chronic absenteeism – Aspire Public Schools

California Parents Push Legislators to Change School Funding System

April 21, 2026

California Parents Push Legislators to Change School Funding System

By: Ryder Barrios, Omar Rodríguez, Miguel González, Emilio Colima
Journalism Students, Aspire Vanguard College Preparatory Academy

Attendees posing in front of the Capitol building after the first half of the legislative meetings (Photo supplied by Filmtwist)

Families across California have joined Aspire Public Schools in their fifth annual “Count Me In” event from April 6th to 7th, meeting with legislators thirty-five times in one day to combat the current funding system based on average daily attendance (ADA).

The ADA funding formula, introduced to California in 1911, has received increased pushback in recent years. It works by funding schools based on attendance. According to a report from Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), schools lose $3.6 billion annually due to these absences.

The Count Me In Movement, led by Maribel Sainez, Aspire Director of Family Engagement and Community Advocacy, is backed by teachers and families across the state. Together, they are combating this funding policy, which they describe as outdated. According to the Count Me In Campaign Overview, it is still used in only six states, including California.

Chronic absenteeism in California is seen in about 1.2 million students who miss 10% of the entire school year on average, according to the overview. Furthermore, a key fact of this overview states that “Students of low-income families—who make up about 62% of all California students — are more likely to miss school—amplifying inequities.”

Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil shares concern with the current system at the Count Me In Press Conference in front of the California Capitol Building (Photo supplied by Filmtwist)

Parents, students, and teachers say the one-size-fits-all funding system is not working. The Count Me In Campaign Overview states it compounds the problem by withholding funding for their education when absent, further disadvantaging the students and schools who need the most support.

Aspire, along with other charter school management organizations, including KIPP SoCal, Ednovate, Alliance, Camino Nuevo, Brightstar, Voices, Semillas, and Navigator Schools, believes this change in funding is needed to make up for the lost opportunities in school that teachers and parents alike are worried about. Paulette Gipson, a grandparent concerned with current emotional support funding, argued that schools need to be “a safe haven for students to be comfortable in.”

Nancy de Ramirez, an Aspire parent, said California “needs to restore and add more funding for districts serving students with higher levels of need.”

Pamela Aaracely Ramirez Herrera, an elementary school teacher, shared that her school was required to front the cost for mandated services for specific students with Individualized Education Programs or IEPs. She questioned the ability of schools to manage all of these requirements at the same time with limited money.

Though the concerns for schools’ addressing of health did not end there. Aaracel continued, revealing that the school did not have the money to hire a nurse. This statement was met with other parents chiming in with their similar experiences.

Lost funding for schools not only affects the school but also the students who attend it, and their families. Sometimes students miss school not because they don’t want to go, but because they can’t.

Iracema Velasquez, an Aspire Richmond Technology Academy parent, shared that her son wouldn’t communicate with teachers or staff throughout the school day and often had accidents when going to the bathroom because he wouldn’t tell teachers he needed to go.

Later on, her son was diagnosed with selective mutism, a severe anxiety disorder where children or adults cannot speak in specific social situations, with this affecting the child’s social skills.

“This is a huge problem because when it came time to take him to school, he did not want to go and would cry; sometimes she had to be at school every day for about twenty minutes waiting for her son to calm down and enter school. On the days he wouldn’t attend school, the school lost funding, and losing this funding means the school cannot hire specialists to deal with these types of problems; in general, it affects the child’s education.”

Another parent at the event stated that her son would sometimes miss school because of the 40-45 minute drive to school and back. She shared, “I live far away from the school, but don’t want to send my son on public transport because it is dangerous, and I don’t trust it.”

She also mentioned having to stop buying certain things for her house to be able to keep up with the rising gas prices. If schools were better funded, parents would not have to worry about transportation, as schools could provide that transport for students.

The lack of funding is a major issue for schools, largely due to the way state funding is distributed. Currently, funding is based on student attendance; however, this approach is problematic due to the high rate of student absenteeism. Many students are missing school, and this directly reduces the resources available to their schools. Furthermore, the current system fails to account for the fact that every child has unique learning needs.

The families who gathered today all had one single goal in mind: to make a better future for their children and future generations. The funding has had a significant impact on the entire school system, specifically the students.

The cause continues as Aspire, along with many other organizations, works towards next year’s gathering. This fight for a supportive funding landscape will take time, resources, and understanding from the legislature. However, they need not do it alone; vote, petition, and support here.

Crowd applause from supporters after the parents’ speech at the press conference (Photo supplied by Filmtwist)

The Mercury News | Opinion: To better support California’s students, change our funding formula

July 8, 2024

By funding based on enrollment instead of attendance, we can increase resources to schools with the most vulnerable kids

Original article here.
By Mala Batra | CEO, Aspire Public Schools

June 26, 2024

There is no doubt: Kids are missing a lot of school. Nationally, over a quarter of public school students were chronically absent last year — up from about 15% before the pandemic.

Kids in California are no exception. Recent reporting by the Bay Area News Group said the average California student missed 14.6 school days last year.

This is happening for many reasons, including transportation and mental health issues. Perhaps most daunting is the idea that the pandemic altered society’s relationship with schooling, shifting attendance to be viewed as “optional.” We are already seeing the consequences.

The absenteeism increase has also illuminated an inequity in how California funds public schools. Our state’s schools lose about $3.6 billion annually because of student absences, this paper reported. This is because, currently, California funds schools based on the average number of students who attend school each day. That’s different from the number of students enrolled — for whom the school is responsible for educating. We’re one of only six states that still fund schools this way.

Students from low-income families — about 60% of students — are more likely to miss school. Kids who miss a lot of school often need support. Yet when they’re absent, the state does not offer support. Instead, it withholds money for their education. This means schools serving low-income students often wind up with less funding than more affluent schools, hindering educators’ ability to tend to students’ needs and improve academic outcomes. This is inequitable — but we have an opportunity to address it.

Our experience at Aspire Public Schools has taught us that countering chronic absenteeism requires a thoughtful, resource-intensive approach. We serve over 15,000 students, the vast majority of whom are experiencing poverty. We offer attendance incentives, transportation supports, direct outreach to families and mental health supports, to name a few. Those efforts are meaningful — our schools had an average chronic absenteeism rate of about 26% this year (nearly the same as the state’s), down from about 40% two years ago.

We are relentless in our pursuit because we care about our students, we value their presence in our community, and we know that they have to be in school to learn. But it’s a crisis that a quarter of students at Aspire — and statewide — are chronically absent. While hardworking educators will surely continue working to solve this problem, that will not fix the funding inequity under the surface.

California lawmakers should change how schools are funded to provide resources for the number of students schools are charged with serving. We’ve launched a campaign to help make that happen.

By funding based on student enrollment, we can increase resources for schools serving the most vulnerable kids. One report estimates that about 90% of districts would receive more funding under an enrollment-based formula. The biggest boost would happen in districts with high percentages of low-income, English learner and foster youth students.

Sen. Anthony Portantino’s Senate Bill 98, co-sponsored by State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, would require that the Legislative Analyst’s Office study what this funding change would mean and share findings by 2026. (Whether this would require a change to Proposition 98, the voter-approved initiative that sets minimum funding levels for K-12 schools, would likely be addressed in this study, offering legislators a helpful path.)

This bill, which passed out of the Assembly Education Committee unanimously June 12, would be a strong step in the right direction.

There will be costs associated with changing school funding. We recognize the complex budget situation policymakers face and appreciate that they must juggle competing priorities. But it counters California values to maintain such an inequity. And the costs of our children missing out on their education are far greater.

Every student deserves our support — they all have skills and gifts that should be nurtured. By shifting how our funding formula counts students, we allow resources to be more equitably targeted to students’ needs, including the support needed to attend class. We also send our students a message: You are valued, and your place in our community matters.

Mala Batra is CEO of Aspire Public Schools, a network of charter schools serving over 15,000 TK-12 students across 36 schools in historically underserved communities throughout California.

EdSource | Commentary: Academic rigor versus cultural relevance is a false choice

February 14, 2024

Original EdSource article found here.

COMMENTARY | Black Student Success
By Chris Carr
Executive Director, Aspire Los Angeles

February 14, 2024

In the current era of education culture wars — banning books, monitoring curriculum, adjusting school policies — supporting students in a culturally sensitive, relationship-focused way is sometimes presented as being in conflict with maintaining academic rigor.

But balancing these approaches is more important than ever as our schools continue to rebound from pandemic-related learning loss coupled with the ongoing social-emotional needs of students. We should not have to prioritize one approach over the other: academic rigor, or supporting students’ social-emotional needs through culturally relevant teaching and experiences. Individually, each approach falls short in providing all students with the support they require for a successful future. By reframing them as mutually reinforcing rather than mutually exclusive, we have the potential to significantly transform education for every child.

Culturally relevant teaching is the conduit to academic success, and rigorous instruction is effective when grounded in culturally relevant teaching. To support our students, we must equip them with the tools for empowerment while also working to create inclusive educational environments that foster support.

In practice, this means everything from ensuring our teachers and staff reflect the demographic makeup of our students, to examining the resources and professional development we bring into our schools to make sure all our students’ needs are met. It means having data-driven conversations, grounded in equity, about how we are serving our most marginalized students.

As a school leader at Aspire Public Schools in Los Angeles, we knew some of our most vulnerable students were those who were chronically absent. Diving into the data, we discovered that many of our students missed school around three-day weekends and holidays. As a part of the implementation of our positive behavioral and intervention support (PBIS) framework, we focused on timing school celebrations and family engagement activities before and after three-day weekends and holidays so that students wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun. Additionally, teachers reach out to families of absent students to provide a more personal touch and communicate the positive impact their child has in their classroom community when they are at school. The early results of implementing this PBIS approach are showing promise in reducing absenteeism, with a year-over-year decrease in chronic absenteeism rates across our 11 Los Angeles schools.

A data-driven approach grounded in equity can also help serve special education students. For example, at one of our schools, students in special education demonstrated notable progress in math, surpassing the growth rates in math seen among their peers in general education, both in LAUSD and statewide. The schools took a different approach to intervention than they had in the past. Previously, students with individual education plans (IEPs), which are required for all students in special education, were not included in math interventions — an additional 20-minute small-group math instruction during the school day. Last year, students with IEPs participated in these math interventions along with general education students. This additional intervention, combined with regular “teach back” sessions during which teachers practice delivering content to their peers, gathering feedback and strengthening their practice, yielded positive results among our special education learners.

Developing partnerships to incorporate Afrocentric and LGBTQ+ curriculum and resources can also make an impact. This has included everything from the establishment of several Black student union chapters to a Black families advisory council, where families meet quarterly to discuss Black educational content and curricula. I can say firsthand that we’re seeing these partnerships show promising results: Participants in Black student union programs experienced an average reduction of eight days in absenteeism compared to the previous year. Plans are also underway to pilot an LGBTQ+ course that aligns with state A-G standards (courses required for admission in California public universities). Lastly, dedicating resources to cultivate a pipeline of Black educators is critical to establishing a more diverse teaching staff.

To deliver on the promise of excellent education for every child, it is time to chart a path that is both rigorous and culturally relevant. This is how we deliver on the promise of an education model that serves all students.

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Chris Carr is the executive director for the Los Angeles region of Aspire Public Schools, a nonprofit charter management organization.

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