How is attendance measured?

All attendance data is pulled from the meeting minutes posted on ousd.legistar.com.

First, the cumulative number of hours missed for each Director is calculated using the most conservative estimate possible within the coding system. This number should be understood to mean that the Director missed at least as much time as displayed. The estimate of total hours missed can be found by hovering over the attendance bar for each Director in the attendance bar graphs.

Board Director’s attendance for a given meeting is based on a cumulative number of minutes missed between missed sessions, late arrivals, mid-meeting absences, and early departures. For example, if a Director was 15 minutes late to the first roll call, 5 minutes late to the second roll call, and left the meeting 20 minutes prior to closing, that Director missed 40 minutes of the meeting. In cases where it is unclear how much time was missed based on the meeting minutes, GO staff rely on the rules and defined assumptions in the code book.

If the meeting minutes make a note excusing a Director’s absence at the beginning of the document (typically due to illness or serving in an official capacity at a conflicting event), the Director’s attendance will be coded as “N/A” and the Director will not be penalized.

Next, the total estimated hours present for a given year is found by subtracting estimated time missed from the total number of board meeting hours for that year. The total board meeting hours are collected from the minutes for each meeting from “Call to Order” to “Adjournment”. The estimated number of hours present is then given as a percentage of total Board meeting hours.