--- title: "Burbio School Tracker 2/4: Regional Differences" description: This week we look at differences in school board meeting topics across separate regions, examine use of DEI terminology by districts in light of recent Trump administration initiatives, and look at the shifting ethnic makeup of the largest US school districts. More below: image: https://about.burbio.com/hubfs/Keywords%20-%20Chronic%20Absenteeism%202025%20School%20Boards.png --- [![burbio logo png-2](https://about.burbio.com/hubfs/burbio%20logo%20png-2.png)](https://about.burbio.com/) - [Features](https://about.burbio.com/school-calendar-insights) ### [Curriculum Tracker](https://about.burbio.com/curriculum-trackerv2) ### [Construction Tracker](https://about.burbio.com/construction-tracker) ### [Calendar Insights](https://about.burbio.com/school-calendar-insights) - [Burbio School Tracker](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates) - Company ### [In the News](https://about.burbio.com/press) ### [Research](https://about.burbio.com/research) ### [Contact Us](https://calendly.com/dennisroche/burbio-meeting-with-dennis-roche?month=2026-08) [NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP](https://about.burbio.com/#sign-up) [GET A DEMO](https://calendly.com/dennisroche/burbio-meeting-with-dennis-roche?month=2025-12) School Grants # Burbio School Tracker 2/4: Regional Differences This week we look at differences in school board meeting topics across separate regions, examine use of DEI terminology by districts in light of recent Trump administration initiatives, and look at the shifting ethnic makeup of the largest US school districts. More below: [Dennis Roche](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/author/dennis-roche) Feb 4, 2025 --- **1.** Burbio's [School Board Meeting Tracker](https://about.burbio.com/school-board-meeting-tracker) covers school board meetings representing over 60% of the PreK-12 school population. This week we explore how district discussions (over the 12 month period ending September 2024) differ across geographies. In the charts below there are five geographies featured: California, Florida, and Texas, plus a bundling of New England states (CT, MA, VT, NH, RI, ME), and southern states (AL, MS, NC, TN, SC). Districts surveyed cover well over half the K-12 population in each geography, with the exception of New England, where the reporting covers just under half. The charts below represent the percentage of districts that mentioned the terms at least once during the period.   Our first reference is chronic absenteeism, discussed at a much higher frequency in California and New England: ![Keywords - Chronic Absenteeism 2025 School Boards](https://about.burbio.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Keywords%20-%20Chronic%20Absenteeism%202025%20School%20Boards.png?width=780&height=430&name=Keywords%20-%20Chronic%20Absenteeism%202025%20School%20Boards.png) The difference in mental health is less pronounced among regions, with it being a regular feature of Florida school board meeting discussions: ![Mental Health Keywords Board Docs 2025-1](https://about.burbio.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Mental%20Health%20Keywords%20Board%20Docs%202025-1.png?width=780&height=430&name=Mental%20Health%20Keywords%20Board%20Docs%202025-1.png) There continues to be a regional difference in the frequency with which SEL and related terms appear: ![SEL Board Docs 2025 by State](https://about.burbio.com/hs-fs/hubfs/SEL%20Board%20Docs%202025%20by%20State.png?width=780&height=430&name=SEL%20Board%20Docs%202025%20by%20State.png) Clients use school board meeting minutes in addition to Burbio's other PreK-12 spending and strategy datasets (state grants, bonds, checkbook registers, and more) to understand district objectives and use that information to proactively engage with districts before they begin an RFP process.   **2.** With the recent [U.S. Department of Education](https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-takes-action-eliminate-dei) initiative targeting DEI programs at the Federal level, we wanted to take a look at the use of the terminology across PreK-12 Education. The terms DEI, equity, diversity, and inclusion are widely used and appear in job titles, district mission statements, academic courses, district and community-led committees, statements by community leaders and school board members, and more.    The following chart shows the percent of school board meetings that reference each term at least once during the quarter identified: ![DEI in School Board References-1](https://about.burbio.com/hs-fs/hubfs/DEI%20in%20School%20Board%20References-1.png?width=841&height=502&name=DEI%20in%20School%20Board%20References-1.png) In Q3, which covers July through September, districts tend to have slightly less board meetings due to summer break, and that explains the lower numbers during that period.  Districts also reference these terms in strategic plans. Burbio's database consists of over 3,000 strategic plans and LCAPs covering over 70% of PreK-12 students. We included just references to "equity" and "diversity" below, as we found that the term "inclusion" was too-often appearing in an administrative sense in strategic plans (unlike board meetings, where "inclusion" was almost universally used in an educational context). Our first chart shows references in strategic plans since 2020 to the terms DEI, equity, and diversity, outside of California, which is listed further below:![Strat Plans Equity Diversity Only-2](https://about.burbio.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Strat%20Plans%20Equity%20Diversity%20Only-2.png?width=741&height=459&name=Strat%20Plans%20Equity%20Diversity%20Only-2.png) California districts have a unique, highly detailed reporting requirement called "Local Control and Accountability Plans" (LCAPs), issued annually, that run over 100 pages and include spending and policy details for the upcoming year. These include more frequent references to all terminology relative to plans in other states so we break them out. The term equity is used almost universally in LCAPs, appearing as many as 40 to 50 times in some documents:  ![LCAPs Diversity Equity Only-1](https://about.burbio.com/hs-fs/hubfs/LCAPs%20Diversity%20Equity%20Only-1.png?width=729&height=450&name=LCAPs%20Diversity%20Equity%20Only-1.png) **3.**  In late December NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) published their enrollments for the 2023-24 school year. This week we look at the shift in the ethnic makeup of the 20 largest school districts versus 2019-20, the year before Covid-related school disruptions.  The first column indicates the total change in enrollment, and the next four the relative change for the respective ethnic group versus the comparison period.   - In 18 of the 20 districts, the Hispanic population change is a higher figure - meaning enrollment either slowed less, or grew faster - than the change since 2019-20. - Conversely, in 17 of the 20 districts, the percentage of Blacks dropped faster - or increased more slowly - than the overall change. - In 15 of the 20 districts the percentage of White students dropped faster, or increased more slowly, than the change since 2019-20. ![Enrollment Changes by Ethnicity Feb 4 2025 Tracker-1](https://about.burbio.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Enrollment%20Changes%20by%20Ethnicity%20Feb%204%202025%20Tracker-1.png?width=469&height=467&name=Enrollment%20Changes%20by%20Ethnicity%20Feb%204%202025%20Tracker-1.png)   [School Grants](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/tag/school-grants) [School Board Meetings](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/tag/school-board-meetings) [School Bonds](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/tag/school-bonds) [K-12 Spending](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/tag/k-12-spending) [School Enrollment](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/tag/school-enrollment) [Strategic Plans](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/tag/strategic-plans) [Federal](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/tag/federal) ## Similar posts School Grants ### [Burbio School Tracker  7/9:      Charting Expenditure Trends](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/burbio-school-tracker-7/9-charting-expenditure-trends) This week we look at trends in school board meeting discussions in AI, a visualization of school budgets from "ESSER-heavy" districts across the... Dennis Roche Jul 9, 2024 School Grants ### [Burbio School Tracker 2/20: Momentum](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/burbio-school-tracker-2/20-momentum) This week we look at recent trends in school board meeting discussions over the last nine months, examine ESSER III spending by district size, and... Dennis Roche Feb 21, 2024 School Grants ### [Week of 3/21: K-12 Enrollment Trends](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/week-of-3/21-k-12-enrollment-trends) Over ninety percent of the Top 500 school districts are now mask-optional. This week we look at K-12 public school enrollments for 2021/22 versus... Dennis Roche Mar 20, 2022 ## [Sign up](https://about.burbio.com/#sign-up) for Burbio School Tracker emails!     [![Asset 1@3x](https://about.burbio.com/hubfs/Asset%201@3x.png)](https://about.burbio.com/old-homepage) ### Company - [Home](https://about.burbio.com/old-homepage) - [School Tracker](https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates) - [Press](https://about.burbio.com/press) - [Research](https://about.burbio.com/research) - [Terms of Service](https://about.burbio.com/terms-of-service) © 2025 Burbio, Inc. [Powered by Atlas - a B2B SaaS HubSpot theme](https://www.kalungi.com/atlas-hubspot-theme-for-b2b-saas-software) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Dennis Roche", "url" : "https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/author/dennis-roche" }, "dateModified" : "2025-06-12T15:56:48.880Z", "datePublished" : "2025-02-04T14:00:00.000Z", "headline" : "Burbio School Tracker 2/4: Regional Differences", "image" : [ "https://about.burbio.com/hubfs/Keywords%20-%20Chronic%20Absenteeism%202025%20School%20Boards.png" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://about.burbio.com/weekly-updates/burbio-school-tracker-2/3-material-impact", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://about.burbio.com/hubfs/burbio-tm.svg" }, "name" : "Burbio" } } ```