Chronic absenteeism impacts accreditation at Skyline High School

Efforts to improve school attendance and reduce dropout rates are part of the larger effort to increase achievement and close performance gaps between student subgroups. Safe and healthy schools – ones that employ a challenging curriculum and reinforce high expectations for academics, behavior, and social responsibility – are schools that motivate students to attend.

Dr. Michael Smith, Principle of Skyline High School in Front Royal, discusses the importance of school attendance with our publisher Mike McCool. Dr. Smith ask that we all work together to reduce chronic absenteeism. Your child needs to be in school. It is difficult to teach students who are absent. If you have concerns or questions, please reach out to Dr. Smith at 540-631-0366 or by email.

The Virginia Board of Education is revising its accreditation standards to provide a more comprehensive view of school quality while encouraging continuous improvement for all schools and placing increased emphasis on closing achievement gaps. The revised accreditation standards measure performance on multiple school-quality indicators, not just on overall student achievement on state tests.

Elementary and middle schools are evaluated on the following indicators:

• Overall proficiency and growth in English reading/writing achievement (including progress of English learners toward English-language proficiency)
• Overall proficiency and growth in mathematics
• Overall proficiency in science
• English achievement gaps among student groups
• Mathematics achievement gaps among student groups
• Absenteeism

High schools are evaluated on the following school-quality indicators:

• Overall proficiency in English reading/ writing and progress of English learners toward English-language proficiency
• Overall proficiency in mathematics
• Overall proficiency in science
• English achievement gaps among student groups
• Mathematics achievement gaps among student groups
• Graduation and completion
• Dropout rate
• Absenteeism
• College, career and civic readiness

Click here to read the Virginia code that provides details.

“Truancy” means unexcused absence from school. However, there is an important distinction between truants and chronic truants. A student displays truant behavior with a single unexcused absence from school, but a student needs to reach or surpass a certain number of unexcused absences to be considered a chronic truant. Virginia law does not define a truant specifically but does define a child who is habitually and without justification absent from school as a “child in need of supervision” when certain other conditions are met.

Chronic absenteeism, on the other hand, incorporates all absences: excused, unexcused and suspensions. The focus is on the academic consequences of this lost instructional time and on preventing absences before students miss so much school that they fall behind. It recognizes that students miss school for many understandable issues such as asthma or homelessness or unreliable transportation, for which a punitive response is not appropriate. But what helps is working with families to share the importance of attendance and to fix the underlying problems that lead to absenteeism.

Given this broader focus, addressing chronic absenteeism becomes an issue for the entire community. Medical providers can help address health challenges; transit and housing agencies can resolve other barriers to attendance; volunteers from businesses and faith communities can mentor students and support families. These approaches can also reduce truancy.

Like truancy, chronic absence has no common definition, though many researchers and schools monitor how many students are missing 10 percent or more of the school year. That’s about two days a month, or 18 days in most school districts.

Frequent absences from school can be devastating to a child’s future. The effects start early and spiral dramatically over time.

Children who are chronically absent in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade are much less likely to read on grade level by the third grade.

Students who can’t read at grade level by the third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.

By high school, regular attendance is a better dropout indicator than test scores.

A student who is chronically absent in any year between the eighth and twelfth grade is seven times more likely to drop out of school.

Despite record high school graduation rates, too many of our nation’s young people—particularly students who are low-income, of color, homeless, highly mobile, with disabilities, and/or juvenile justice-involved—still do not graduate from high school or are off-track toward that important goal. While every child and family grapples with challenges from time to time, such as an illness or unexpected family emergency, the growing research on absenteeism is clear and shows that chronic absence from school is not only a primary cause of low academic achievement but also a powerful predictor of which students are at a higher risk for dropping out.