NC House committee backs attendance pilot as chair faults state board

A bill making its way through the North Carolina House would create a two-year pilot program aimed at curbing chronic absenteeism in public schools. Supporters framed the effort as a low-cost response to the state’s chronic absenteeism rate of roughly one-in-four students.

House Bill 1110, Early Intervention School Attendance Pilot, passed the House Education Committee on May 19 and was referred to appropriations.

Committee chair state Rep. David Willis, R-Union, used his remarks on the bill to criticize state education leaders.

“In light of the current State Board of Education’s abysmal policy choice this year to not fail students for non-attendance, we’ve seen significant attendance drops across the state,” Willis said. “I commend you for bringing this forward and looking at that. Obviously, it’s hard to learn if you’re not in school.”

Under the measure, DPI would select one school district to run the pilot — prioritizing districts with chronic absenteeism rates above the state average — and begin implementation by Jan. 1, 2027. Up to 15,000 students at schools within that district could participate.

A selected vendor would have to provide real-time attendance tracking, automated outreach to families in multiple languages, structured plans for helping at-risk students, and privacy safeguards for student data. DPI would report to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee by Feb. 1, 2028, on whether the program produced measurable reductions in chronic absenteeism. The bill appropriates $75,000 in nonrecurring funds for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

The measure’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Heather Rhyne of Lincoln County, told the committee the bill is “really getting at trying to see if we can [pass] a little bit of money on the front end and a pilot program. The hope would be that we would be able to prove spending less on the back end and all the tutoring programs and those sort of things we have.”

She cited the state’s roughly 25% chronic absenteeism rate, which the bill identifies as a leading indicator of academic underperformance and reduced graduation rates.

Statewide chronic absenteeism, defined as a student missing 10% or more of the school year, sits at 26%, according to data presented earlier this year by DPI’s chief accountability officer Michael Maher. That figure is down from a pandemic peak of 32% but nearly double the historical baseline of 15%. 

“Let that settle,” Maher said at the meeting. “Four-hundred thousand children out of 1.5 million were chronically absent.”

State Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, praised the bill during the committee meeting. “I just attended a Durham Public School meeting. Thirty-seven percent of our students were chronically absent. Truancy has been a huge issue, and [I] really applaud you for bringing this to light and getting this pilot bill offered,” she said.

The state board’s attendance policy, in effect since the start of this school year, narrows the circumstances under which high schools can issue an “FF” designation — a code many districts had used to penalize chronically absent students who would otherwise have passed their classes. Under the revised rules, an “FF” may be assigned only when a student is both failing on coursework and has significant absences.

Schools retain the option to issue in-school suspension, withhold extracurricular eligibility, or fail students whose academic work falls short on the merits.

“NC House committee backs attendance pilot as chair faults state board” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.