absent

Oregon directs schools to mark students ‘present’ whenever they’re absent for school sports

The state has issued a new directive to school officials in charge of tallying whether students are present in class: Count them present when they are on the bus traveling to or taking part in school sports competitions and other extracurricular activities.

For athletes at far-flung schools whose schedules can require two or even three hours on a school bus to get to league competitions, the new rule will ensure they aren’t marked absent for following the competition and travel schedule that coaches and league officials set for them.

Oregon's chronic absenteeism problem grows worse, imperiling students' futures

Oregon's chronic absenteeism rate, found to be one of the worst in the nation, got even worse last school year, new state figures show. More than 108,000 students missed so much school it put them at risk of failing to learn to read well and made them unlikely to earn a diploma.

And for a state with one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the nation, recording students who are on a bus, on the playing field or at a debate meet as if they were in class could translate to a better school attendance rate. Although Gov. Kate Brown has said battling chronic absenteeism is a priority, the share of Oregon students who miss a tenth or more of the school year has remained stubbornly high and, in the most recent year, got notably worse among high school students.

The new rules will also obscure just how much class time high school athletes are missing for meets and games.

Oregon's chronic student absence problem has gotten worse, new data show

Oregon's epidemic of chronic absenteeism grew even worse last school year, especially among high school students, calling into question whether graduation rates will rise significantly in the next few years, new figures show.

Jennifer Patterson, the assistant superintendent at the Oregon Department of Education who communicated the change to school officials this month, said the switch was made after careful consideration.

“Students benefit tremendously from opportunities to engage in school-sponsored activities that expand learning and ignite passion,” Patterson wrote. “As we work to advance equity and close opportunity gaps, we must carefully consider the implications for Oregon’s students.”

She said the department consulted with school district officials and federal guidelines before ordering the change.

Current state guidelines indicate that students gone from class for extra-curricular activities should be marked absent, according to Carla Wade, the department’s interim director of data, operations and grants.

But the official written rule does not specify how to treat students’ absences for school-sponsored extracurricular activities, Wade said. So some school districts have long marked athletes present even when they’re away for games or meets.

Oregon high school students are required to be scheduled to receive 990 hours of instruction aligned to state academic standards each year. The new directive does not change that requirement, and traveling to and taking part in high school sports competitions is not considered instruction under that rule, Patterson wrote in her memo to school officials.

But the requirement is that students be offered that many hours of instruction, not that they be present to receive it. According to the most recent state figures, 29 percent of Oregon high school students, including 40 percent of seniors, miss more than 10 percent of the school year due to absences.

-- Betsy Hammond

betsyhammond@oregonian.com

@chalkup

Jesus and Stones absent from Manchester City training

Gabriel Jesus and John Stones missed the open section of Manchester City's Tuesday training session ahead of the Premier League side's trip to Schalke in the Champions League.

Striker Jesus and centre-back Stones played the entirety of Saturday's 4-1 win at Newport County in the FA Cup but are reportedly suffering from hamstring and groin complaints respectively.

Stones featured in every match as City topped their group, with Jesus netting a hat-trick in the 6-0 win over Shakhtar Donetsk.

There was better news for Pep Guardiola ahead of Wednesday's match in Gelsenkirchen as club captain Vincent Kompany and left-back Benjamin Mendy trained for the second successive day following their latest spells on the sidelines.

Kompany has not featured since his troublesome calves flared up again during last month's 2-1 win over Liverpool, while Mendy suffered swelling following his return from knee surgery against Burton Albion in the semi-finals of the EFL Cup.

City face Chelsea in the final of the latter competition at Wembley on Sunday.

Kaepernick’s camp could have leaked plenty of information, absent a settlement

Many have criticized Colin Kaepernick for settling his collusion grievance against the NFL because the settlement keeps the details of the case from entering the public domain. Some have responded to this argument by pointing out that, because Kaepernick opted to pursue an arbitration and not a lawsuit, the details wouldn’t have entered the public domain, because the case would have unfolded privately.

That’s technically accurate, but it doesn’t mean the details never would have surfaced. As noted by Peter King in his Football Morning in America column, the outcome of the arbitration could have been challenged in federal court. Although such efforts as a practical matter usually fail, success would come from attaching as exhibits to the court papers items like the full transcript of the formal arbitration hearing.

Even without such proceedings, however, testimony, text messages, emails, etc. easily could have been released by Kaepernick or his lawyers after the case had ended. Despite the existence of a gag order that kept the parties from discussing the case while it was pending, arbitrator Stephen Burbank would have had no ability to sanction Kaepernick’s lawyers or otherwise limit their ability to send items to media members on the arbitration ended, even without a challenge in federal court.

Keeping those materials secret is a big part of what the NFL paid for. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a smoking gun was lurking in the evidence. But there surely were potentially embarrassing snippets of testimony or text messages or emails or other documents that the NFL would have preferred to keep out of public view; indeed, it was the NFL not Kaepernick that insisted on full and complete secrecy while the proceedings were pending.

By settling the case and securing a commitment that none of the information developed during the litigation would ever be published, the NFL keeps everything under wraps, including but not limited to whatever text message or emails or other documents prompted Kaepernick’s lawyers to attempt to question the Commissioner’s wife.