Addressing Chronic Absence Starts With Counting!!

Although chronic early absence can be a significant issue for entire school districts and particular elementary schools, it has largely been overlooked.  The United States does not have a mechanism in place to ensure that schools across the country monitor and report on levels of chronic early absence. Elementary schools often track average daily attendance or unexcused absences (truancy), but few monitor the combination of excused and unexcused absence for individual students.  As a result, many school districts do not know the extent to which chronic early absence is a problem in any or all of their schools.

High overall school-wide attendance rates can easily mask significant numbers of chronically absent students. Suppose, for example, an elementary school has 200 students and an average daily attendance rate of 95%. At this rate, 10 students are absent on any given day while 190 are present. The same 10 students, however, are not absent for all 180 days or they would be disenrolled. Rather, it is quite possible that the 10 students missing each day occurs because the school is serving 60 students who are taking turns being absent but when their absences are added together, miss a month or more of school over the course of the school year. In summary, even in a school with 95% daily attendance, 30% of the student population could be chronically absent.

Communities, families and schools need to know if such a high level of chronic  absence is occurring for two reasons.  First, large numbers of chronically absent students could indicate systemic problems that affect the quality of the educational experience  (e.g. high teacher turnover or the lack of an engaging curriculum,) and/or the healthy functioning of an entire community (e.g. unstable and unaffordable housing, high levels of community violence, inadequate access to health care or  environmental challenges causing chronic illness.).  In addition, when chronic absence levels are high, the educational experiences of children who attend school regularly can be diminished when teachers must divert their attention to meet the learning and social needs of children who miss substantial amounts of school.  

While teachers taking roll every day in classrooms and noticing when children are missing is important, it is only just a beginning. Over the long-term, we need data systems and practices that promote the following core elements:

a)      accurate collection and tracking of attendance data for each student

b)      monitoring and analysis of data on chronic absence for students, schools and high risk populations over time and beginning as early as possible in students’ educational careers

c)      the ability to share information about a child’s attendance record when s/he changes school

d)      timely reporting of data on chronic absences by grade, school and school district

e)      use of chronic absence to trigger intervention and support for students as well as action at the school level when levels are high

f)       inclusion of chronic absence data in the information schools must consider when developing their site based improvement plan 

g)    incentives and rewards for school and districts that  significantly improve attendance among chronically absent students

h)      the capacity to provide researchers and evaluators with access to student attendance information on an anonymous basis

Although many districts and states have yet to develop the capacity for tracking attendance and absences for individuals students, a growing interest and federal investment in longitudinal data systems with universal student identifiers creates an important and growing opportunity to develop an effective and comprehensive approach to collecting data and using it to inform practice.  In this case, taking action starts with counting!!!