Testimony of Dr. Michelle J. Walker-Davis, Executive Director DC Public Charter School Board

Hearing on Chronic Absenteeism and Truancy

Committee of the Whole

October 15, 2025

Good afternoon, Chairman Mendelson and members of the Committee of the Whole. I am Dr. Michelle Walker-Davis, Executive Director of the DC Public Charter School Board (DC PCSB), the authorizer of public charter schools in the District.

I am grateful for the opportunity to testify today on school attendance in the public charter sector, and I want to begin by acknowledging the people who make our schools the safest place for students to be: our school leaders, teachers, staff, and families. I also want to thank this Council for holding such an important and timely hearing.

The start of a school year should be a joyful time—a time to celebrate our students as they catch up with friends and embark on new academic journeys. With federal authorities occupying DC, this year had a decidedly different feel. In the face of the unprecedented federal intrusion, DC PCSB hosted a virtual town hall on public charter school safety. Our Board Chair, Shantelle Wright, moderated and asked DC law enforcement questions about student safety and best practices for schools when interacting with federal law enforcement officers.

I am proud to report that DC public charter schools have stepped up in huge ways to be responsive to this moment: providing escorts, hiring transportation, hosting know-your-rights sessions, and offering support services, especially for families impacted directly. Public charter schools serve students in every Ward, and the resources provided by this Council are vital to charter leaders’ ability to meet this moment on behalf of the District’s students and their families.

I also want to recognize our partners across the DC government and in the community, particularly the DC Charter Alliance, for their critical engagement in these difficult times. As this committee knows, schools across the country are working tirelessly to put the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic behind them. DC public charter schools are no exception, and they are making progress.

Our data indicates that both truancy and chronic absenteeism declined last school year. Truancy fell from 34.7% to 32.6% and chronic absenteeism dropped from 40.3% to 39.5%. And while in-seat attendance declined from 88.1% to 86.5%, there are bright spots there, too. 17 of our public charter school campuses had in-seat attendance rates at or above 93%—nearly double the number when I testified two years ago.

Some of the credit goes to our Student Support Teams, or school-based teams that identify and intervene to help students overcome academic and behavioral issues. According to our data, 12,277 DC public charter school students met with a Student Support Team last school year for attendance purposes, a 28% increase from the prior year and a 62% increase from five school years ago. Student Support Teams are funded through the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula, or UPSFF, and I thank the Chairman and members of this committee for their past and continued support for that vital funding stream.

We know we have more work to do on attendance, and DC PCSB is making changes to reflect the post-pandemic learning environment. Last school year, for example, DC PCSB reinstated its attendance and truancy policy, which we paused during the pandemic. We issued 20 notices of concern to schools for exceeding the threshold, far more than DC PCSB has typically issued. So we took a hard look at the policy, which we last revised in 2016, and decided to update it to reflect hard-earned lessons. That process is currently underway, and I would encourage this committee to share thoughts and concerns when the public comment period opens.

We are also making chronic absenteeism—defined as the number of students missing 10% or more of the school year—a key part of ASPIRE, our academic accountability system. By including chronic absenteeism as a trackable metric for the first time, we will give students and families a more nuanced picture of what is happening in classrooms when we begin publishing ASPIRE results next school year.

So there are reasons to be optimistic about attendance across the sector. I am also reminded that President Barack Obama kept a small plaque on his desk that read, “hard things are hard.” Truancy and chronic absenteeism are hard things. There is no quick or easy fix as the Chairman knows, having been focused on this issue as long as I have known him. Solving this problem will require policymakers to address factors like access to housing or reliable transportation, which exacerbate truancy and chronic absenteeism and fall far outside DC PCSB’s and public charter schools’ purview.

As DC’s charter authorizer, DC PCSB’s mission is to ensure each charter school student receives a quality education. As part of that, we are committed to working with this committee to keep students in the classroom, where they are safest and most supported during the school day. I thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to your questions.