Superintendent Andrew apologizes for incorrect Hawthorne attendance data

Superintendent Shane Andrew speaks at the April 16 School Board meeting

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – During Superintendent Comment at the April 16 School Board of Alachua County meeting, Superintendent Shane Andrew apologized to the Hawthorne community for the incorrect chronic absenteeism data that was presented at last Wednesday’s workshop.

At the April 10 School Board workshop, Chief of Equity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement Anntwanique Edwards presented a chart that showed chronic absenteeism rates for Hawthorne Middle/High School that were far out of line with other schools in the district.

When Member Tina Certain said the chart was “alarming” and asked what had been done to investigate the causes, Edwards said she did “not know the answer right now.” She said the causes could be “transportation,… suspensions, it can be kids who are sick [or] skipping.”

After Alachua Chronicle reported on the workshop, Alachua County Public Schools Public Information Officer Jackie Johnson told us that the chart had been inaccurate and that the numbers for the middle and high school populations had been combined: “In other words, chronically absent high school students were included in Hawthorne’s middle school count and vice versa. Not clarifying that was an error on our part.”

Tonight, Andrew presented an updated chart that shows the current numbers:

Chronic absentee data as of April 16, 2024

Andrew said, “I’d like to apologize to our Hawthorne Middle/High school administration, teachers, staff, students, parents, and the community for the inaccurate chronically absent data that we shared in our workshop last week. The data pulled and displayed for Hawthorne Middle/High School inadvertently included inactive students, and the middle and high school student data sets for chronically absent students were added together as one number. And this resulted in extremely high overall total student numbers and percentages for both the middle school and the high school.”

Chronically absent students are active students who miss more than 10% of the academic year for any reason, including unexcused, excused, and school-related absences.

Andrew concluded, “The Hawthorne Middle/High School counts, as you can see in percentages, are significantly lower than those presented last week. And I do want to take the time to honor the daily hard work of Mr. [John] Green, who is here with us this evening, the Principal of Hawthorne Middle/High School, and his team as it relates to contacting families, focusing on increasing their daily attendance rates. I want it to be known that they work diligently to reach out to families in the community and to get students to school. So again, I apologize to our Hawthorne Middle/High School stakeholders.

  • Imagine what other data has been incorrectly tabulated by SBAC

    • You can’t be upset with these boards members, after all they were probably ed-u-ma-cated in the Alachua County School system.

  • I wish the school board would just be honest and tell us exactly how many dollars they receive from the state and feds per student…and how those funds are contingent on attendance.

  • Say what you want about the school board and some of the board members, but I like Shane Andrew. Does he have some issues? Yes. Who doesn’t?? But the man is genuinely doing a fine job in my opinion. Not that it means much. But I’d vote for him any day.

  • So the Non “Doctor” apologizes for the “Doctor” because she is what? Not responsible for vetting information she presents to the “Illustrious” ACPS SB, as someone who draws $115,360/year salary, salary link (https://govsalaries.com/edwards-anntwanique-d-165612284). Oops: The Non “Doctor” Superintendent is also not responsible for vetting the information provided to the “Doctor?” I guess so, his salary is only $228,222/year (https://govsalaries.com/andrew-shane-l-165612264)!

    Obviously, neither one of was “alarmed” enough to ensure the “data” they are providing to the public, and of course to the “Illustrious” ACPS SB, is accurate! Even a 5th Grader would have probably questioned the obvious Hawthorne MS/HS “outliers”! Not these two, and their million dollar staff!

    Neither one accepts responsibility for the inaccurate data! Don’t worry though, our children/students are in good hands with a staff like this at the helm! BS!

    The sh!tstorm that is ACPS and ACPS SB just continues to roll on!

    Even with corrected data, the chronic absenteeism is unacceptable! Quarterly reports available at the right side of the page here: ABC Reports: Attendance, Behavior, Core Academics: https://www.sbac.edu/dataanalytics.

    For this group of “Dipsticks”, this “distraction” is merely another fire meant to disguise the fact that ACPS Administrative Leadership and ACPS SB are incompetent! Vote the ACPS SB out and fire the current ACPS Administrative Leadership (Doctors and Non-Doctors)! Get data straight, but take action on reading, writing, and arithmetic and DISCIPLINE! Quit sending smoke screens to the public!

  • Facts don’t matter to this crowd, even when the can’t handle the truth. It’s all about what can be gained for the unwilling to work for it bunch and manipulating your guilt (contrived racism) to get what they didn’t earn.
    DEI= Didn’t Earn It

  • Regardless of the fact that they can’t perform basic math, BOTH Hawthorne schools have the highest percentages of students chronically absent! Why isn’t the ACSB focused on that?! It appears that they admitted a clerical error and are just going to move on like nothing’s wrong with Hawthorne’s schools. Why?!

  • Ultimately he’s responsible for the data released to the public and likewise, Edwards is responsible and should be held accountable for her presentation and compiling of the data as given. Leaders are only as good as the people who work for them and those leaders are hopefully looking to surround themselves with those who will help them be successful rather than a hire that’s just to satisfy political ideology.
    In my opinion, if she wouldn’t have blamed the “chronic” absenteeism on equity, there wouldn’t have been such an outcry. I also suspect if it would have been Buchholtz or Oakview the noise wouldn’t have been as loud either. Face it, there’s always going to be kids who don’t want to go to school; the question is, what can be done besides implementing a police state to force them to go? No, that doesn’t mean free stuff and financial incentives, that apparently doesn’t work.
    Being in public education isn’t an easy job, doesn’t matter if you’re the superintendent or bus driver. If it was, more people would do it.

  • One rule for better living is “If it looks wrong, it probably is wrong.” Where in the heck do these idiots come from.

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