In the 2021-22 school year, CCISD reported a chronic absence rate of 39%. The district\u2019s latest report shows that number has dropped to 22.7% for the 2025-26 year.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 \u00a0The Corpus Christi Independent School District is seeing improvement in student attendance after implementing new tools and reinforcing existing policies.<\/p>\n
District officials say new communication programs are making it easier for campuses to connect directly with parents about student absences.<\/p>\n
Ronald Kanipes, CCISD\u2019s director of admissions and attendance, said one of the new features allows schools to send secure text messages to families regarding absences.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s two-way communication. So say, they could send you a text message about your kid saying that he missed school today. And then you can respond back saying why he missed and you can take a picture of your doctor\u2019s excuse and send it back to the school,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The district has seen significant improvement in chronic absenteeism. In the 2021-22 school year, CCISD reported a chronic absence rate of 39%. The district\u2019s latest report shows that number has dropped to 22.7% for the 2025-26 school year.<\/p>\n
Kanipes said stricter enforcement of attendance requirements has also played a role.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have to be in the classroom 90 percent of the time or you don’t receive credit for the class. It’s not something where you can consistently miss school because they think, \u2018Well, I can just make that up on Saturday or I can just do this or that.\u2019 So we’re tracking that pretty closely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While attendance numbers are improving, district officials say they have also seen a slight increase in out-of-school suspensions.<\/p>\n
Kanipes attributes that increase to House Bill 6, a state law that gives schools more authority to remove disruptive students from campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ability for kids that were below grade three or kids that are designated as homeless, it was really tight in suspending students in that regard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kanipes said the district currently has 512 students identified as homeless and that disciplinary decisions are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cSignificantly disrupting the classroom or at risk of hurting other people in the classroom, so the district is allowed to suspend those students. So that\u2019s why we might see an increase in OSS for those below third grade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
CCISD board member Alice Upshaw Hawkins said she has personally seen the impact of the district\u2019s attendance efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to one principal and he said that they’ve finally been able to break 90 percent attendance and they were ecstatic about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, Hawkins said improving attendance also depends on support at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe parents who work two jobs, three jobs, sometimes. They leave early in the morning and sometimes they\u2019re not there to get the kids up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the 2021-22 school year, CCISD reported a chronic absence rate of 39%. The district\u2019s latest report shows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-180953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}