Officials at Virginia’s Richmond Public Schools knew something had to change when nearly 40% of students were chronically absent in the wake of the pandemic, according to The 74.
Approaches to absenteeism in the 22,000-student district were failing, and administrators were forced to rethink how they could bring children back to school.
The job was assigned to Shadae Harris, the district’s chief engagement officer. Harris and other staff decided to prioritize family engagement instead of using punitive measures — such as referrals to the juvenile justice system — to increase attendance.
Students are considered chronically absent when they miss at least 10% of school, or roughly 18 days in most districts, according to Attendance Works, a national nonprofit.
Harris says the Richmond district discovered through research and discussions with families that parents were unaware of what chronic absenteeism was – and they didn’t think their children were skipping class as much as they actually were.
Harris helped launch several family engagement initiatives in the 2021-22 school year. The district created an attendance dashboard on its website, and teachers began to make home visits to families who had absent children. So far, the district has completed more than 40,000 home visits.
Through “that building of trust, that prioritizing of relationships, we were finding out what the root causes were,” Harris says. “There were issues around health, medical needs, transportation and housing
The district deployed school officials to work with parents distrustful of the school system, calling them family liaisons instead of attendance officers, which implied discipline instead of cooperation. Harris created a “We Love You Here” campaign to help families feel supported instead of judged for their children’s absences.
If the district did need to get law enforcement involved because a student’s attendance failed to improve, court hearings were held in one of Richmond’s middle schools instead of at the courthouse.
The most common reason for absences in the poll was physical illness, followed by medical or dental appointments, weather, family emergencies and vacation. When asked why they think students are chronically absent, nearly 30% of respondents said it’s because they don’t want to attend school. About 26% attributed absences to illness and 21% to parents who don’t care.
Harris says she feels family engagement was the biggest reason why Richmond Public Schools has improved its chronic absenteeism rate, which was at 25% during the 2022-23 school year and at the end of 2023-24 had dropped to 19%.
“If you prioritize your relationships with families and students, you’ll actually get the information you need to find out, like, what are the things that motivate them? What are the things that give them joy?” Harris says. “We just have to be quiet and listen to them and help shift some of the power to them. Because they’re the experts of their children.”
The 74
