4 tips for addressing absenteeism in K-12 schools

Key points:

  • Absenteeism is a top predictor of academic success and can have serious consequences
  • Solutions to chronic absenteeism will require long-term, strategic investment of time and resources

Districts across the country are grappling with elevated levels of chronic absenteeism that have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. The Associated Press and Stanford University’s Big Local News Project found that there were approximately 230,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for when looking at changes in enrollment between the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 school years.

We also know a lot about the negative consequences of poor attendance: attendance is the number one predictor of academic achievement. Chronic absenteeism can have serious impacts on students, such as the inability to master basic grade-level skills, reduced access to food and counseling resources, and significantly higher rates of dropping out. Students who drop out of school have a far greater chance of entering the criminal justice system.…Read More

Ind. leaders launch review of A-F grading scandal

Indiana’s top lawmakers are creating a task force to review the state’s “A-F” school grading system following the revelation former state schools superintendent Tony Bennett changed the grading formula for a Republican donor’s charter school, the Associated Press reports. Republican Senate President Pro Tem David Long and Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma announced Friday the creation of an independent task force to review the school grading system. They noted their previous concerns with the school grading system, but Bennett’s efforts detailed in emails obtained by The Associated Press raised new concerns for them…

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