A small-group explanation needs the correct denominator
Lakeside Union School District’s 2025–26 accountability plan reports a 70.6% foster-youth chronic-absence rate and explains that high percentage partly through the small number of 11 foster students enrolled. The state dataset behind the cited 2024 Dashboard rate uses 17 eligible students, of whom 12 were chronically absent—not 11.
What’s the Scoop With Broach matched the district’s plan against the California Department of Education’s statewide chronic-absence files for both the 2024 and 2025 Dashboards. The match uses Lakeside Union’s Kern County district code 15635520000000, district-level records and the foster-youth student-group code FOS.
The result is not evidence that the 70.6% rate is wrong. Twelve divided by 17 equals 70.588%, rounding to the published 70.6%. The problem is that the plan’s separate enrollment count cannot serve as the denominator for that historical rate. A count taken at another point in time or using a different population may be accurate while answering a different question.
The dramatic rise was a historical comparison, and later data improved
The 2024 state record reports 12 chronically absent foster students among 17 eligible students, compared with five among 21 in its prior-year fields. Those fractions produce 70.6% and 23.8%, a reported rise of 46.8 percentage points. The district’s all-student rate moved in the opposite direction: from 35.7% to 28.8%.
The newer 2025 Dashboard file changes the picture. Its foster-youth record reports nine chronically absent students among 25 eligible students, or 36.0%, down 34.6 percentage points from 70.6%. Its all-student rate is 22.9%, based on 421 of 1,839 eligible students, compared with 503 of 1,749 in the preceding record.
The foster rate therefore improved substantially in the newer file while remaining above the districtwide rate. Neither year is a daily attendance reading for October 2026. CDE labels the 2024 file as school-year 2023–24 data and the 2025 file as 2024–25 data. Those periods must accompany the rates when describing current accountability needs.
| Dashboard / underlying school year | Foster students chronically absent / eligible | Foster rate | All-student rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 / 2022–23, prior fields of 2024 file | 5 / 21 | 23.8% | 35.7% |
| 2024 / 2023–24 | 12 / 17 | 70.6% | 28.8% |
| 2025 / 2024–25 | 9 / 25 | 36.0% | 22.9% |
The plan itself preserves older improvement language
The LCAP’s discussion of results acknowledges the foster-youth increase. Later explanations for after-school sports, band and choir, Camp KEEP and aquatics continue to describe an older foster-youth decline from 57.9% to 23.8%. The same document therefore uses different time windows in its result review and program rationale.
Historical improvement can be relevant context for a program. It does not establish that the program caused improvement, and it should not substitute for the newer outcome the plan already reports elsewhere. The plan also notes lower absence rates among students participating in sports and band, but those participants are a selected group; a comparison with the districtwide rate is not a randomized test of the programs.
The district documents participation and changes to its support activities, providing counterevidence to a claim that it overlooked attendance altogether. The accountability issue is clarity: a reader should be able to identify the year, student group and denominator for each result and distinguish program participation from evidence of a causal effect.
How we checked the figures and what they cannot establish
We downloaded both statewide tab-delimited CDE files, selected only the Kern district record and compared the FOS and ALL numerator, denominator, status and prior-year fields. We recalculated the fractions and percentage-point differences. We did not combine school-level and district-level counts or infer an individual child’s record.
The files flag the foster groups as small denominators. Changing from 21 to 17 to 25 eligible students changes the composition behind the rate, so this is not a fixed panel of the same children. Chronic absence identifies pupils absent for at least the indicator’s required share of enrolled days; the data do not identify why a child was absent or establish staff negligence.
CDE also warns that Dashboard and DataQuest results may differ. This report compares Dashboard data with an LCAP that expressly cites the Dashboard, keeping the measure consistent. The verified findings are the 17-student denominator behind 70.6%, the plan’s different count of 11 and the newer decline to 36.0%. The newer improvement is essential context, not a reason to erase the historical problem or the need for clear reporting.
Sources and further reading
Lakeside 2025–26 LCAP, pages 34, 47 and 61–64 ↗
CDE 2024 Dashboard chronic-absence dataset ↗
CDE 2025 Dashboard chronic-absence dataset ↗
CDE data-file dates and cautions ↗