El Paso ISD loses millions in state funding
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)-- In an effort to determine if school campuses are following the Texas Education
Agency's (TEA) Student Attendance Accounting Handbook (SAAH) an audit was performed on 5 campuses.
The audit found a total of 55,960 unverified/ No note no call absences, which translates into a loss of approximately $3,245,546 in state funding. The schools audited were Jefferson High School, Tinajero PK-8, Crockett Elementary School, Austin High School and Franklin High School. Franklin High School lead the trend by far with a whooping 40,362 unverified/ No note no call absences.
It was explained that once a teacher marks a child absent the campus attendance clerk assigns the reason, however in the audit they found eleven clerks as well as campus principals at all 5 campuses did not complete attendance training.
Lisa Estrada-Batson, assistant superintendent of student and parent services for EPISD says this year they made training mandatory for campus staff they also implemented a new system that would give parents a way to report absences at the click of a button.
Estrada-Batson says the audit gave them insight into how they can better support their students. She says they plan to work together moving forward to make sure that this year is better.
