Good evening,
This is Part 1 of The Reckoning, a three-part series examining KIPP Delta's attendance data. Tonight, we establish the baseline -- what the numbers say about who shows up, when they don't, and where the patterns concentrate.
The Picture
Through 102 school days, KIPP Delta's district-wide attendance rate is 94.9%. That number sits just below the 95% threshold most states use to define "good attendance" -- close enough to celebrate, far enough to question.
Four campuses, four different stories:
| School | YTD Rate | Enrollment | Chronically Absent |
|---|---|---|---|
| KBC | 96.9% | 114 | 11 (9.6%) |
| BCPS | 95.7% | 279 | 30 (10.8%) |
| DELA | 94.0% | 444 | 145 (32.7%) |
| DCHS | 93.8% | 246 | 66 (26.8%) |
KBC reports the highest attendance rate in the district. DELA, the largest campus, carries the heaviest chronic absence burden -- nearly one in three students below 90% attendance.
The Friday Tax
Every campus pays a Friday tax. Attendance drops every Friday without exception. KBC loses 3.4 points from its best day. DCHS and DELA each lose over 2 points. Across the district, that gap represents 15-20 student-days lost every week to a pattern no one has intervened on.
Where It Concentrates
District-wide, 252 students -- 23.3% of enrollment -- are chronically absent. But the burden is not evenly distributed. DELA's first graders have a 39.7% chronic absence rate. DCHS ninth graders are at 34.2%. These are not background statistics; they are grade-level emergencies.
View the full interactive report -- includes the full-year calendar heatmap, 12-year historical sparklines, the Friday Tax analysis, grade-level chronic absence forensics, and the year's anomaly timeline.
These are the numbers KIPP Delta reports. In Part 2, we ask whether they are real.