One in four district leaders recently surveyed say chronic absenteeism is so bad that none of their strategies are working, according to The 74. Some attribute the problem to increased parental apathy about the importance of school say since the pandemic.
Most districts use early warning systems to identify students who miss too much school to prevent chronic absenteeism, according to the report by the Rand Corp. Home visits, calling families when students are out and hiring staff to specifically address attendance are other strategies.
No method was considered the most effective, according to district leaders surveyed.
Such efforts meet with pushback from parents. Letters sent home nudging students to attend school are “too harsh,” say some parents.
“Parents’ overall feelings about the importance of school have changed,” says Jessica Hull, executive director of communication and community engagement for the Roseville City School District, outside Sacramento.
Some students with family members outside of the U.S. can miss weeks of school at a time. Others frequently miss Fridays and Mondays. And some older children are tasked with caring for younger siblings.
The Rand report comes at a time when 14 states have committed to cutting chronic absenteeism in half over five years. Chronic absenteeism peaked at 28% nationally in the 2021-22 school year. The Rand survey of nearly 200 district leaders estimates that rates dropped to about 19% last school year, but that’s still above the pre-COVID level of 15%.
Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, says states are “uniquely positioned to alert everyone to the size of this challenge.”
But the Rand report suggests district leaders want more local action occurring more quickly. “The leaders we interviewed were frustrated because there are chronically absent students for whom their interventions aren’t working,” says Lydia Rainey, a researcher with the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which collaborated with Rand on the survey. “Some of the leaders had ideas for new programs to try; others were at a loss for what to do next. No one talked about giving up.”
Researchers urge districts to emphasize stronger relationships between students and staff. Parents need to understand how poor attendance impacts their children’s academic performance, researchers say, and districts should collect better evidence on methods that make students want to come to school.
School leaders sometimes modify district-level practices to keep connections with parents positive. In central Wyoming’s Fremont County district, home-to-school liaisons call families when students miss too much school. Katie Law, principal of Arapahoe Charter High School in the district, changed the title for these liaisons to student advocate “so families see that it is an attempt to help.”
Food is another incentive. Once a month, the school holds a community day, including a giant potluck. One week, students and staff made pancakes and volunteered at the local food bank. “Kids start to feel that somebody’s depending on them the way they depend on other people,” Law says. That experience teaches accountability.
The “next phase” is ensuring families see an academic payoff, says Liz Cohen, policy director at FutureEd, a research center at Georgetown University.
“Do students, especially high school students, feel that going to school has value? Is it a good use of their time?” she asks. “We have to start tackling the tricky and sticky questions of what happens within the school day, academically, that makes it worth it for students to stay in those buildings.”
Rhode Island posts data showing how chronic absenteeism affects the percentage of students meeting math and reading expectations. The state also operates a Student Attendance Leaderboard that is updated every night and gives the public a real-time picture of absenteeism rates.
This year’s data is promising, with the rate declining from almost 29% in 2022-23 to less than 25%.
Connecticut publishes monthly reports on chronic absenteeism at the district and school level and has seen a decline from 20% in 2022-23 to 17.7%.
But few states offer timely, localized data. Most don’t release statewide figures until October or later.
“This should be unacceptable,” Cohen says, “given the agreement on how urgent this problem is.”
The 74
