Back to School

As we all know too well, the pandemic intensified many of our society’s problems, bringing the greatest hardships to those who were already struggling. One of those problems is chronic absence from school, which has nearly doubled across all student populations—but is especially concerning among the students who are most reliant on school for meeting their academic, social, emotional, and nutritional needs.

To learn how to address chronic absence, we spoke with four leaders who are dedicated to resolving the barriers to attendance and offering opportunities that draw students to school: Zeph Capo, the president of Texas AFT and an AFT vice president; Hedy N. Chang, the founder and executive director of Attendance Works; Denise Forte, the president and chief executive officer of EdTrust; and Nat Malkus, a senior fellow and the deputy director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

–EDITORS

EDITORS: What is chronic absence and why are you so concerned about it?

HEDY N. CHANG: Chronic absence is typically defined as missing 10 percent or more of school for any reason—including excused and unexcused absences and suspensions. When a teacher or counselor notices a student missing a couple of days one month, then four days the next, it’s an early warning sign that something is amiss. Unless the school finds out what’s going on and offers support, that student is at risk for not reading on grade level in elementary school,¹ falling further behind in middle school,² and dropping out of high school.³ Beyond academics, chronic absence affects kids’ social-emotional growth⁴ and thus their ability to develop soft skills that matter in the workplace.⁵

When a large percentage of the student body is chronically absent, it’s not just the absent students who are affected; teachers have a harder time setting classroom norms, and the students who are present also struggle to learn.⁶ At high levels, chronic absence also increases teacher dissatisfaction.⁷

The good news is that even though our country is divided on many issues, I think we share the belief that all kids should have opportunities to learn and thrive, and that being in school is critical to the health and well-being of our country.

DENISE FORTE: Critically, if our students are not in school, they won’t be able to access the teaching and learning that was interrupted by the pandemic. As Hedy said, this is the time, right now, to understand what is going on in young people’s lives and in the classroom so that we can start to address what students need in school and fill the gaps in their learning. That’s why I’m so pleased that leaders from 14 states and counting have signed on to the challenge EdTrust, Attendance Works, and Nat Malkus issued to reduce chronic absence by 50 percent in five years.⁸ It’s a sign not only that this is a widespread problem, but that there’s deep commitment among education leaders to address it.

ZEPH CAPO: I agree. If students aren’t in class, my 65,000 Texas AFT members can’t teach them. In addition to the impacts already described, chronic absence affects school funding and teachers’ jobs.

In Texas, our school funding system is tied to attendance. Budgets are set based on a particular day in the fall; when students are missing, it has a tremendous impact that snowballs across the school ecosphere. Making matters worse, the funding priority is test prep, so there is no additional money to have a truancy officer or social worker to bring kids back to school. On top of that, we have a draconian accountability system that will penalize teachers, and in some cases terminate them, based on test scores. The rate of absenteeism is tied to learning loss, of course, and when teachers are working with kids who have been chronically absent grade after grade, it has a detrimental impact that puts teachers’ jobs at risk.

NAT MALKUS: I echo what everyone has said, and I want to emphasize that chronic absence makes teachers’ jobs harder. When I was a teacher, it was tough enough to differentiate instruction to meet students’ different abilities. When many different kids are missing different days, it’s even more challenging to meet their individual needs. Meanwhile, the kids who are in class are less “in the groove”—that is, they experience less of the stable routines that make day-to-day classroom instruction and experiences go smoothly.

HEDY: Some data show that if kids are in a classroom where a lot of their peers are chronically absent, they are more likely to be chronically absent also.⁹ In addition, when you have a lot of absenteeism, relationship building—which is essential for every aspect of teaching and learning—becomes much more difficult.

DENISE: That’s so important: even the kids who come to school are missing out on being with their peers and building relationships.

ZEPH: Not to mention the additional toll that is directly put on teachers. Managing makeup work, reteaching, resetting classroom expectations, reinputting grades, and other administrative work caused by chronic absence—this doesn’t get talked about often. It takes time that otherwise would be devoted to deepening and extending instruction, such as science projects and civics debates, if everyone were in the classroom.

HEDY: That’s one way that absenteeism contributes to teacher dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, research also shows that teachers tend to underestimate the abilities of chronically absent kids.¹⁰ It makes sense; it’s hard to know what these students are capable of, and even harder to differentiate instruction.

EDITORS: We know that all types of students are chronically absent, but are there groups you’re especially worried about?

DENISE: We’re particularly worried about those same students who were most impacted by the pandemic: students of color and students from low-income communities who had their lives totally disrupted due to health or employment issues or housing and food insecurity. Chronic absence is a universal issue, but it lands heaviest on students of color and students from low-income communities.

HEDY: That matches the data, as the chart above on chronic absence by student group shows. The only group I’d add is students with disabilities. In addition, data consistently show that the highest rates of chronic absence are found in the schools serving higher proportions of students experiencing poverty.

ZEPH: Anecdotally, this matches what we see in Texas in districts that predominantly serve students of color or students from lower socioeconomic communities. In addition, the high rate of students with disabilities being absent resonates with me. Talking with parents, I’ve learned that many aren’t sure if it’s safe for their medically fragile kids to return. They’re right—Texas didn’t keep students safe during the pandemic, especially medically fragile students. Now, it’s taking longer than we hoped to assure those families that they can come back.

NAT: I think we have to hold two ideas in our head at the same time. Before and after the pandemic, disadvantaged students have had higher rates of chronic absence. But it’s also important to recognize that during the pandemic, chronic absence nearly doubled for almost every student group.¹¹ It’s still affecting disadvantaged students more, but it’s a problem for almost every school, almost every district, almost every kind of student.

I gathered data from the majority of the country’s schools on how long districts engaged in remote learning during the pandemic. Although the districts that were remote for the longest had a slightly higher rise in chronic absence, that was not the driving factor.¹² So while school closures were an obvious point of tension during the pandemic, there was plenty of tension in schools that were open as they dealt with quarantines, social distancing, and disagreements over masking.

For good reason, lots of messages were sent during the pandemic about being careful about returning to school. But more recently, we haven’t had equally powerful messages conveying, “Now it’s time to get back to normal routines of attendance.” If we’re going to get closer to regular attendance for the vast majority of students, we need to push hard to get those messages out.

EDITORS: How can schools reengage students?

HEDY: If we really want to improve attendance, we have to understand what’s causing kids to not show up. As summarized in the figure below, kids face many different challenges. Barriers like lack of access to healthcare or transportation, housing insecurity, and community violence are most prevalent among low-income families. Issues of aversion—including anxiety and bullying—affect students across the board. Disengagement is also a problem for all groups of students, as too many kids feel bored and don’t see the relevance of school. And finally, there are lots of misconceptions, so families don’t realize how harmful being absent is.

The Ad Council surveyed 5,000 families to explore how messaging about attendance should change.¹³ Before the pandemic, focusing on the academic impact of chronic absence was motivating. Now, families are more motivated by hearing about the whole child. Families recognize that peer connections, hands-on learning, and social-emotional development are what make school important. Families have seen what their kids missed during the pandemic in terms of learning how to socialize, solve conflicts peacefully, and learn from others.

DENISE: I agree with Hedy on the message; we do have a united cause here that it matters for children to be in school—for their sake academically and socially, and for our nation to be more competitive. Along with messaging, we have to make sure kids are engaged so they want to be in school. We need to invest in school-based and afterschool programs that integrate social-emotional learning to help kids feel more connected to school, including the arts, career and technical education (CTE), and dual enrollment.

ZEPH: Absolutely. Many students come to school for the extracurriculars and the relationships they build. Growing CTE programs and offering a diverse array of enriching afterschool programs are tremendously important not only for absenteeism but for students’ individual growth.

The emphasis on college for all over the past couple of decades has been detrimental. While every kid should have the opportunity to attend college, we need quality alternatives to a four-year college degree that lead to fulfilling and well-paying jobs.

When I served as an elected community college trustee, I focused on systemic shifts toward flexible pathways in which young people could access education as needed—such as going into an apprenticeship right out of high school to become an electrician and going to college years later to earn a degree in electrical engineering. We need to let kids know that it’s OK to take different paths, earning certificates and degrees as needed over many years to pursue their interests and build a career.

One area that I wish we emphasized more in the United States is apprenticeships. During a study trip to Germany with a group of AFT leaders, I saw firsthand several longstanding, robust apprenticeship programs. Students in Germany have paid positions with employers and continue taking courses directly related to their work experiences. Just as important, there were many different apprenticeship opportunities, so students were pursuing their interests. Currently, opportunities in the United States pale in comparison. We could do a lot better, particularly if we focused on fields with critical shortages of workers.

NAT: We often talk about how chronic absence is related to test scores, but it’s also related to things that are harder to measure, like the soft skills that students learn in school and use in the world of work. We don’t serve students well if we let them pass through school in ways that suggest irregular attendance is going to work in the labor market. Apprenticeships usually have regimented training to learn skills for a particular job, and part of that regimen is showing that consistent attendance is necessary for not only learning the content but also executing the job. Soft skills like showing up every day are huge parts of life; they make schools work—and they make life after school work.

DENISE: We have heard that from our business partners: soft skills, including social and emotional skills, are in demand. We should value them as much as academics.

ZEPH: Imagine having interest in a career at 15 or 16 and being offered an opportunity to work with an experienced adult who has mastered the relevant skills. You get to see what that job really is and learn the culture of the workplace. You’re in a different environment—not surrounded by other teens—and can observe behaviors in the workplace. You see how the professionals communicate with each other and resolve their issues.

Building relationships with adults in the workplace impacts not only students’ knowledge and skills but also their cultural norms for interacting in different places. Apprenticeships show youth that what has come to be tolerated behavior for a host of reasons at school often is not acceptable in the workplace. Opportunities to experience that shift from the sheltered school environment to a more rigid one, whether through apprenticeships or some other means, are important to help students start their work life off on the right foot.

DENISE: In addition to apprenticeships, we need to make dual enrollment and advanced coursework available to all students. These programs and courses are about young people seeing themselves in engaging curricula, realizing that they can handle college-level work, and seizing opportunities to earn college credits for free. When we present kids with more opportunities and more variety, they become more engaged.

ZEPH: Yes, dual credit is really important—but funding is needed. As a community college trustee, I saw dual enrollment students lose the opportunity to be in the college environment because of funding issues. Dual credit classes have been offered in high schools, which is better than not offering them, but high school students need to take classes on a college campus for the full growth experience. Again, it’s about observing people, developing new relationships, and learning a new culture—all things that really engage students in learning.

EDITORS: Given the many reasons why students are absent, how can all of their needs be met?

HEDY: Schools need to form strategic alliances to share the work of getting kids back in the classroom. Asking the business community to offer higher-quality apprenticeships is a place to start, but what else can they do? What can local nonprofits do? We need to examine how we partner to address attendance barriers such as healthcare, transportation, and unsafe paths to school.

Community schools make a difference.¹⁴ When you have community partners and give them access to relevant data, they can take on these barriers and offer kids mentors and encouragement.

We have 150 years of a system in which we have assumed that kids miss school because they or their families don’t care. We have assumed that if we could just threaten them enough, they would realize the importance of school and show up. But the vast majority of kids aren’t missing school because they don’t care or don’t want to be there. They’re missing school because of a wide array of reasons and barriers. Some reasons are internal: they’re being bullied or aren’t getting the support they need to understand the curriculum. Some are external: they need healthcare and stable housing.

The key to improving attendance is not blaming or punitive responses but instead partnering with students and families to find out why students are missing school so that we can devise reasonable and effective solutions. I hope that we’ll start seeing absenteeism as a sign that we need to develop relationships and deepen engagement to understand why, and then use our understanding to forge the partnerships we need to make our schools places where kids can be and want to be. And if lots of kids are frequently missing school, that means we have systemic barriers that require programmatic and policy solutions.

ZEPH: That sings straight to my heart. This is a hugely systemic issue. I don’t think that there’s ever enough attention paid to how the decisions we make in one area directly impact other areas. Looking at the aversion column of the figure above reminds me that we don’t have anywhere near enough social workers, counselors, psychologists, or healthcare professionals.¹⁵ We’re so far off the recommended ratios that it’s embarrassing, frankly, and detrimental to kids and families.¹⁶

In Houston, where I used to be the local union president, the district required that teachers call home for every student who missed three days—but it didn’t have a system for follow-up. That type of problem spurred our community schools work in Houston, in which we found community partners to provide wraparound services. We became determined to not only make the phone calls but provide the help that families needed: making sure kids got healthcare, focusing on bullying, working on other causes of absenteeism. We were making progress—one school that embraced this approach was removed from the “failing” list—but then the state took over the district, stripped away the wraparound services, and reinstated test-prep drills.

HEDY: The emphasis on test scores can be detrimental. A study with elementary school teachers,¹⁷ and another with ninth-grade teachers,¹⁸ found it’s usually different teachers who increase test scores or who increase attendance. So you can get an increase in test scores, but the cost may be losing students before graduation.

ZEPH: That tracks with what we see and feel on the ground. Unfortunately, the more I see destructive policymaking like what’s being imposed in Houston, the more I believe it’s being driven by people who want to privatize education. Public education is one of the largest repositories of funds left in the United States that have not yet been financialized and corporatized. By having vouchers* instead of public schools, those funds will be accessible to people who want to make money on the backs of our children.

NAT: All of the obstacles to attendance that Hedy shared with us are relevant, but it still begs the question: Why did we see increases in absenteeism everywhere? Why did we see it in low-achieving and high-achieving districts? Why did we see it in state after state? I don’t think it was because the causes of absenteeism are all different now than they were before the pandemic. Rather, I think absenteeism intensified because the permission structure got looser during the pandemic and left students and parents thinking it was more OK to miss school. And if that theory is correct, that’s where we should put our attention. How do we make it not OK to miss school?

We need new messaging around attendance, but part of the answer is bringing clear data to the table; states should report on attendance so that everyone knows where we stand. Some states delay their data by 18 months, which is not going to get the job done. We also need folks connected at the school, family, district, and state levels to say, “This is the biggest problem we’re facing right now. We cannot fix a lot of the other problems in education until we build new post-pandemic routines and bolster supports that bring kids back to school.” But I think we need to do both parts—attendance norms and supports—at the same time.

DENISE: Yes, we need this message coming from all different levels. We need trusted partners in the school and in the community, state leaders, school district leaders, governors, state superintendents, and business leaders all talking about the importance of tackling this issue. We need them talking about the importance of making sure our kids are back in school, learning, and getting the social-emotional supports they need to stay in school—including rigorous, representative, and engaging curriculum.

HEDY: To add to what Denise said: it needs to be all these stakeholders across the community and state as well as a whole-school approach in which we are supporting every teacher in doing this work. When one of Zeph’s members sees a kid with a challenge, they need a dedicated colleague—employed by the district or a community partner—who can take on that challenge. Teachers see the kids every day, but they don’t have time to solve all of these problems. Someone else needs to be available to check on students and families.

When chronic absence wasn’t as big an issue, many schools could have a social worker handle it. Now, in schools with 30 and even 40 percent of students chronically absent, solutions to address it must be built into the fabric of schools. Teachers, other school staff, and stable community partners need time to build relationships and trust with students and families so that they can motivate them to show up every day as well as connect kids and families to supports when needed.

NAT: One more thing I’ll add is that we often don’t like to talk about the consequences for students, and there is a whole segment of the country that believes the real problem is truancy. As Hedy said, chronic absence is not all truancy—but part of it is. And so we need to use both carrots and reasonable, supportive sticks to influence behavioral change. Obviously, we don’t want to suspend students, but there are common-sense consequences we can give.

We don’t need to have suspensions, much less haul people into court, to have reasonable consequences. For example, New Trier High School in Illinois instituted a tiered system of consequences for tardies and excessive absences in response to absenteeism skyrocketing after the pandemic.¹⁹ Repeat unexcused tardies and absences prompted half-hour morning detentions, and more would lead to lost free time, extracurriculars, and potentially course credits. Coupled with positive communication and supports, these common-sense consequences may not have been popular with students, but they communicated that the district was serious about absenteeism, and the district cut its chronic absence rate in half last year.²⁰ It’s not impossible to bring reasonable consequences to bear on this crisis of absenteeism, and I believe it will be necessary.

EDITORS: Will you offer more details on how wraparound services help students reengage?

DENISE: Any solution to chronic absence or student reengagement should start with authentic family engagement: we have to know what students and families need to help ensure regular attendance. One of the ways this can happen is through community schools, which are so powerful because they meet young people and families where they are. If a health issue is the attendance barrier, having a nurse at school can make a huge difference. If the barrier is related to homelessness, children can receive necessities and meals at school, along with a connection to a social worker to find stable housing. No matter what the issue, the partners that make up community schools offer wonderful programming that draws young people to school and provides more opportunities for them to see themselves and their interests reflected at school.

ZEPH: Community schools can make a huge difference. Recently, I attended a meeting with key leaders, including the chair of our state board of education. The most powerful remarks were from a mortgage lender. She spoke of a neighborhood surrounding a school that in the past did not have a good reputation, but because it had become a community school, families were coming to her to buy homes in the neighborhood. And she was contributing to the community school by offering financial literacy and budgeting sessions for families. This type of collective effort is how we can support families and reengage kids.

But for all our focus on the students who are struggling most, it’s worth remembering that community schools are good for all students. Done right, the community school will be community driven—the community will say what it needs, what supports it wants—and the partners will offer something for everyone.

The AFT is fighting to expand community schools across the country, but in the meantime we need all schools to be better prepared to address challenges related to chronic absence. At a minimum, each school needs a nurse. If a child has allergies, the nurse can assure other families that the child who seems sick is not contagious and it’s safe to send their kids to school. If a child is immunocompromised, the nurse is needed to figure out what would be safe.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to stop districts from being penny-wise and pound-foolish. With a school nurse, you can increase attendance and receive more funding; still, many districts won’t hire nurses—or won’t hire enough of them to build relationships with families and solve attendance problems. So, messaging to parents and guardians about coming back to school matters, but so does following the right data and making the right investments.

*For a summary of the research on vouchers, watch professor Joshua Cowen’s speech at the AFT’s 2024 convention: go.aft.org/eb5. (return to article)

Endnotes

1. Applied Survey Research, Attendance in Early Elementary Grades: Associations with Student Characteristics, School Readiness, and Third Grade Outcomes (Watsonville, CA: July 2011), attendanceworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASR-Mini-Report-Attendance-Readiness-and-Third-Grade-Outcomes-7-8-11.pdf.

2. N. Smerillo et al., “Chronic Absence, Eighth-Grade Achievement, and High School Attainment in the Chicago Longitudinal Study,” Journal of School Psychology 67 (April 2018): 163–78; and R. Balfanz and V. Byrnes, The Importance of Being in School: A Report on Absenteeism in the Nation’s Public Schools (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools, 2012), new.every1graduates.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/FINALChronicAbsenteeismReport_May16.pdf.

3. Smerillo et al., “Chronic Absence”; and Balfanz and Byrnes, The Importance of Being in School.

4. L. Santibañez and C. Guarino, “The Effects of Absenteeism on Academic and Social-Emotional Outcomes: Lessons for COVID-19,” Educational Researcher 50, no. 6 (2021): 392–400.

5. Attendance Works, “Community and Agency Partners: Business Leaders,” attendanceworks.org/take-action/community-and-agency-partners/business-leaders.

6. M. Gottfried, “Chronic Absenteeism in the Classroom Context: Effects on Achievement,” Urban Education 54, no. 1 (2019): 3–34.

7. M. Gottfried, A. Ansari, and S. Woods, “Do Teachers with Absent Students Feel Less Job Satisfaction?,” Educational Researcher (2024), journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0013189X241292331.

8. EdTrust, “States Commit to Meaningful Action on Chronic Absenteeism,” press release, September 9, 2024, edtrust.org/press-room/states-commit-to-meaningful-action-on-chronic-absenteeism.

9. J. Kirksey et al., “Absent Peers, Present Challenges: The Differential Impact of In-Person and Virtual Classmate Absences on Future Attendance,” Working Paper No. 01-003, Texas Tech University College of Education, ttu-ir.tdl.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/87f6f12d-a77a-4b78-acb2-0f44e58384fb/content.

10. M. Gottfried, P. Kim, and T. Fletcher, “Do Teachers Perceive Absent Students Differently?,” AERA Open 10 (2024), journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23328584241259398.

11. N. Malkus, “The Latest Chronic Absenteeism Numbers,” American Enterprise Institute, September 6, 2024, aei.org/education/the-latest-chronic-absenteeism-numbers.

12. N. Malkus, Long COVID for Public Schools: Chronic Absenteeism Before and After the Pandemic (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, January 2024), aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Long-COVID-for-Public-Schools.pdf?x85095.

13. Attendance Works, “Ad Council Survey: What Do Families Think About Attendance?,” October 9, 2024, attendanceworks.org/what-do-families-think-about-attendance.

14. E. Germain et al., Reducing Chronic Absenteeism: Lessons from Community Schools (Washington, DC: Learning Policy Institute, August 2024), learningpolicyinstitute.org/media/4428/download?inline&file=Reducing_Chronic_Absenteeism_REPORT.pdf; and Attendance Works, “Take Action: Community Schools,” attendanceworks.org/take-action/educators/community-schools.

15. American Civil Liberties Union, “Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff Is Harming Students,” February 20, 2019, aclu.org/news/juvenile-justice/cops-and-no-counselors.

16. Hopeful Futures Campaign, America’s School Mental Health Report Card (Washington, DC: Inseparable, February 2022), inseparable.us/SchoolMentalHealthReportCard.pdf.

17. S. Gershenson, “Linking Teacher Quality, Student Attendance, and Student Achievement,” Education Finance and Policy 11, no. 2 (Spring 2016): 125–49.

18. C. Jackson, “Non-Cognitive Ability, Test Scores, and Teacher Quality: Evidence from 9th Grade Teachers in North Carolina,” NBER Working Paper 18624, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2012, nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18624/w18624.pdf.

19. W. Karr, “New Trier Introduces New, Stricter Attendance Policy,” New Trier News, September 14, 2023, newtriernews.org/news/2023/09/14/new-trier-introduces-new-stricter-attendance-policy.

20. Illinois State Board of Education, “Illinois Report Card 2023–2024: New Trier Twp HSD 203,” illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?source=studentcharacteristics&source2=chronicabsenteeism&Districtid=05016203017.

[Illustrations by Angela Hsieh]