Riverview Gardens district's attendance increased after 'clean up'

MOLINE ACRES, Mo. (AP) -- Records show an increase in the attendance rate that a suburban St. Louis district reported to the state after administrators told principals and secretaries to "clean up" the records.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that records it obtained show that the Riverview Gardens' overall attendance rate was 78.8 percent shortly after the school year ended in May. But it rose nearly 3 percentage points to 81.5 percent after the "clean up" effort.

Two school officials previously filed lawsuits, alleging that attendance records were falsified to improve the district's chances of regaining full accreditation. Besides playing a role in accreditation, attendance partly determine how much state money a district receives.

The district has said in a statement that it "strongly denies any allegations of wrongdoing."