Episode 104: Confronting the Silent Epidemic of Student Chronic Absenteeism

Could the key to unlocking a child's full academic potential lie in simply showing up? Join me as I unravel the complex tapestry of chronic absenteeism that's gripping K-12 education, with an eye-opening focus on its escalation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. This isn't just a matter of empty desks; it's a stark reflection of systemic inequities, where poverty and race mark the fault lines of educational opportunities. Together, we'll pore over unsettling statistics and trends that highlight a particularly worrisome peak in high school absenteeism, dissect the multitude of reasons students are missing out on critical learning time, and scrutinize the nuances between full and half-day absences.

The ripple effects of a child's absence from school are profound, extending beyond individual academic fallout to strain entire school districts financially and hinder academic recovery at large. In my enlightening conversation, you'll discover how a 2021 study sheds light on the pivotal role of parental involvement, revealing the jarring disconnect between the severity of absenteeism and the concern levels of parents. I'll also explore the arsenal of strategies—from mentoring programs to family engagement initiatives—being deployed to address this pressing issue. As I consider chronic absenteeism through the lens of equity, I'm here to guide you through the urgent, collective effort needed to bridge the attendance gap and ensure that every student has a fighting chance at success.

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Chapters

• 0:54 Chronic Absenteeism in Education
• 14:36 Addressing Chronic Absenteeism in Education

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:55

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Education Untangled.

Speaker 1: 1:00

My name is Dr Kim J Fields, former corporate manager turned education researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African-American mom raising my two kids, who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. Support my children in their educational progress. This podcast is at the intersection between education, research and parental actions. If you're looking to find out more about the current trends, issues and themes in education that could affect you or your children, and you want to know the specific actions you can take to support and advocate for your children, and you want to know the specific actions you can take to support and advocate for your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 education topics is important to you, so keep listening.

Speaker 1: 2:26

On this episode, I'll be discussing why chronic absenteeism is an education crisis and what can be done to improve school attendance. Surprisingly, millions more children are regularly absent from school in the years after COVID than the years before, with widespread chronic absenteeism especially in 70% of the highest poverty schools, as compared to 25% pre-COVID. Why is chronic absenteeism such an issue and why is it worthy of discussion? I explore the answer to these questions in this episode. Let's untangle this. When a student misses school for 18 days or more in a given academic year due to any excused or unexcused reason, this is referred to as chronic absenteeism. Absenteeism has a negative and significant relationship with students' academic achievement. It may be hard to believe, but in the United States, chronic absenteeism is a serious problem that exists in K-12 education. While many parents believe that chronic absenteeism is billed as leading to students dropping out of high school, this may not be much of a threat for parents of K-5 students, because many of these parents assume that their children will graduate from high school, despite the fact that research indicates that failure in the early grades virtually ensures failure in later schooling. The US Department of Education has identified absenteeism as a hidden education crisis, with more than 16% of students across the United States chronically absent in the 2015-2016 school year. In 2019, about one out of every six students missed three school weeks or more each year, and more than one in four students nationwide were chronically absent, meaning they missed at 10% of school days during the 2021, 2022, and 2022-2023 school years. This trend indicates that more and more students are becoming chronically absent.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Chronic absenteeism is not an isolated issue. In the 2015-2016 school year, about 800 districts across the United States reported that 30% of their students were absent for more than three weeks. These absences seem to be most relevant in the first years of formal schooling, which includes pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, and they also occur in high school and kindergarten, and they also occur in high school. Absenteeism tends to disproportionately affect students from low-income families. Chronic absenteeism is lowest in grades 3 and 4 and begins to steadily increase in middle and high school grades, peaking in grade 12. National estimates suggest that nearly 1 in 10 kindergarten students misses a month of school every year. Additionally, students of color exhibit higher chronic absenteeism rates than white students. Nationally, english language learner students exhibit slightly lower chronic absenteeism rates at 14% than non-English speaking students at 16%. Also, high school chronic absence rates, using daily attendance as a measurement are higher among Black students, at 22%, and Latino students, at 20%, than students overall, at 18%, than students overall, at 18%. While it's important to acknowledge the research that has documented patterns in chronic absenteeism rates according to these characteristics, it's equally important to acknowledge that these factors don't cause chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is associated with a variety of adverse student academic outcomes, including lower math and reading achievement, lower education engagement and lower social engagement. It's also associated with lower reading scores, and students who aren't reading efficiently by grade three are four times more likely to drop out.

Speaker 1: 7:16

The pattern of chronic absenteeism usually starts early in the school year. For example, a student who is absent for several days in September is more likely to be chronically absent for the year. The negative outcomes associated with absenteeism also start in the early years of schooling, as early as first grade, and student attendance is an indicator of the likelihood of graduating. Several studies have examined the reasons for students being chronically absent from school. In pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, students tend to be absent because of illness or because they face challenges in getting to school. Providing a service to students in early grades has been promising as one way to reduce absences. Students in early grades whose families lack access to health care also have higher absenteeism rates, and this affects racial or ethnic minority students disproportionately. In this case, it seems that absenteeism and socioeconomic status are correlated. Additionally, parent and guardian beliefs about the value of school during the early years also plays a role in how frequently students are absent. The reasons for absenteeism tend to differ in higher grades. When students make the transition to high school, they are responsible for their attendance and therefore may be more likely to skip school.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Much of the research looks at chronic absenteeism from a full-day absence perspective and doesn't include part-day absenteeism. Part-day absenteeism in middle and high school students is responsible for as many classes missed as full-day absenteeism. Both full and part-day absenteeism increases at the point of transition from middle school to high school. However, full-day absenteeism is highest in grade 12 and declines in the early high school years, whereas part-day absenteeism remains high in grades 10 and 11 and increases again in grade 12. 92% of part-day absences are unexcused, whereas 55% of full-day absences are unexcused. Students tend to miss the first class of the day more than any other. The reasons for this may be due to fatigue, illness or logistical issues with transportation. Part-day absence varies between class subjects, whether the class is a core academic subject and whether the student finds the course content interesting. As many as 48% of students were chronically absent in grade 12 when part-day absences were taken into account.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Class period plays an important role in absences. The absence rate by period is a U-shaped graph, with the greatest percentage of absences in the first period, lower rates of absence in classes in the middle of the day and a higher percentage of absences by the seventh period. Also, students tend to have higher rates of absence from math classes than from other core subjects, with the exception of foreign language, and have the lowest rates of absence from social studies courses. Chronic absenteeism not only affects older students, but significantly impacts younger students.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Chronic absenteeism in preschool affects kindergarten readiness outcomes as well as later learning in the early elementary years. According to recent reports, more than one third of preschoolers are chronically absent, especially in large urban cities. A key factor in the relationship between absences and outcomes is that children who missed more school and who also had lower scores on certain testing standards were also students who enter school with the lowest skills and who end up even further behind at the end of the year. These skills focus specifically on math, letter recognition and social-emotional development. Students who are chronically absent in both preschool and kindergarten, but not chronically absent after that, still have reading fluency scores that indicated that they were at risk for needing reading intervention.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Most school districts don't have the data systems in place to track chronically absent students, although some districts are starting to track chronic absenteeism for preschool through high school. School. Districts in California, for example, were required to track and report chronic absenteeism for the first time in the 2014-2015 school year. Chronic absenteeism in the early elementary grades is associated with lower performance on standardized tests of not only the absent students but also their classroom peers. Students, but also their classroom peers.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Absenteeism rates in the bottom 10% of schools before the pandemic have become the new normal for all schools in 32 states. The fact is that out of 39 states that collect absenteeism data, 30 states now have average chronic absenteeism rates that are significantly worse than those in their lowest 10 percent of schools for school attendance rates in the 2017-2018 school year. What the data from the American Enterprise Institute's Return to Learn tracker indicate is that high chronic absenteeism appears to be the new normal in schools, especially in New Mexico, alaska, montana and Michigan. None of those 39 states are back to pre-pandemic levels of attendance. According to a study by Stanford University, chronic absenteeism spiked 91% from 2018 to 2019 and from 2020 to 2022 school years, representing 6.5 million more students in 2021-2022 who missed 10% or more of school days. States just don't seem to be making significant progress in bringing absenteeism back to pre-COVID levels.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Educators and policymakers need to prioritize attendance to make any of the other academic recovery interventions effective. Make any of the other academic recovery interventions effective. Chronic absenteeism is the source of financial strain for school districts and school administrators. The equation is simple Lower attendance translates to less funding from the state. State and school districts are investing thousands of dollars in efforts to find chronically absent students or to hire companies to do the work for them, which creates another cost. But beyond the financial impacts, students who are chronically absent tend to struggle academically, which means schools need more resources to serve them. These issues are compounded by a downward trend in enrollment due to lower birth rates, as well as growing interest in private and homeschool options, which I addressed in Episode 89. This means that districts are experiencing a double hit when they do their attendance projections, because they have to project for fewer students and higher absences from the students that do come to school.

Speaker 1: 15:53

A 2021 study evaluated the effects of parental participation types in absenteeism of K-12 students in the United States. Of K-12 students in the United States, the study sought to explore how school and parents' characteristics, as well as parental involvement activities, influenced K-12 students' absenteeism. It's obvious Students need to be present in school in order to pursue academic success. Due to the severity of the chronic absenteeism issue, it's been called a public health issue and a hidden educational crisis. Because of chronic absenteeism, third graders can fail to master reading, sixth graders can fail subjects and ninth graders end up dropping out of high school. High rates of absenteeism and its consequences can even be seen in pre-kindergarten.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Several studies, including this one in 2021, searched for factors that contributed to the reduction of absenteeism. It was found that low parent-school involvement was a significant factor in school absenteeism. Also was found that low parent-school involvement was a significant factor in school absenteeism. Also, a poor parent-teacher relationship is another significant factor in relation to chronic absenteeism at school. Additionally, parental education, ethnicity and poverty were important factors for K-12 students' absenteeism. Students whose parents did not attend school events or did not participate in fundraising had higher odds of absenteeism compared with students whose parents participated in such activities.

Speaker 1: 17:40

When a large number of students miss school regularly. It affects learning for everyone, including the children who show up every day. That's why this issue is relevant for you and your children. A majority of parents and caregivers of students with chronic absenteeism aren't concerned about their children missing school days, according to a research study conducted this year. The researchers surveyed parents and caregivers in roughly 2,500 households between December 2023 and February 2024 to ask them about their children's absences. 5% of the respondents said that their children met the requirements for chronic absenteeism. Yet fewer than half of those respondents actually 47% said they were concerned about their child's absences. The major reason for the absences, according to the survey, were that the children overslept or had trouble getting out of bed in the morning, followed by illness and anxiety about peers, tests or just general anxiety. Interestingly, 32% of overall respondents said they weren't concerned about absences because quote everything their child needs to know is available online. End quote. And for those respondents whose children missed six or more school days, 33% believed that it was okay for their child to work from home if they preferred.

Speaker 1: 19:21

Education advocates suggest that schools take a multi-pronged approach to the absenteeism problem. That includes effective communication with families, like text messages that update parents on how many school days the child has missed. To district-wide campaigns about how attendance contributes to a child's well-being. Even to tailored strategies like home visits. So what are some of the interventions that have taken place to reduce chronic absenteeism? Several states have implemented strategies to reduce chronic absenteeism. These strategies are built on a three-tiered response to intervention model. Tier 1 represents universal strategies, including effective communication with parents. Tier 2 provides targeted strategies, such as student mentoring programs that are personalized to individual students. And Tier 3 involves intensive strategies for the most chronically absent students. This tiered approach tends to be more costly because it involves social workers and the legal system, especially Tier 3. A strategy utilizing multiple tiers simultaneously has also proven effective. For example, contacting parents by email or text messaging encouraging their children to attend school, along with student mentoring programs, have been successful in some schools.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Policymakers and educators can't truly understand achievement gaps or any efforts to close them without considering chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is an equity issue and is particularly prevalent among students who are low-income, students of color, students with disabilities, students who are highly mobile and or juvenile justice-involved students, juvenile justice-involved students. These are the students who already face significant challenges and for whom school is particularly beneficial, with the understanding that this is a national critical issue. What are some of the absenteeism reduction initiatives that have been implemented? Absenteeism reduction strategies should involve a combination of monitoring, prevention and intervention strategies. One of the main strategies for reducing absenteeism is to create a positive school environment and build rapport with students, so that the students can come to know that the school staff really cares about them and how they're doing. Another strategy that seems to be effective in monitoring attendance is running regular absence reports and then following up with discussions with both student and the parent. Other strategies for mitigating chronic absenteeism include developing accountability systems. Giving students consequences like detention for absenteeism, with the school administrator checking on the students and the students knowing that someone will be checking on them. Educating students and parents Attendance policies need to be clearly communicated to both students and parents. This can help reduce unexcused absences and implementing community mentoring. A mentoring program can connect volunteers with students who have excessive absences to help find out reasons for the student's absenteeism and to enlist the resources needed to stay in school. An example of this would be my Brother's Keeper Success Mentor Initiative, which is a partnership between the US Department of Education and key institutions to match school-linked mentors with students who have records of chronic absenteeism.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Attendance in kindergarten and elementary school grades K-5 robustly predicts student outcomes. Chronic absenteeism in kindergarten is associated with lower academic performance in the first grade, and this holds true for students who arrived in kindergarten that were academically ready to learn but then were chronically absent. And yet there are low-cost, parent-focused interventions that can help reinforce the importance of regular K-5 attendance. Students with better attendance records tend to score better on standardized tests and are less likely to be held back in any given grade. A 2018 study indicated that poor elementary school attendance negatively affects student outcomes, irrespective of income, ethnicity and gender. Now this finding contradicts other findings of previous studies, so the results come across as mixed, especially regarding the income, socioeconomic status and ethnicity as correlating variables. At the school level, schools with higher rates of chronically absent students tend to have greater achievement gaps.

Speaker 1: 24:56

Parents and guardians tend to be the ones that exert more control over the factors that affect attendance, especially in the early grades. It's parents who have influence over the school routines that affect attendance, including transportation to and from school, communicating with the central office in the school district and planning vacations. Routines that affect attendance, including transportation to and from school. Communicating with the central office in the school district and planning vacations. Research suggests parental beliefs about the value of daily attendance in kindergarten and elementary grades may be a barrier to mobilizing parents to improve their children's attendance. Parental beliefs could be shifted if school communications emphasized that students in kindergarten and the early grades actually do experience rigorous, standards-based schooling that forms the foundation for future learning.

Speaker 1: 25:45

An interesting intervention that was undertaken to reduce absenteeism in kindergarten and early elementary grades examined whether parental myths or beliefs of undervaluing the importance of regular K-5 attendance, as well as the number of school days, which were typically underestimated, that their child missed. The intervention consisted of delivering personalized information to parents of medium and high-absent students through a series of postal mail-based communications. These mailers would one, emphasize the value of regular school attendance in the early grades and, two, accurately report how many days the child was actually absent and how that had an impact on student absences overall. An insert was also added to the mailings that encouraged parents to reach out to others that they could enlist to help improve their child's attendance. This intervention resulted in students attending more days of school over the course of the year. Resulted in students attending more days of school over the course of the year and consequently, the mailings decreased chronic absenteeism by 15%. The intervention was successful because it impacted parental beliefs about the value of attending school consistently in early grades, highlighting lost learning time consistently in early grades. Highlighting lost learning time may be more effective in motivating parental involvement in grades K-5 than the risk of dropout in middle and high school.

Speaker 1: 27:28

So how does what I've just discussed apply to you? Here are the action steps you can take regarding this topic. Even though chronic absenteeism may not apply to you specifically, the impacts of academic achievement on students who are not chronically absent is notable, since their test scores drop in relation to having peers who are chronically absent. Since attendance records also feed into state funding for schools, it's important to understand how students who are chronically absent can affect funding for the schools your children attend. The main action for you is to ensure that your children attend school on a consistent basis. There is a direct correlation between academic achievement and consistent attendance in school. An absence every now and then is acceptable. However, chronic absenteeism occurs when a student misses more than 10 percent of the school days in any given year, whether those absences are excused or unexcused. Here are this episode's takeaways.

Speaker 1: 28:46

The impact of chronic absenteeism in the United States is an issue that can lead to poor academic achievement, increased dropout rates and school-to-prison pipeline. Students with low attendance miss important learning and developmental opportunities and these can lead to negative outcomes, not only in the early elementary schools, but can extend through middle school and high school. Elementary schools, but can extend through middle school and high school. A 2019 study that examined the relationship between social and emotional skills and chronic absenteeism found that in 15-year-old students, those who self-reported higher levels of cooperation, emotional control or energy were less likely to display chronic absenteeism, compared to students who self-reported higher levels of assertiveness and self-control, who were more likely to display chronic absenteeism. Low-cost interventions may be helpful in reducing chronic absenteeism. One intervention consisted of delivering personalized information to parents of medium and high-absence students through a series of postal mail-based communications. These mailers emphasized the value of regular school attendance in early grades and accurately reported how many days the child was absent and how that absence impacted student absences. Overall, the intervention resulted in students attending more days of school over the course of the year and consequently, the mailings decreased chronic absenteeism by 15%. The intervention was considered successful because it impacted parental beliefs about the value of attending school consistently in the early grades.

Speaker 1: 30:52

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