Chronic Absence
Every year, one in 10 kindergarten and first grade students misses a month of school with excused and unexcused absences. By middle and high school, the rates of chronic absence are far higher.
Starting in kindergarten, these absences can affect academic achievement, especially for low-income students unable to make up for lost time, research shows. They can leave children unable to read well by the end of third grade, exacerbating the achievement gap. And they can set a pattern of poor attendance and academic failure for older students, fueling the dropout rate.
Working on chronic absence is a good starting point for communities and foundations committed to ensuring that all children are reading on grade level. This data-driven solution can be built into federal grant applications and can be an integral part of parent engagement programs. It can be a goal for a funder’s investment—or a measure of a grantee’s success. Chronic absence can also tip off communities to families and neighborhoods in need of further support, since poor school attendance can be an early warning sign of challenging social, economic and health conditions.
There are a number of strategies for highlighting and addressing this problem, such as:
- Creating a report documenting the extent of the absences. A San Diego nonprofit has had success with this approach.
- Engaging parents and community organizations. A network of funders in Grand Rapids, Mich., has involved the entire community.
- Helping schools address transportation, health and social challenges. Philanthropic work in Providence has brought community services to bear on improving attendance.
- Nurturing state advocacy campaigns to pursue better regulations and laws. A California foundation supported a scan that has galvanized advocates.
- Building public awareness and political will for reducing chronic absence. A Baltimore foundation has catalyzed a a citywide attendance initiative.
To read the seminal research on chronic early absence, see Present, Engaged and Accounted For by Hedy Chang and Mariajose Romero.
Chang is now heading Attendance Works, a national and state level initiative that promotes awareness of the important role that school attendance plays in achieving academic success. The Attendance Works website offers assessment and toolkits for those who want to help ensure that every school in every state not only tracks chronic absence data for its individual students but also intervenes to help those children and schools.
Read the Campaign’s working paper on Chronic Absence here.
Managed by: The Hatcher Group