Fourteen states have accepted the challenge of reducing the rate at which children frequently miss school. This initiative comes as a response to a bipartisan coalition’s call for states to prioritize school attendance.
States like Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado, which have had highest rates of chronic absenteeism in recent years, are among those making the pledge. Additionally, Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, Ohio, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia have also signed on.
Several states have shown interest and may potentially join later in the school year.
Each state that has agreed to participate in this initiative has made a commitment to reduce chronic absenteeism by 50% over the course of five years. States have the flexibility to choose their starting point and establish goals accordingly. Some states may opt to begin from the 2021-2022 school year, which experienced a significant increase in absenteeism due to the pandemic, while others may select a more recent year as their baseline.
The chronic absenteeism crisis in the nation is evident in the wide geographic spread of the affected states. These states, led by a combination of Republican and Democratic governors, are located across the United States.
Chang mentioned that a common aspect shared by these “early adopter” states is that they will not be starting from scratch. Each of these states had already made a commitment to address absenteeism and had existing staff or initiatives in place. While some states can jump into action swiftly, others may require some time to organize their teams.
According to her, the signing of these states indicates that there is a growing consensus in the field that addressing chronic absence is necessary and that aiming to reduce chronic absent by 50% is a reasonable goal.
According to a recent analysis by the Associated Press, during the 2021-22 school year, over 35% of students in Colorado were classified as chronically absent due to missing an excessive amount of school. Although there has been some improvement in the rate, Colorado still ranked as the fifth-worst state in terms of chronic absenteeism during the 2022-23 school year.
Arkansas intends to establish last year’s chronic absenteeism rate as a starting point, although the specific figures have not been disclosed. Throughout the pandemic, approximately 26% of students in the state were chronically absent, but schools managed to reduce this number to around 22% during the 2022-23 school year.
Achieving the goal won’t be too difficult for some states.
During the 2021-22 school year, the chronically absent rate for students in Connecticut was 23.7%. However, by the last school year, this rate had decreased to 17.7%. In order to meet its target, the state would have to further reduce absenteeism by 6 percentage points over the next two years, assuming that the pandemic peak serves as the starting point.
In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin took action by forming a statewide task force with the goal of improving school attendance. As a result, schools were able to decrease the percentage of students who missed a significant amount of school from a pandemic high of 20.1% to 16.1% last school year. However, in order to meet the campaign’s target, an additional 6-point reduction is needed.
In Rhode Island, Democratic Governor Dan McKee’s comprehensive strategy to combat absenteeism has garnered national attention. The state’s schools managed to decrease their chronic absenteeism rate from 34.1% during the peak of the pandemic to 24.7% last school year. Rhode Island is currently only 7.7 percentage points away from achieving the campaign’s goal.
New Mexico, for instance, managed to reduce chronic absenteeism from a pandemic high of 40.7% to 32.8% during the last school year. However, it is still 12.4 percentage points above the target, indicating that there is still progress to be made.
Several other states have not yet released chronic absenteeism data for the last school year.
Some states that have committed to the pledge are part of a larger movement to implement new legislation to improve school attendance rates. In West Virginia, a law was passed mandating schools to reach out to families after a single absence. Iowa has also introduced a law that necessitates families of students at risk of chronic absenteeism to engage with school personnel before involving legal authorities. These measures aim to address attendance issues proactively and encourage regular school attendance.