The state has issued a new directive to school officials in charge of tallying whether students are present in class: Count them present when they are on the bus traveling to or taking part in school sports competitions and other extracurricular activities.

For athletes at far-flung schools whose schedules can require two or even three hours on a school bus to get to league competitions, the new rule will ensure they aren’t marked absent for following the competition and travel schedule that coaches and league officials set for them.

And for a state with one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the nation, recording students who are on a bus, on the playing field or at a debate meet as if they were in class could translate to a better school attendance rate. Although Gov. Kate Brown has said battling chronic absenteeism is a priority, the share of Oregon students who miss a tenth or more of the school year has remained stubbornly high and, in the most recent year, got notably worse among high school students.

The new rules will also obscure just how much class time high school athletes are missing for meets and games.

Jennifer Patterson, the assistant superintendent at the Oregon Department of Education who communicated the change to school officials this month, said the switch was made after careful consideration.

“Students benefit tremendously from opportunities to engage in school-sponsored activities that expand learning and ignite passion,” Patterson wrote. “As we work to advance equity and close opportunity gaps, we must carefully consider the implications for Oregon’s students.”

She said the department consulted with school district officials and federal guidelines before ordering the change.

Current state guidelines indicate that students gone from class for extra-curricular activities should be marked absent, according to Carla Wade, the department’s interim director of data, operations and grants.

But the official written rule does not specify how to treat students’ absences for school-sponsored extracurricular activities, Wade said. So some school districts have long marked athletes present even when they’re away for games or meets.

Oregon high school students are required to be scheduled to receive 990 hours of instruction aligned to state academic standards each year. The new directive does not change that requirement, and traveling to and taking part in high school sports competitions is not considered instruction under that rule, Patterson wrote in her memo to school officials.

But the requirement is that students be offered that many hours of instruction, not that they be present to receive it. According to the most recent state figures, 29 percent of Oregon high school students, including 40 percent of seniors, miss more than 10 percent of the school year due to absences.

-- Betsy Hammond

betsyhammond@oregonian.com

@chalkup