There has been a change in the way the state has required schools to report student absences. This change has caused some questioning in our notification process, and I wanted to take the opportunity to clear up the confusion. Prior to 2017, we only sent attendance letters out for unexcused absences. Once a students reached 8 days, a letter was sent out to notify parents that their child was at risk for attendance and could be referred to the Truancy Interventionist. A doctor's note was also required to accompany every absence after the 10th absence. Currently, under the new state guidelines, any absence is counted toward chronic absenteeism, and a letter is sent on the 8th day of absence, whether they have been excused or unexcused.
Our NBHS Student Handbook States on p17:
Diagnostic Procedures for Identifying Student Absences and Support Services to Truant or Chronically Truant Students
State law requires every school district to collect and review its chronic absence data and determine what systems of support and resources are needed to engage chronically absent students and their families to encourage the habit of daily attendance and promote success. This review must include an analysis of chronic absence data from each attendance center.
Furthermore, State law provides that school districts are encouraged to provide a system of support to students who are at risk of reaching or exceeding chronic absence levels with strategies and are also encouraged to make resources available to families such as those available through the State Board of Education's Family Engagement Framework to support and engage students and their families to encourage heightened school engagement and improved daily school attendance.
"Chronic absence" means absences that total 10% or more of school days of the most recent academic school year, including absences with and without valid cause, and out of-school suspensions.
The School and District use the following diagnostic procedures for identifying the causes of unexcused student absences: Interviews with the student, his or her parent/ guardian and any school officials who may have information about the reasons for the student’s attendance problems.
Supportive services to truant or chronically truant students include: parent conferences, student counseling, family counseling, and sharing of information about existing community services.
The following excerpt is taken from the March 2024 Education Lane Newsletter
Furthermore, chronic absenteeism and truancy are not interchangeable. Truancy only measures unexcused absences while chronic absenteeism measures unexcused and excused absences.
It may seem obvious that missing days of school might lead to worse academic outcomes for students, but schools didn’t draw causal conclusions about absenteeism until they were pushed to collect the data and analyze it. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which President Obama signed into law in 2015, states were required to publicly report on five measures of student success. By 2017, almost all states decided to collect and report on chronic absenteeism as a way to measure student success or school quality and continue to do so today.
Hedy Chang, founder and director of Attendance Works noted that “people don’t realize how easily absences can add up. When we think about a kid who misses school often, we might think about the kid who missed a week or two,” What we’re not always thinking about is the kid [who misses] one day here and another day here. And by the end of the year, you’ve added up to so much time lost in the classroom that you’re actually academically at risk.”
Paying closer attention to chronic absenteeism is not meant to be a scarlet letter for students but simply a way for educators to take note of the kind of outreach students and families might need.
