EPISD–attendance rules

February 11, 2018

A comment came through yesterday taking me to task:

Brutus really needs to research some of this before he throws this stuff out there. Blame and hold EPISD accountable for their issues, absolutely. To say it is EPISD’s fault on an issue due to state law change is irresponsible and reckless.

The law the commenter referred to changed the penalties and procedures that state allows when schools are handling truancy.

Our post was about absenteeism.

From Title 2, Subtitle E, Chapter 25 of the Texas Education Code:

Sec. 25.092. MINIMUM ATTENDANCE FOR CLASS CREDIT OR FINAL GRADE. (a) Except as provided by this section, a student in any grade level from kindergarten through grade 12 may not be given credit or a final grade for a class unless the student is in attendance for at least 90 percent of the days the class is offered.

This is the law that is in effect in Texas today.  There are further provisions that allow for exceptions.

A school district designated as a district of innovation may wave the requirements of 25.092.

From the EPISD policy manual:

Trying to be more careful so that more of our readers understand the point, our original post was about absenteeism, the comment was about what can be done about it.  Those are two different things.

The state law still requires 90% attendance in order to gain credit for the class.

EPISD has waived that requirement.

Classroom teachers have lost the ability to tell students that excessive absences may lead to the student not getting credit and the district is losing revenue because of increased absences.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–absenteeism

February 9, 2018

Our school districts get paid money by the state when a child is in school.  When one is absent the district does not get paid.

Before EPISD was a district of innovation the students were required to attend class 90% of the time in order to pass the class.

The chart below shows the attendance percentages:

Looking at the financial impact we can see:

Those numbers are for less than half of a school year.

It looks like the kids have figured out the new rules.

We deserve better

Brutus

29 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Another reason bond costs will go up.

February 7, 2018

The lowering of the 35% corporate tax rate down to 21% will cause our local government borrowing costs to go up.

Why?

Investors tend to favor making loans where they make the most money and have the greatest assurance that they will get their original money back.

Before the change in corporate rates investors chose between government bonds where the interest rates were lower than commercial bonds but where the government bonds generated tax free income.

Now with a 21% corporate tax rate investors will understand that lending to companies will be safer because the companies will be paying less tax and thus make more money.

Local governments will have to offer  higher interest rates to investors if they want to compete for money.

Remember that between the city and the school districts we have over $1.5 billion of bonds that have been authorized but not sold yet.

Continuing down the path of going into debt is going to cost us more now.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD–bond advisory committee

January 31, 2018

EPISD has a citizens bond advisory committee (CBAC) that has been silent about the recent audit findings.

This graphic came from the district’s web site on January 28, 2018:

According to this they missed the December meeting and did not have one in January.

Maybe they are waiting for things to cool down.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Posted by Brutus

Refuse the Juice speaks out

January 26, 2018

David K over at Refuse The Juice posted an interesting article the other day.  You can read it here.

Many of our readers are under the mistaken belief that newspapers are supposed to be impartial.

It is true that many newspapers are less blatant in their bias than the Times.

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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