.
"The communication between the charters and the attendance directors is really paramount," Paul said. "I just want to share with the board that I think this is a process that could stand to improve the communication on both ends. I will note that communication has gotten better over time, but I'm told by charter leaders that they are not usually even acknowledged by the attendance directors when contacted about a disenrollment."
Also Wednesday, the PCSB was told four public charter schools have applied for sub-grants made possible through the U.S. Department of Education's Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools program. PCSB was awarded $12.2 million last year over five years through the program. A peer-review group will review the sub-grant applications between Friday and Aug. 2. The PCSB will vote on the applications at their Aug. 8 meeting.
The PCSB is also looking for vendors to provide technical assistance to the governing boards of public charter schools and to help the PCSB solicit new applications for public charter schools.
"We are excited to have that in progress because it's always great to have assistance with bringing new charter schools to the state," said PCSB Assistant Director Dusty Hurley.
Physical public charter schools include Eastern Panhandle Preparatory Academy in Kearneysville, West Virginia Academy in Morgantown, Workforce Initiative (WIN) Academy in South Charleston, and Clarksburg Classical Academy. M.E.C.C.A. Business Learning Institute in Charles Town will begin this fall. Statewide virtual public charter schools include Virtual Preparatory Academy of West Virginia and West Virginia Virtual Academy.
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com