The percentage of students chronically missing class is notably more than before COVID, Kitsap County school district statistics show.
It’s part of a national trend that indicates more students are failing to make school attendance a priority.
Nationally, the percentage of public-school students chronically absent rose nearly 75% between 2018-19 — the last full school year prior to the pandemic — and the 2022-23 school year. The percentage of absent U.S. students increased between 15% and 26% those years, says the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank in Washington D.C.
Students are chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of the school year. A typical school year is 180 days, so that would mean missing 18 days, or about two a month.
Officials say the Bainbridge Island School District experienced a chronic absenteeism increase from 13.4% in 2018-2019 to 23.2% in 2022-23. Each percentage point translates to 36 students. In the South Kitsap School District, chronic absenteeism rose even more, from approximately 25% pre-pandemic to 45% last school year. Each percentage point represents 90 students there.
Across the state, the numbers rose from 15.1% in 2018-19 to 30.3% in 2022-23, says FutureEd, a research group.
The trend suggests some students have failed to reengage with the educational system following COVID when schools transitioned from remote learning back to conventional in-person education.
Impacts
Persistently skipping school can create a series of problems for students, local educators say.
“When a student is not at school, a teacher not only can’t address academics but cannot track the social and emotional health of students and see how they connect to peers,” said Annalisa Sanchez, director of student services for BISD. “If the teacher doesn’t actually have face-to-face time with a student, it makes that much more challenging. Our staff is here to support our students beyond academics.”
Tom Edwards, SKSD assistant superintendent for students, stressed that chronically absent students often are unable to make up their studies.
“Kids need instructional minutes from their highly trained educators to meet the learning target that we and the state have for them,” Edwards said. “Homework packets, making things up online through Google Classroom, which is what South Kitsap uses, do not replace the instructional expertise of the classroom teacher.
“Fewer instructional minutes oftentimes is going to lead to larger academic gaps with their peers, whether it be in reading, math or other content skills. It leads to a long-term academic struggle, lower graduation rates and less effective outcomes for students after high school.”
Reasons behind absences
There are a lot of reasons why more kids are missing school now than before COVID, Edwards said.
Mental health-related issues, and uncertainty about when a student who is feeling under the weather should go to school, are two factors, district officials said. “There are more mental health issues that are impacting students and families more acutely,” Edwards said. “We have a lot more school anxiety and conflict. There’s an uptick on general meanness, more ‘mean words’ which may exacerbate school anxiety.”
Shutting down in-person learning for a period and a change in social norms contributed to the absenteeism, he added. “It was sort of a perfect storm — the pandemic, with kids being socially and isolated during [the] developmental years, and the confluence of the political and cultural climate that our nation has been in over the last eight years, has led to a lot of things we are seeing now.”
Uncertainty by families about when a student should remain home when not feeling well has also contributed to the problem. “There is continued misunderstanding of how sick is too sick to come to school. We were super sensitive during the pandemic but now regulations are back to what they were before,” Edwards said. “There is probably a lot of anxiety around, ‘I’m not sure that I want my student to expose other people since this might be COVID.’ There is a fear of bringing something home as well.”
Sanchez agreed. “There has been a shift in how we view illness at school. During COVID, if there were any symptoms of illness, people would stay home. How we view being sick at school or at work is different now. Perhaps people are staying home more for symptoms they might not have stayed home for before COVID.”
With more parents able to work from home, it’s an easier call to let kids stay home. “Where parents used to send kids to school when they were a little sniffly now they have the flexibility to work from home, so they keep their kids home,” Sanchez said.
Combating absenteeism
Both of those Kitsap County school districts try to attack absenteeism by evaluating the reasons behind it by talking with the student and family. “If there are three or more unexcused absences, the school can reach out to the family. We might send a letter to notify them that we want to connect about attendance,” Sanchez said.
If talking to the student and notifying parents does not work, some schools will arrange a home visit. “The goal is to recognize the ‘why’ behind attendance and to provide as much support to that student and family that we can. We have a supportive conversation to understand more what is happening in their lives. It’s really about building connections. Through conversations we are able to work toward understanding the ‘why.’”
This is the first year home visits have been conducted district-wide in South Kitsap, Edwards said. The visits typically involve school administrators, social workers and counselors. “When it gets to that point, [school officials] reach you where you are and talk to problem solve and set some goals,” Edwards said.
For example, in one case after the district learned that getting transportation to school was the reason behind absences, the school arranged to have a social worker drive the student to school, he explained.
Both districts are focused on educating students and families about the importance of attending class.
Edwards said: “We did intentional marketing on our back-to-school nights in the fall and at parent events all year on why attendance matters. We adopted the slogan ‘Be here together.’”
BI schools highlight the importance in newsletters and back-to-school paperwork, Sanchez said. The schools promptly notify parents or guardians when a child fails to make it to school.
In South Kitsap, a “nudge” letter is sent home when a student has seven absences. The communication tells parents or guardians where their child is compared to his grade-level peers.
Tackling the absences has become a team project among SK schools. The district’s schools were tasked last fall with writing a five-point plan concerning attendance, Edwards noted. Points educators came up with include: ensure teachers take accurate attendance; closely monitor attendance data to recognize problem students; recognize those who have improved their record of attending class; and set attendance goals.
To boost attendance at SK schools, some teachers have devised incentives. Mr. Potato Head helps out at one elementary school. If all students arrive at school on time they earn another piece to put on their Mr. Potato Head. When the toy is fully assembled, the class earns an ice cream or pizza party. Another incentive was to award “special bucks” for good attendance that can be spent on treats at the school store.
There are instances, however, in which school officials are unable to turn around the absences of some students.
As a last resort, a school can petition the court to require a chronically absent student to attend class.
Difficulties for teachers
The student isn’t the only one affected by absenteeism. It makes the teacher’s job more difficult. “There is the expectation that an educator is going to catch up a student from being absent, which is 100 percent legitimate,” Edwards said. “But if a student is missing four days per month, you are talking about one day each school week. That’s one entire lesson a teacher needs to figure out, ‘How am I going to get this student the instruction they need?’
“There is not enough time to really do that when you are talking about multiple students missing days. It is a huge task for teachers to work through student absenteeism.”
