D.C. schools are facing questions from federal prosecutors about something families should be able to take for granted: whether attendance records and graduation decisions can be trusted.

A special grand jury convened by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is examining the District’s oversight of young people, with school personnel being questioned about absences and graduation practices.

An investigation does not establish that anyone committed a crime. It does put the paperwork behind those diplomas under fresh scrutiny.

Friday’s reporting from 7News described preliminary 2025-26 figures showing 50.4% of D.C. high school students classified as chronically truant. The figure includes traditional public schools and public charter schools.

At Ballou High School, the reported rate was 84.4%; at Anacostia, it was 84.1%. Those percentages describe students crossing an absence threshold, not the share of school days they missed.

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The station’s sources said prosecutors contacted teachers and other school employees about truancy, graduation rates and attendance records. Some were connected to Ballou.

That raises a basic question for the adults running the system: when students repeatedly miss class, who follows up, and what happens before a student’s high-school diploma is awarded?

There is a reason to ask that question carefully. The District has already investigated improper graduation practices once, and its own findings were serious.

In a November 2018 review, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education summarized four findings from the earlier Alvarez & Marsal investigation. Credit recovery had been misused at most DCPS high schools, attendance-related grading rules were rarely followed, central-office support and oversight were inadequate, and most high schools had developed a culture of passing and graduating students who had failed to satisfy specific requirements.

The follow-up went beyond promises to improve. OSSE requested supporting documents for 218 students certified as 2018 graduates, a sample representing 10% of that graduating list. It deliberately included a higher proportion of students with extensive unexcused absences and students from comprehensive high schools.

That history explains why attendance records and graduation certifications deserve examination together. A graduation rate measures one outcome; it cannot, by itself, show whether the rules behind each diploma were followed.

Those were findings about earlier school years. They do not establish that the same misconduct occurred in 2025-26, or that any current employee is guilty of wrongdoing.

There is also a measurement issue: the Office of the State Superintendent of Education attendance page for 2024-25 defines chronic truancy as at least 10 full-day, unexcused absences in a school year. It defines chronic absenteeism separately: missing at least 10% of enrolled days, whether the absences are excused or unexcused.

Ten missed days and 10% of an enrolled school year are different thresholds, particularly for a student enrolled for only part of the year. The agency also describes a validation process involving three certifications by local education agencies before attendance data is finalized.

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By contrast, 7News described the preliminary 2025-26 truancy figures as using a 10% unexcused-absence threshold, based on information it attributed to OSSE. That definition needs clarification before drawing a firm year-to-year conclusion.

High absence rates also cannot be used to assume that particular graduates were ineligible for their diplomas. That takes student-level records, course requirements and evidence about how decisions were made.

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office told 7News its immediate focus was the new school year and that school data would remain public.

Publishing the numbers is useful. Families also deserve to know what schools do when a child stops showing up, what support reaches that child, and whether graduation requirements are enforced consistently.

The federal inquiry has not answered those questions yet. The records should.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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