Updates to Texas school attendance requirements made for 2020 school year

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) will make changes to the school attendance requirements in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an article from the Texas AFT late last month. 

Schools will be required by TEA to adopt alternative attendance policies to factor in remote learning since funding is directly connected to the schools' rate of average daily attendance (ADA).

In schools that are using Remote Synchronous Instruction, attendance will be recorded every day in a manner much the same as in typical school circumstances. When the class and teacher meet remotely at their specific time, the students will be connected via phone or other electronic device to get their attendance counted, Texas AFT reported. 

In the Remote Asynchronous Instruction, where students instead are given pre-recorded lessons and work programs provided by the teacher rather than engage with the instructor directly, attendance will be recorded based on daily activity. Students don't need to be online with the teacher at a certain time as long as a satisfactory amount of work is completed on a daily basis. 

The following engagements are considered approved works to be gauged in the RAI method: daily progress measured through a direct student-teacher interaction; completion and turn-in of assignments from the student, whether through online submission or mail or daily work in the Learning Management System (LMS). 

Regardless of the engagement methods chosen, the schools must still meet the mandatory curriculum provided by TEA. 

Commissioner of Education Mike Morath told the Texas AFT the adjustments to the attendance requirements will currently apply to the 2020-2021 academic school year and the adjustments will not allot state funding for remote synchronous methods in pre-kindergarten through second grade. 

A full outline of the details on measuring attendance through the new TEA plan can be viewed here.