TULSA, Okla. — 2 News has followed progress in Tulsa Public Schools for months, but one big issue school leaders said is impacting learning is chronic absenteeism.
Chronic absenteeism, or students absent from at least two days of class per month on average, is higher in TPS (41% of all students in 2022-23) than anywhere else in Oklahoma.
Dr. Johnson said this affects all students but holds back high schoolers especially.
"They are more likely to drop out of school and less likely to graduate with their high school diploma," she said.
To tackle this, the district launched a new initiative on Feb. 7 to address the problem. Their solution is "Attend to Win!" A new initiative to pump up those numbers. Attend to Win! is a partnership between TPS, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, and the City of Tulsa.
But simply signaling his support for the district isn't why Bynum said he showed up to the kickoff ceremony of the campaign. He wants the city to act with changes to housing turnover, and in businesses that employ students.
"A big driver of this that we see in Tulsa are evictions," Mayor Bynum said. "So we're heavily focused as a city government to do what we can to prevent evictions."
"If you know you're hiring a high school student, they should be in school during the day," he added. "After school, awesome. Weekends? Great."
Johnson and Bynum also point to safety as a barrier for younger students getting to and from school.
"The City of Tulsa has partnered with Tulsa Public Schools to strategically go and look at... every elementary school in town to focus on improving those routes to school so kids have a safe way."
At a Jan. 31 round table about the district's long-standing issues, Dr. Johnson highlighted progress and ongoing efforts to improve attendance while emphasizing the importance of engaging students and families.
Attendance has been an issue, at the very least, since the pandemic, which threw a wrench in a lot of things. However, education leaders said attendance did improve over the past few years.
- RELATED STORY >>> Breaking down Tulsa Public Schools' improvement data
"We've seen a decrease in chronic absenteeism, which is fantastic," Johnson noted. "We are post-pandemic — still a little bit in it — but post-pandemic for the most part. So, families are showing up more, students are showing up more. So, we are very proud of our messaging going out for chronic absenteeism."
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and Johnson had a rocky relationship over the district's struggles, to said the least. At that round table, however, he complimented Johnson's efforts.
- Previous coverage >>> State Supt. Ryan Walters changes tune on Tulsa Public Schools
"The attendance rates increasing is a great indicator," said Walters. "We are at a site [Monroe Demonstration School] today where they have 7% improvement in the last few months."
"And to see that," he continued, "that is a testament to... Expectations are high academically, but the kids want to be here. The parents are wanting their kids to be here. And I think that, again, you say that, the data's bearing that out as well, that you do have students that are saying, and parents that are seeing the importance of the education here, they're seeing that daily attendance matters."
This is a complete change of tone from December when Walters pushed for a national superintendent candidate search after he disapproved of Johnson's move to the TPS superintendent position permanently after serving as interim.
- Previous coverage>>> Dr. Ebony Johnson responds to Walters' calls for national superintendent search
According to its webpage on attendance policy, TPS last updated its absence policy in August 2022.
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