How to Fight Absenteeism Before Schools Turn into Ghost Towns

September 18, 2024 at 10:30 AM EDT

Learn4Life uses a personalized learning approach and strong relationships help keep students in school

Schools are finding new ways to keep students engaged for Attendance Awareness Month

Truancy is becoming an epidemic in American schools. In the 2022 school year, 41.7 million students were absent for more than 18 days.¹ While educators hoped that student attendance levels would improve after the pandemic, it remains far lower than pre-COVID. From 2018 to 2023, the rate of chronic absenteeism nearly doubled, from 15 to 26 percent.²

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Schools are finding new ways to keep students engaged for Attendance Awareness Month (Photo: Business Wire)

When children miss school, they are more likely to fail, drop out or get suspended, and less likely to receive adequate nutrition or the special services they may need.³

“The solution isn’t one-size-fits-all and we need to be flexible with our approach to dealing with absenteeism,” said Shellie Hanes, superintendent of Learn4Life, a network of 80+ public high schools that offers personalized instruction. “Each of our schools has at least one retention specialist that is part of a team that includes the student’s teacher, counselor, tutor, principal and other staff involved in their education.”

Hanes says that Learn4Life takes a three-pronged approach that has been successful in keeping their absenteeism rate far lower than most schools.

First, find out why they are not coming to school. The root causes are vast – including illness, mental health conditions, transportation issues, lack of childcare, a need to work, anxiety and bullying. Some students feel as if they are just too far behind in schoolwork to catch up, so they stop attending. Learn4Life is a trauma-resilient education community, with teachers and counselors who understand how to identify symptoms of trauma as opportunities to teach life skills rather than punishing or banishing students who act out.
Remove those barriers. If it’s a transportation issue, they give students bus passes. A flexible schedule makes it possible for students to work while they earn their diploma. Learn4Life creates an individualized learning plan, offers free tutoring and helps students master subjects they’re good in to gain confidence. And, Learn4Life schools have special classrooms where parenting students can bring their babies.
Make school relevant to each student to keep them engaged. More than two-thirds of kids say they are bored listening to lectures all day about things that have no relevance to them.⁴ A personalized learning approach helps teachers understand what motivates and interests a student to tailor the curriculum. Hanes said that career technical education (CTE) classes have a positive impact on attendance. Even if students are not planning a technical career, they enjoy classes like culinary, healthcare, IT, construction and media arts.

Learn4Life places a high priority on positive student-teacher relationships. When students feel connected to the adults at their school, they have better school attendance.⁵ In a recent survey of its students, Learn4Life reported that almost 95 percent said they have a caring adult at their school they could go to for help. And 81 percent of students said they feel they belong at their school.

Engaging adolescents, especially those who have become disconnected and alienated from school, is not an easy task, but the integrated team approach is working for Learn4Life. For more information, visit www.Learn4Life.org.

About Learn4Life

Learn4Life is a network of nonprofit public high schools that provide students personalized learning, career training and life skills. Each school is locally controlled, tuition free and gives students the flexibility and one-on-one attention they need to succeed. Serving more than 59,000 students through a year-round program, we help them prepare for a future beyond high school. For more information, please visit www.learn4life.org.

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¹ https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Long-COVID-for-Public-Schools.pdf?x85095

² https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/long-covid-for-public-schools-chronic-absenteeism-before-and-after-the-pandemic/

³ https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/gradeschool/school/Pages/School-Attendance-Truancy-Chronic-Absenteeism.aspx

⁴ https://www.edchoice.org/engage/what-new-teen-polling-tells-us-about-the-state-of-k-12-education-in-2024/

⁵ https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/protective/school_connectedness.htm