Natomas Unified - EdTribune CA - California Education Data

Twin Rivers' Own Schools Still Have 30.4% Chronic Absenteeism

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT

The first number on Twin Rivers Unified^↗ was too broad.

On the authorizer-total line in California's chronic absenteeism data, Twin Rivers shows 24,528 chronically absent students out of 49,331 eligible students, or 49.7%. But that line blends the district's own schools with authorized charter schools. On the district-operated line, which excludes those authorized charters, Twin Rivers had 7,308 chronically absent students out of 24,033 eligible students in 2024-25. That is 30.4%.

The correction changes the story. Twin Rivers is not a district where half of the students in its own schools were chronically absent in 2024-25. It is a district where nearly one in three students in district-operated schools were chronically absent, still enough to rank seventh among California's 59 districts with at least 20,000 district-operated eligible students.

A crisis, not the old headline

The 30.4% rate is lower than the charter-blended figure, and lower than Twin Rivers' 2021-22 district-operated peak of 48.6%. It is also still 13.2 points higher than the district's 17.2% rate in 2018-19 and 10.9 points above the 2024-25 statewide district-operated rate of 19.5%.

The district-operated trend shows the pandemic spike and the incomplete recovery clearly: 17.2% in 2018-19, 48.6% in 2021-22, 35.8% in 2022-23, 31.7% in 2023-24, and 30.4% in 2024-25. The latest year was an improvement from the peak, but not a return to the pre-pandemic baseline.

That makes the frame narrower and more precise. The district's own schools are not at majority chronic absenteeism. They are still serving more than 7,300 chronically absent students in a single year.

The charter blend

California's absence files include both district-operated and authorizer-total views. In Twin Rivers, the distinction is unusually large. The 2024-25 authorizer-total line counts 49,331 eligible students and 24,528 chronically absent students. The district-operated line counts 24,033 eligible students and 7,308 chronically absent students. The authorized-charter line counts 25,421 eligible students and 17,284 chronically absent students, a 68.0% rate.

That is why the earlier 49.7% headline was not a clean measure of attendance in Twin Rivers' own schools. The district-operated number is the better basis for comparing the schools directly run by Twin Rivers to other districts' own schools.

Who is missing school

Chronic absenteeism means a student was absent for at least 10% of the days they were expected to attend, according to the California Department of Education's chronic absenteeism definition. On that measure, several Twin Rivers student groups remain far above the statewide overall rate.

Black students in Twin Rivers district-operated schools had a 44.4% chronic absenteeism rate in 2024-25. Students experiencing homelessness were at 39.4%. Students with disabilities were at 38.4%. Economically disadvantaged students were at 31.4%, Hispanic students at 31.0%, white students at 27.2%, English learners at 23.1%, and Asian students at 17.6%.

Those numbers do not support the old claim that every subgroup was above 20%. Asian students were below that threshold. But the subgroup table still shows a broad attendance problem, with the highest rates concentrated among Black students, students experiencing homelessness, and students with disabilities.

Still high in Sacramento County

Twin Rivers is not alone in Sacramento County, but it remains high on the district-operated basis.

Sacramento City Unified^↗ was at 25.2% in 2024-25. San Juan Unified^↗ was at 23.9%. Robla Elementary^↗ was at 23.8%. Natomas Unified^↗ was at 22.2%. Elk Grove Unified^↗ was at 19.8%. Folsom-Cordova Unified^↗ was at 12.1%.

Twin Rivers' 30.4% rate was 18.3 points higher than Folsom-Cordova's rate and 5.2 points higher than Sacramento City's rate. Among Sacramento County districts in the file, only Sacramento County Office of Education posted a higher district-operated rate, at 40.1%, on a much smaller 1,279-student eligible enrollment.

What the numbers can and cannot say

The data establish the size, trend, subgroup pattern, and peer ranking of the attendance problem. They do not explain the cause by themselves.

Suggestive context: California funds school districts in part through average daily attendance, so student absences can affect district revenue; the Legislative Analyst's Office describes attendance as part of California's school funding system in its school finance overview. That does not prove a fiscal mechanism inside Twin Rivers, but it explains why chronic absenteeism can matter beyond the academic disruption.

Unresourced: This article does not attribute Twin Rivers' attendance levels to a specific district policy, transportation pattern, housing condition, or intervention strategy. Those claims would require evidence outside the state absence file.

The defensible conclusion is simpler: when authorized charter schools are excluded, Twin Rivers' own schools are not at 49.7% chronic absenteeism. They are at 30.4%, still one of the highest large-district rates in California and still far above the district's pre-pandemic level.

Data source

Analysis based on chronic absenteeism data from the California Department of Education DataQuest downloadable files, school years 2016-17 through 2024-25.

# See: content/ca/2026-07-06-ca-twin-rivers-crisis-analysis.R

Where Black Students Graduate at Higher Rates Than White Peers: 47 California Districts Flip the Script

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

The default narrative about graduation rates goes like this: white students graduate at higher rates than Black students. In California, the statewide data confirms this -- 89.0% for white students, 82.6% for Black students, a gap of 6.4 percentage points.

But the statewide average obscures what happens at the district level. In 47 California districts where at least 30 Black students and 30 white students were in the 2025 cohort, Black students graduated at equal or higher rates than white students.

The reversals are not marginal. In Vallejo City Unified^↗, Black students graduate at 83.2% while white students graduate at 60.0% -- a 23.2-point Black advantage. In Pittsburg Unified^↗, the advantage is 14.9 points (87.4% vs. 72.5%). In ABC Unified^↗, it is 12.7 points (95.8% vs. 83.1%).

The Numbers Behind the Reversals

These are not statistical flukes driven by tiny cohorts. Vallejo has 161 Black students and 50 white students in its cohort. Pittsburg has 190 Black students and 73 white students. Victor Valley Union High has 360 Black students and 449 white students -- large enough samples to resist random variation.

The geography is diverse. Vallejo and Pittsburg are in the East Bay. ABC Unified is in Southeast Los Angeles County. Stockton Unified^↗ is in the Central Valley. Natomas Unified^↗ is in Sacramento County. Victor Valley Union High is in the high desert of San Bernardino County.

The common thread is not geography but demographics. Many of these districts have majority-minority student populations where Black students are a substantial share of enrollment, not a small minority. In Vallejo, Black students make up roughly 20% of the cohort. In Pittsburg, about 26%.

What the Statewide Gap Hides

The statewide white-Black gap of 6.4 points has been shrinking rapidly -- from 15.6 points in 2018. But even that dramatic improvement understates what is happening at the local level, because the statewide gap is driven heavily by a few large districts and by County Offices of Education where all students struggle.

In the 47 reversal districts, the forces that typically suppress Black graduation rates -- poverty, housing instability, school discipline disparities, fewer AP course offerings -- have been overcome by something. The data cannot say what. It might be community investment, school leadership, targeted intervention programs, or the composition of the white student population in those districts.

The Vallejo Case

Vallejo City Unified is the most extreme reversal and worth examining. The district as a whole graduates at 79.5% -- well below the state average. Both Black and white students in Vallejo underperform their statewide subgroup averages. But Black students at 83.2% are 20 points closer to the state Black average (82.6%) than white students at 60.0% are to the state white average (89.0%).

Vallejo's white student population is small (50 in the cohort) and may include a disproportionate share of students with risk factors that depress graduation rates. The Black advantage in Vallejo may say as much about white student struggles as about Black student success. But the pattern -- Black students graduating at 83.2% in a high-poverty city -- is real.

Against the Grain

The existence of 47 reversal districts does not erase the statewide gap. It does, however, challenge the assumption that racial graduation gaps are immutable or universal. In nearly one in nine California districts with meaningful data for both groups, the expected hierarchy is reversed.

As the statewide gap continues to narrow -- 15.6 points in 2018, 6.4 in 2025 -- the number of reversal districts is likely to grow. The question is whether these reversals represent a leading edge of structural change or a collection of local anomalies that happen to cluster in the same direction.

The data suggests the former. Forty-seven is too many to be coincidence.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.