{"id":481475,"date":"2026-10-30T15:02:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T15:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/481475\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T15:02:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T15:02:23","slug":"chronic-absenteeism-program-expands-in-south-oak-cliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/481475\/","title":{"rendered":"Chronic Absenteeism Program Expands in South Oak Cliff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kevin<\/p>\n

From left, Dallas Afterschool CEO Kevin Malonson, Communities Foundation of Texas Community Philanthropy Officer Candace Thompson and Dallas Mavericks Community Impact Manager Candace Sledge spoke at a For Oak Cliff event at the Dallas Zoo in recognition of World Chronic Absenteeism Awareness Day. [Photo: Dlores Media Group]<\/p>\n

Dallas ISD\u2019s Dr. Frederick Douglass Todd Sr. Middle School in South Oak Cliff earned an A+ for attendance gains during the 2025-26 academic year.<\/p>\n

In the current school year, the nonprofit program that helped Todd Middle School hit that mark expanded to two more DISD schools. That brings the number of DISD schools participating in the initiative to four.<\/p>\n

In 2025-26, the Dallas-based nonprofit For Oak Cliff piloted the program \u2014 which seeks to combat chronic absenteeism \u2014 at Todd Middle School and the Albert C. Black Jr. STEAM Academy. High absenteeism rates have plagued Todd and Black STEAM, which are feeder schools for South Oak Cliff High School, the nonprofit said.<\/p>\n

Todd recorded the largest year-over-year increase, 8.6%, in average daily attendance in 2025-26 among Dallas ISD\u2019s 228 campuses, For Oak Cliff said. In addition, Todd boosted its Texas Education Agency accountability rating from D to B. At Black STEAM, an elementary school, chronic absenteeism decreased by 9%.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit celebrated those milestones with Dallas ISD educators during the inaugural World Chronic Absenteeism Awareness Day event on Monday at the Dallas Zoo.<\/p>\n

The HIT initiative<\/p>\n

For Oak Cliff\u2019s Home Visits, Incentives and Training, or HIT, initiative combines educator training, targeted incentives and teachers\u2019 home visits with students and their families.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cChronic absenteeism is rarely about a student or family simply not valuing school. It is often a sign that there is a barrier we have to understand before we can help remove it,\u201d Shareefah Mason, director of cradle-to-career education at For Oak Cliff, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

HIT returned to Todd and Black STEAM for the 2026-27 academic year and expanded to two more schools in South Oak Cliff: John Lewis Social Justice Academy and Boude Storey Middle School.<\/p>\n

Building momentum<\/p>\n

As part of the HIT program, students received monthly, semester and annual awards for not missing school, the nonprofit said.<\/p>\n

The program\u2019s Go to School Dallas website<\/a> shows Black STEAM notched a 500% increase in perfect attendance for the fall 2025 semester, with 120 students not missing a single day. Todd Middle School also saw a surge in perfect attendance, going from fewer than five students to 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first year of HIT showed us what can happen when educators have the tools and support to build deeper relationships with families, recognize progress and respond to what students actually need,\u201d Mason said. \u201cAs we expand this work, we are building on what these educators learned and the trust they created with their school communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, For Oak Cliff received a $1 million grant<\/a> from the Communities Foundation of Texas to help lift middle-school attendance in South Oak Cliff.<\/p>\n

Apart from HIT, Dallas ISD board members in December approved spending up to $5 million on programs and tools for bringing chronically absent students back to school.<\/p>\n

Chronic absenteeism\u2019s impact on school funding<\/p>\n

Taylor Toynes, the CEO of For Oak Cliff, said in a video on the Go to School site that chronic absenteeism rates in Dallas ISD sit close to 50% at some campuses. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 10% of the days in a school year, or about 18 days.<\/p>\n

Public schools in Texas receive a big chunk of their funding based on average daily attendance. Xavier Henderson, For Oak Cliff\u2019s chief strategy officer, said in the Go to School Dallas video that absenteeism costs Dallas ISD an estimated $17.5 million per year. In the Oak Cliff area alone, the annual figure is estimated at $5 million.<\/p>\n

Losing that funding results in shortfalls in areas like curriculum, building improvements and classroom teaching, \u201cso that means we\u2019ve got to make sure we don\u2019t leave any dollars on the table,\u201d Henderson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to make sure we get all those resources for our kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\tR E A D\u00a0\u00a0 N E X T\t<\/p>\n

\t\"air<\/a><\/p>\n

TxDOT\u2019s Project Nexus aims to bring air taxi service to Dallas-Fort Worth and the rest of the Texas Triangle by 2029.<\/p>\n

\t\"Assorted<\/a><\/p>\n

Located at DFW\u2019s Terminal A, the Bonton Farms retail store will introduce travelers to the nonprofit\u2019s mission while selling local honey, handmade jams, goat milk soaps, grab-and-go food items, apparel and gifts. It is the organization\u2019s first location outside South Dallas.<\/p>\n

\t\"Mike<\/a><\/p>\n

The region\u2019s Q3 haul ranks as its fifth-best quarter since 2016, yet year-to-date funding of $1.73 billion still falls short of 2025\u2019s $1.9 billion pace.<\/p>\n

\t\"Minh<\/a><\/p>\n

The International Leadership of Texas Garland High School senior created a platform designed to prevent space-debris collisions. His venture-capital-backed startup hopes to commercialize its anticollision Arbiter technology.<\/p>\n

\t\"Dallas<\/a><\/p>\n

PwC and the Urban Land Institute\u2019s new Emerging Trends in Real Estate report ranks DFW No. 1 among U.S. markets to monitor in 2027. The report cites Y\u2019all Street\u2019s rise, growing office demand and gains in the industrial sector as drivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From left, Dallas Afterschool CEO Kevin Malonson, Communities Foundation of Texas Community Philanthropy Officer Candace Thompson and Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[21551,102,104,11521,103,30386,16506,841,36698,9244,1883],"class_list":["post-481475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-communities-foundation-of-texas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-isd","tag-dallas-news","tag-for-oak-cliff","tag-k-12","tag-nonprofits","tag-partnerships","tag-philanthropy","tag-southern-dallas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481475","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=481475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}