We collaborated with our partners on a blog post that describes how districts, schools, community agencies and families can address absenteeism by focusing on a critical lever: strong and trusting family-school partnerships that address the underlying issues that keep families from sending their kids to school. Thanks to co-authors Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works; Bibb Hubbard, founder & president of Learning Heroes (US); Todd Rogers, professor of public policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government and chief scientist (an unpaid position) of EveryDay Labs; and Ralph Smith, managing director of Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.
Arian Brooks, a mother of three in Baltimore, has high aspirations for her children’s success. While she believes in the power of education, obstacles made it difficult to get Keyon, her second grade son, to school every day.
To get Keyon to school, Arian relied on three modes of transportation: bus, subway, and light rail. These transportation issues were coupled with financial constraints, along with the challenge of managing Keyon’s chronic asthma. Despite her best efforts, her son missed nearly three weeks of school.
A Crisis We Must Address
Arian isn’t alone in her struggle to have her kids attend school regularly. Chronic absence—defined as missing 10% of the academic year, or roughly 18 days—is at a crisis level in the U.S. Chronic absence nearly doubled during the pandemic, with almost one in three students being chronically absent in 2021-22, and rates in many states continue to hover well above pre-pandemic levels.
;