Attendance: Every Day Matters!

Every day of school matters for your child's long-term academic success. Here is what families can do:

• Make a commitment to ensure that your child attends school every day unless there are legitimate reasons to keep them home.
• Keep track of how often your children are absent from school. Remember that two or more days per month amounts to chronic absenteeism over the course of the year.
• Talk to your child about factors that might be deterring them from wanting to attend school. Get help from your child's school about any concerns you might have.
• Understand when to keep a child home (for example, a fever of 100.4 or vomiting twice over the preceding 24-hour period) and when a child is well enough to attend school. The CDC has detailed guidance which you can find here: When Students or Staff are Sick

There is no greater indicator of success than attendance. For students, making the conscious choice to come to school can be the difference maker in determining whether they achieve a successful GPA, pass their classes and exams, avoid summer school, maintain a positive outlook on education, and set the stage for future success. Attendance is also critical for developing healthy social-emotional skills which reduces behavioral issues and improves students’ ability to function and thrive.

Each and every one of us has a part to play in maximizing attendance. For students, it means recognizing the importance of attendance, harnessing their motivation, and talking to adults about factors that are making them want to avoid school. For families, it means making a commitment to ensuring your child comes to school every day and addressing issues that are deterring them from attending.

In recent years, school districts across the country have seen a significant increase in chronic absenteeism, which is defined as missing at least 10 percent of the year or 18 days of school. To be chronically absent, a child misses approximately two days per month. That may not seem like a lot, but as we reflect on this number more, we realize that this is the same as saying that a child will miss one day of school every two weeks. To break it down even further, another way we can look at this is that a child will miss a day of school every 10 days of instruction. Additionally, the typical instructional month only consists of approximately 20 days of instruction. Therefore, being chronically absent can equate to missing a whole month of school every year. Missing only a small number of days can have a significant impact on children’s intellectual and social-emotional development. Consider the following research:

Students who are chronically absent are much more likely to drop out of high school. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation notes that students who are chronically absent in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade are 4 times more likely to drop out of high school than their peers. This correlation is even more significant at later grade levels. A student who is chronically absent any year between Gr. 8-12 is more than 7 times more likely to drop out of high school.

Chronic absenteeism during a child’s earliest years has a detrimental impact on reading proficiency. According to the non-profit organization Attendance Works, only 17 percent of students who were chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade were reading proficiently by third grade, compared to 64 percent of those with good attendance.

Even a single year of chronic absenteeism can have a significant impact on academic performance. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, students who were chronically absent in kindergarten saw a 10% decline in academic performance in first grade compared to students with fewer absences.

Students who are chronically absent in high school are much less likely to succeed in college. Attendance Works found that only 11% of students who were chronically absent in high school made it to a second year of college, compared to 51% of students with better high school attendance records.

It affects more than academics. Socialization, self esteem, and mental health are all detrimentally impacted by student absenteeism. Learning and development is dependent on face-to-face interaction. This is probably the greatest learning we have had since the pandemic. There is simply no substitute for a student’s presence in school face-to-face with our dedicated teachers and staff. Every day of school matters, not just because of the learning which takes place that day but also a student’s interactions with peers, school structure and routines, and the support and encouragement they receive from teachers/staff. The key is consistency. This is the piece that we must focus on in partnership.

It isn’t clear what is driving the recent increase in absenteeism. For some families, missing school might have been normalized by the pandemic. Parents/guardians might be more willing to let children stay home due to mild symptoms or social-emotional factors that would not have prevented them from attending school in the past. Additionally, older students might not face the same repercussions for missing a day because their Chromebooks make them feel like it is easier to catch up on work.

Regardless of the cause, we need to focus our efforts as a community on minimizing absenteeism. The importance of attending school cannot be overstated. Regular attendance correlates with greater success in school, better social-emotional outcomes, and life-long attendance habits which will be crucial in college and careers. The most difficult challenge adults face is making children do something that they are not always enthusiastic about. Together, we must realize that when we hold our children accountable during their formative years, it is setting them up for a higher probability of success as they become adults. That is why we have to have the will to do it and the wisdom to do it together.