KC schools waiting to learn what the fake attendance data scandal will cost them
Missouri’s department of education had planned this week to announce how much Kansas City Public Schools owed the state for submitting inflated attendance numbers.
But on Friday, state officials said they are still waiting for data from the district before they can calculate that amount. It could be December before the state has any word on that figure.
“It is a very slow process,” said Kelly Wachel, district spokeswoman.
Wachel said the district had already submitted the numbers to the state but then learned the data needed to be uploaded to another student information system. It’s a process that districts are normally given 45 days complete. “We are trying to do it in a week,” Wachel said. “We want to side with accuracy rather than speed.”
The district announced this week that from 2013-16, employees falsified student attendance numbers in an effort to regain state accreditation.
Missouri districts are paid for every day that a child is in school. So KCPS received money for students marked present when actually they were not in school.
The district learned of the falsified attendance data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in January after a former employee reported it to the state.
Investigations found that seven employees were involved. Three no longer work for the district. The other four were being removed.
The misrepresentation happened during the tenure of former superintendent Steve Green and interim superintendent Al Tunis, before Mark Bedell became superintendent
Wachel said officials would not speculate about how much money the district might owe. “We really want to confirm it with the state before any number gets out there.”
