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Several districts in Lane County lost ground on attendance, while a few remained relatively steady. Others, including Oakridge and Crow-Apple-Lorane, increased their regular attenders.
School districts in Lane County and statewide are still struggling to bring regular attendance rates back to levels from before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recently released state data shows little progress — and some backsliding — since last year across the county’s 16 school districts. Statewide, regular attendance rates improved less than 1%.
To be classified as a “regular attender,” a student must attend more than 90% of school days. That means a student can miss, at the most, only about 18 days of school to qualify.
Four districts beat the statewide mark with attendance rates that grew by more than 1%. The 298-student district of Crow-Applegate-Lorane increased regular attendance by 13%, with 84.8% of students classified as regular attendees.
Marcola, a district of 974 students, has the best attendance rates in the county, with 91.6% of students classified as regular attenders.
Attendance rates in the three large districts in Eugene and Springfield remained about the same. The percentage of regular attenders in …
- Springfield Public Schools dropped a percentage point to 60%
- Bethel School District dropped by 0.2% to 69.2%.
- Eugene School District 4J rose by 2.4% to 67%.
States nationwide are working to combat chronic absenteeism after pandemic attendance losses. But Oregon is recovering slower than most. Statewide, 33.5% of Oregon students missed 10% or more school days last school year.
FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank focused on education data and analysis, has compiled 2024-25 chronic absenteeism data from 27 states so far, not including Oregon, as data is released. Oregon’s rate is worse than any of the 27 states, followed by Colorado which has 28% of its students missing 10% or more of school.
In a Nov. 18 virtual press conference, Charlene Williams, director of the Oregon Department of Education, shared strategies the state is exploring for improving attendance, including phone calls to families and sharing attendance numbers more frequently than in its annual sharing of data.
“It’s going to take us really rolling up our sleeves and identifying which strategies and practices are going to work best to boost attendance,” Williams said.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the location of Thurston High School in the photo caption.
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