House Bill 1110 directs the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to create the Student Attendance Early Intervention Pilot Program, a two-year pilot designed to test a data-driven attendance intervention system in selected public schools to reduce chronic absenteeism. The bill finds that chronic absenteeism is a major problem in North Carolina and ties improved attendance to better academic outcomes, lower remediation costs, and higher graduation rates. The pilot would begin in the 2026-2027 fiscal year and end in the 2027-2028 fiscal year.
The Department would select one public school unit and its schools to participate, with participation capped at 15,000 students total. Selection criteria include high absenteeism rates, demographic diversity, technical readiness, and staffing capacity. The Department would also select a vendor to provide a unified attendance platform with real-time monitoring, early warning indicators, automated two-way family communication, multilingual support, MTSS-aligned intervention workflows, dashboards, documentation tools, and privacy safeguards. The participating schools would need to designate a local coordinator, integrate the system with a single student information system, and train staff on the new tools and intervention strategies.
The bill appropriates $75,000 in nonrecurring General Fund money to DPI for implementation, with funds available through June 30, 2028. The money may be used for technology licensing, implementation and integration, training, and program administration and evaluation. The bill also allows the Department and the participating school unit to supplement state funds with federal or philanthropic support. It requires school-level and unit-level reporting, and directs DPI to report to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee by February 1, 2028 on absenteeism reductions, student engagement, operational efficiencies, and recommendations for statewide expansion or long-term funding.
The overall sentiment reflected in the bill text is supportive and problem-solving, emphasizing early intervention, accountability, and measurable outcomes rather than broad regulatory change. There is no recorded committee transcript or vote history in the provided materials, so no direct evidence of opposition or debate is available. The bill appears to be framed as a limited pilot intended to test effectiveness before any larger statewide rollout.
The main points of potential contention are likely to be implementation details rather than the goal of reducing absenteeism: the use of a private vendor, data privacy and student information system integration, the sufficiency of the $75,000 appropriation, and whether a single-unit pilot can produce representative results. The bill also leaves open questions about future statewide expansion, long-term funding, and how much local capacity schools must have to participate successfully.
HB1110 would add a new pilot program under the authority of the Department of Public Instruction and create a temporary state-funded initiative focused on attendance intervention in public schools. It does not broadly rewrite attendance law, but it would require selected schools to adopt specific technology, reporting, family-engagement, and intervention practices tied to chronic absenteeism. The bill also creates a new appropriation from the General Fund and establishes reporting obligations to legislative oversight committees, with potential implications for future statewide policy if the pilot is expanded.
The bill’s tone and stated findings are strongly favorable toward data-driven attendance interventions and early support for at-risk students. Because no committee transcript or vote record was provided, there is no direct evidence of partisan or stakeholder opposition in the available materials. Based on the text alone, the measure appears to have been advanced as a targeted, evidence-based pilot with an emphasis on measurable results and operational efficiency.
Likely areas of contention include whether a single-school-unit pilot is large enough to justify policy conclusions, whether the $75,000 appropriation is adequate for technology acquisition, integration, and training, and whether the state should rely on a vendor-led platform for student attendance intervention. Privacy, data-sharing, and interoperability with student information systems may also raise concerns. If debated, these issues would most likely involve DPI, local school units, vendors, and legislators concerned about cost, procurement, and scalability.