BATON ROUGE - Student attendance fell dramatically following the federal immigration sweep that began in Baton Rouge earlier this month; however, many of those students are starting to return to class, according to The Advocate.

Attendance originally declined in public schools with large amounts of Hispanic students and students who aren't native English speakers. 

East Baton Rouge Parish is the second-largest traditional school district in the state and the largest in the capital region, teaching more than 38,000 students, with about 15% of those students being Hispanic. Along with having the highest percentage of Hispanic students, the region also has the highest percentage of students who aren't native English speakers at 10%.

The paper said that once word spread that immigration sweeps were coming to the area on Dec. 9, student attendance in the district went from 90.6% to 85.7% by Dec. 15. While attendance rose back to 90% the following day, it declined again two days later.

Superintendent LaMont Cole confirmed that the sweeps caused families to panic, opting to keep their children home rather than risk taking them to school.

Out of the district's 76 schools, 85% saw attendance declines. The declines were most apparent at 15 schools where about 25% of the students are Hispanic, with 8 of those schools considering 25% of their student population "English learners". Those 8 schools saw attendance dip by 14.3% according to the paper.

Audubon Baton Rouge saw only 56% of its students in classes on Dec. 12, a decline of 36 percentage points from three days prior. Broadmoor High had 223 students absent that same day.

However, after the initial panic waned, enrollment improved, with only 62% of district schools seeing decreased attendance. 

Four of the 15 most affected schools returned to regular attendance levels by Dec. 17.

Tara High made an impressive recovery after only 819 of its 1,053 students came to school on Dec. 12; more than 200 of those students began returning to class by Dec. 16. 

Superintendent LaMont Cole credited Principal John Hayman with persuading families to come back to school for the end of the semester.