Schools ramp up battle against chronic absenteeism

Schools are stepping up efforts to combat chronic absenteeism, a major factor in plummeting test scores and other problems educators have faced with students since the pandemic. 

Chronic absenteeism — commonly defined as missing more than 10 percent of school days — has affected millions of students and caught the attention of the White House, which has said the issue calls for an “all-hands-an-deck approach.”

There are numerous reasons students are missing school, including socioemotional troubles, illness and poor academic performance itself — and administrators are tackling the problem in a variety of ways, too.

Kim Dadisman, associate director of policy at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology group focused on reducing poverty, said one strategy getting deployed is focusing on parental engagement in attendance. Such engagement correlates with lower absenteeism.

“In the Peter Bergman study, he was working with a district in West Virginia. And over the course of the study, the districts sent over 32,000 text messages for a total cost of about $63,” Dadisman said. “So you’re seeing a reduction in course failures by about 30 percent and attendance going up by 15 percent for an overall cost of $63 to the district.” 

“So these are really cost-effective strategies for helping parents understand where their children are and then ultimately the idea, of course, is that when parents have real-time information and accurate information, then they do something different with their kids at home,” Dadisman said. 

Students staying out of the classroom for so long is fueling a cycle of falling academic performance. Since the pandemic, children have seen decades of learning loss.

The White House released data that “observed association between absenteeism and test scores is large enough to account for 16-27 percent of the overall test score declines in math, and 36-45 percent of the declines in reading.” 

“Ultimately, whether chronic absenteeism is a symptom or a cause — or both — of ongoing academic disruption, the evidence is clear that the road to recovery runs through the classroom,” the White House said.

Teaching Matters, a nonprofit that partners with schools with disadvantaged students, has been on the front lines of creating plans to combat chronic absenteeism. One of its approaches includes incorporating “attendance teams” at schools who work with setting up a system so parents are informed if their students aren’t in school by a certain time. The teams also create “homeroom challenges” and other initiatives to incentivize students to come to school. 

Then, once the data is analyzed, they will focus on specific students and how to support them in their efforts to make it to school.  

“It’s sort of like a road map, but after setting up the systems and structures, it’s about implementing different tiers of attendance before like the big goal,” said Manny Algarin, senior education consultant at Teaching Matters. “I mean, our goal in schools is always kids coming to school on time.”  

In 2019, before schools shut down due to COVID-19, chronic absenteeism was measured nationwide at 15 percent. It soared to 29 percent in 2022, according to the Return 2 Learn Tracker from the American Enterprise Institute. 

Locations with the highest rates of chronic absenteeism are in districts that have low-achieving schools, areas with high poverty rates and districts with a high minority population.

Low-achieving schools saw a 17 percentage point jump in chronic absenteeism from 2018 to 2022, and high poverty schools had a 16 percentage point increase in that time, according to the tracker.

More holistic plans to address it have been seen in schools that partner with City Year, a nonprofit that works with district leaders to provide them with better resources. 

In New York City, the group has implemented “student success coaches.” 

“The research says that when students and kids are connected to at least one caring adult, they’re likely to thrive socially, emotionally, as well as academically. So that’s our No. 1 priority as it relates to chronic absenteeism,” said Quamid Francis, senior vice president and executive director for City Year New York.

Francis said getting families involved in the process is “profoundly impactful,” while “tutoring interventions” help increase student confidence to be in the classroom. 

“When we work with organizations like counseling schools with whom we subcontract, our students are provided with a full suite of services to ensure that they can focus on coming to school and feeling a sense of support and keep coming to school because they know that support will always be there,” Francis said.

—Updated at 3:57 p.m.