Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic absenteeism has been among the challenges facing public schools.
The reasons are complex, but the impact is clear. As a report from the organization American Family Physician summarizes: “Frequent school absenteeism has immediate and long-term negative effects on academic performance, social functioning, high school and college graduation rates, adult income, health, and life expectancy.”
Chronic absenteeism is typically defined as a student missing at least 10 percent of school days. And a recent initiative in Evergreen Public Schools provides some insight into the issue.
During the 2023-24 school year, approximately 38 percent of students throughout the district attended less than 90 percent of school days. According to data compiled by the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, chronic absenteeism applied to 17 percent of students in the Camas and La Center districts, 23 percent in Ridgefield and Battle Ground, 34 percent in Vancouver and 36 percent in Washougal.
In other words, even among local districts with comparatively high attendance rates, approximately 1 out of 6 students miss at least 10 percent of school days.
(As an aside, report cards for each school district throughout Washington provide detailed information such as absentee rates, per-pupil expenditures, graduation rates and average test scores.)
Absenteeism is infecting schools throughout the nation. And it has greatly increased since the pandemic, with every state showing an increase. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 44 percent of students in Oregon were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, the highest rate of any state.
As The Washington Post wrote editorially in 2023: “Chronic absenteeism, in many cases, results from logistical challenges: bus routes that bypass some students’ houses; walking routes through unsafe streets; poverty or homelessness or, in a surprising number of cases, asthma. Add to these the emotional reasons that kids are wary of venturing into the classroom — bullying, along with hopelessness about ever catching up after COVID quarantine.”
The question is how best to address it, and that is where a recent Columbian article comes into play. The report details how the Evergreen and Vancouver districts are partnering with Washington State University to study the issue and devise solutions.
The university’s Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students is an online 40-question survey for middle and high school students. The questions address six categories: aggression and defiance, depression and anxiety, substance use, peer deviance, school engagement and family environment.
One Evergreen administrator told The Columbian: “The really cool thing about EPS right now is the proactive approach of expanding student services and looking at attendance. That has been at a downfall throughout our entire country since COVID-19. And we’re already seeing large growth right now, and then we think that with WARNS rolling it out, it’s only going to help us to ultimately get kids in school and be successful.”
Examining the causes of absenteeism — and the causes of students opting for private institutions or homeschooling — is essential to the future of public education. The pandemic and its fallout should lead to a rethinking of how this nation approaches schooling but even the best-laid plans will be ineffective if students are not showing up.
