Committee advances package updating online instruction, pupil accounting and attendance rules

The finance committee of the Utah State Board of Education voted to forward a set of rules aimed at simplifying online-education requirements and standardizing how schools report attendance and truancy.

Ben Rasmusson, director of law and professional practices, told the committee that staff recommended “a substantial rewrite of this rule” (R277-726) to remove wording already in statute and make the regulation more succinct. Committee members asked whether suggested edits from local business administrators and a bill sponsor had been reflected; Rasmusson said staff had addressed many comments but would revisit a single remaining phrasing question if the sponsor responded before full board consideration.

Deputy Superintendent Ely Newi and Director Aaron Bruff led discussion of related attendance and data rules. Newi emphasized that membership for funding (ADM) is different from daily classroom attendance: “We use average daily membership and membership is counted by the students who are enrolled,” Newi said, explaining the state’s rationale for clarifying definitions used in R277-419 (pupil accounting) and R277-607 (absenteeism and truancy prevention).

The package includes these key technical points: the online-education rule was pared back where statute already governs; pupil accounting clarifies which programs are counted for membership versus learner-validated programs; data standards (R277-484) were aligned so LEA submissions match definitions in the attendance rules; and R277-607 proposes a 50% threshold for counting a full day present or absent for state submissions and formalizes a local timeline for converting unexcused absences into truancies.

Staff noted implementation limits: classroom-level codes (for teacher-facing records such as "barely there" or tardy) can remain as granular as LEAs want, but when districts submit state data they must translate those codes into the state’s simpler present/absent/truent buckets. On disciplinary reporting, staff told the committee that LEAs should record a truancy discipline incident in Utrex only after a student accumulates 20 truancies (a ‘‘habitual truancy’’ threshold used for incident reporting), not every class-period unexcused absence.

Committee members raised concerns about fairness and operational impact, especially for students whose parents fail to excuse absences. Director Bruff and attendance staff said the rules preserve LEA discretion and local processes, including the ability to set how many days a parent has to excuse an absence before it converts to an unexcused truancy.

Motions to advance R277-726, R277-419, R277-607 and R277-484 on first reading were made and passed unanimously in committee; staff will present final-reading materials to the full board for possible adoption.

The committee asked staff to provide graphics and examples for LEAs to show how day-level and period-level attendance are calculated and to return with materials explaining implementation implications for SIS coding and parent-facing dashboards.

The committee adjourned after approving the rule package for board consideration.