TAMPA — The Hillsborough County School District has seen more than 10,000 absences in the month of January, as the omicron variant makes its way through local schools. 

Now, Superintendent Addison Davis is asking the state to allow the district to forgo mandatory school grades and opt-in for the second year in a row. 

Davis and School Board Chair Nadia Combs submitted a letter to state eduction commissioner Richard Corcoran on Monday stating that because of poor attendance, students and teachers are struggling to prepare for upcoming state tests. Those tests help determine school grades. 

The letter outlines the district's struggles which include a high number of student and teacher absences because of the virus. The number of students who have missed more than 10 days of school this year is up more than 10% over last year. 

"It's really not a true reflection of our abilities and skill sets of our learners," Davis said. "At the same token, it can impact our teachers who are evaluated and compensated based on their evaluations." 

School officials hope students still take the Florida Standards Assessment as scheduled because the test results can help provide a roadmap for where improvement is needed. 

"We still get analytics for our schools and it really allows us to determine how we create master schedules, how we set up students for ongoing intervention and services, and will be able to determine if we've met our educational goals as a district and a school," Davis said. 

To date this year, the district has had nearly 24,000 COVID-19 cases in their schools when only 9,000 were reported last school year.