Ohio schools struggle with chronic absenteeism during pandemic
Includes reporting by Jennifer Pignolet of the Akron Beacon Journal, Kelli Weir of the Canton Repository, Madeline Mitchell of the Cincinnati Enquirer, Michael Lee of the Columbus Dispatch, and Barrett Lawlis of the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
On a frigid Wednesday morning in January, Len Dawson rapped on the door of a gray house in Akron’s North Hill neighborhood.
“Akron Public Schools,” he said in a voice loud enough to be heard through the door.
Eventually, an 18-year-old popped his head out. “They’re real concerned because you have not been attending classes,” Dawson said.
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The teen, from a Bhutanese immigrant family, said he’s had to prioritize work over school but agreed to call a district counselor. “If you need any help, maybe we can help you,” Dawson said.
The number of “address checks” Akron performs has more than doubled during the novel coronavirus pandemic. During the 2018-2019 school year, the district knocked on 829 doors. That number rose to 1,421 the following year and hit 2,582 for 2020-2021.
The problem with absences isn’t just hitting Akron.
Public schools across Ohio are grappling with significant increases in their chronically absent students. One in four K-12 students missed at least 10% of the school year in 2020-2021, according to data from the Ohio Department of Education. One in 10 missed more than 20%.
The numbers were worse for the state’s most vulnerable children.
Thirty-seven percent of economically disadvantaged students, 33% of students with disabilities and 47% of Black students were chronically absent last year.
“I think absenteeism strikes at the core of receiving a quality education,” State Superintendent Stephanie Siddens said. “Poor attendance is related to lower grades, lower scores on tests, lower graduation rates.”
Absenteeism in Fairfield County Schools
School districts in Fairfield County reported trends seen across the state: the 2020-2021 school year saw a sharp increase in missing students, but administrators have reported this school year is already much better.
Many administrators said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Ohio Department of Health regulations dictated guidelines for attendance when it came to COVID-19 exposure.
Berne Union Local School District Superintendent Jon Parker said when the regulations called for students to isolate for 10 days after exposure, it became very noticeable at BU, because of its smaller student population size.
“We definitely saw more absences in the high school than middle or elementary schools. At the start of the 2020-2021 school year, we had so many standards we had to follow, so it makes sense that absences started to pile up. If you had one student exposed, it was common to see almost an entire class self-quarantining,” Parker said. “The staff and our principals did a great job tracking absences, reaching out to families and checking in. At our worst case, we’d involve our truancy intervention team.”
With more information from the CDC and updated regulations, Parker added this school year has been smoother, with fewer absences.
Lancaster City Schools Superintendent Nathan Hale said his district had similar difficulties on a larger scale.
“At the onset of the pandemic, we tried to work out ways to limit transmission between students. With a high school of about 1800 students, we have a lot of crossover between students of several grades. That’s why we used a hybrid model of attendance at first, and this year, with the new regulations, we’ve been able to move away from that,” Hale said.
The administrators all agreed there was a correlation between academic performance and having students in school: less time in person generally meant lower scores academically.
“During the height of the pandemic, we definitely saw lower final grades than we would typically have,” Shawn Haughn, Bloom-Carroll Local School District superintendent, said. “Students attending in-person were impacted by the remote learning students. School days were shortened so teachers could offer online tutoring to remote students.”
“With students back full-time, we’re seeing improved grades, and we’re hoping the trend continues.”
How do we fix chronic absenteeism in schools?
School attendance really came onto the radar of education officials after the passage of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, University of Michigan professor Brian Jacob said.
It was a natural evolution from test scores, in Jacob’s opinion, because the kids who score lower often struggle with attendance.
Database: Find the chronic absenteeism rate for your school or school district
“Even before we figure out if we should improve the curriculum, at the basic level you just have to get them in the building,” he said.
To do that, schools have to figure out why their students aren’t coming to class.
Researchers, including Jacob, categorize the causes into four basic groups:
Student specific – bullying, teen pregnancy, low academic performance.
Family specific – unstable housing, language barriers, need to work.
School specific – poor student-teacher interactions, lack of transportation.
Community specific – unsafe neighborhoods, jobs that don’t require education.
Then, they have to find a solution that works for the student’s specific situation.
“I think it’s certainly more time intensive and expensive than an automated text reminder,” Jacob said.
What Ohio school districts are trying to keep students in school
Delaware City Schools didn’t see an increase in chronically absent students during the pandemic. Its rate of 11.5% from the 2020-2021 school year was actually a little lower than the 11.7% it reported for 2018-2019.
Superintendent Heidi Kegley credited that success to her team of teachers, administrators, community partners and court liaison, Stacy Blair, who all work together on these cases.
If a student misses the bus, Blair tells them to text her. Then, she sends a group text to the district’s volunteer drivers. She drives kids to school every week and so does Kegley. Teachers, principals and administrative assistants all help when they can.
Blair has worked with area nonprofits and social services to find jobs, apartments and financial assistance for families in need. She’s created plans for students who will be in temporary foster care outside the district’s boundaries. She’s gone so far as handing out alarm clocks and teaching kids to set them across the room from their beds.
“It’s not about placing blame or pointing fingers,” Kegley said. “It’s about problem-solving together.”
Northwest Local Schools, a district of roughly 1,760 students in Stark County, saw its chronic absenteeism rate improve during the pandemic as well.
It had the lowest rate in the state with only 0.1% of its students missing 18 days or more of school.
The secret, according to school officials, was engagement.
Northwest High School students are paired with at least one adult they can depend on outside of the classroom and are involved in at least one extracurricular or co-curricular activity.
And the middle school places an emphasis on hiring teachers and staff who excel at connecting with kids.
“In the old days, everybody wanted teachers who were information experts but not now,” Northwest Middle School Principal Greg Ramos said. “It’s a positive connection at school that’s more likely to get (students) out of bed.”
COVID-19’s impact on absenteeism rates
The COVID-19 pandemic raised absenteeism rates for schools across the nation, Jacob said.
“There was a once in a century global public health crisis,” he said. “It’s not hard not to understand why that impacted schools, but COVID has reminded people how big an issue absenteeism can be.”
The absenteeism rate at Columbus City Schools hit 74% for the 2020-2021 school year.
Machelle Kline, chief student services officer at Columbus schools, said that just in general, “large urban school districts do traditionally have a higher chronic absenteeism rate” than suburban districts.
That’s partly because they serve more economically disadvantaged students who are more likely to struggle with issues like housing insecurity and unsafe neighborhoods.
“Ohio is not unique in that trend,” said Brittany Miracle, an assistant director at the state education department who focuses on attendance. “The barriers to attendance are correlated with poverty.”
And those barriers were exacerbated by the pandemic.
“There are situations where kids had to go live with a grandparent because their parents were forced to work or are forced to work in a remote setting …,” Kline said. “Sometimes we found the kids in shelters, other times we found out kids had moved or went to a grandparent’s or aunt’s or uncle’s house in another district.”
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