As businesses across the Portland Metro area closed in support of Thursday’s national Day Without Immigrants, school districts also reported dips in attendance.
Reynolds School District records show a little more than 18 percent of students were absent Thursday, a spike of 12 percentage points over the previous week.
The demonstrations were part of a larger national movement meant as a rebuke to proposals by President Donald Trump such as a crackdown on undocumented workers and plans to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
More than 97 percent of students at Reynolds High School showed up to class one week ago on Feb. 9. On Thursday, fewer than 88 percent of students were in class.
Attendance in the district’s middle schools averaged 90 percent on Feb. 9. One week later, average attendance at H.B. Lee, MLA, Reynolds and Walt Morey middle schools was closer to 80 percent.
Reynolds Middle School registered a 27 percent absentee rate Thursday, more than triple the previous week’s 8.7 percent.
Hillsboro School District spokeswoman Beth Glazer told The Oregonian/OregonLive that administrators were also “experiencing a high number of absences among our Latino students.”
“We were made aware of the movement and we communicated to our principals that it would be a possibility,” Grazer said in a voicemail.
Teachers at Hillsboro schools were instructed to count students’ absences as excused if a parent called in.
OPB reports that Witch Hazel Elementary, where 63 percent of the students are Latino, saw 174 absences among its 560 students. That’s more than 30 percent of the student body.
At Bridgeport Elementary in the Tigard-Tualatin School District, where approximately 47 percent of the student population is Latino, teachers were reporting classrooms half full. Forest Grove School District spokesman David Warner also said schools with predominantly Latino populations were experiencing high absentee rates.
Reynolds spokeswoman Andrea Watson said the district doesn’t record students’ immigration status.
OPB reports that Woodburn schools saw absentee rates topping 40 percent at middle and elementary schools. At the high school level, some classes were reporting more than 60 percent of their students absent.
–Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344
@edercampuzano
ecampuzano@oregonian.com
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