Improve School Attendance

One in 10 children in kindergarten and 1^st grade misses 10 percent of the school year, absences that can correlate with poor academic performance, especially for low-income children unable to make up for time on task. [i] Many of the stress factors associated with poverty—unreliable transportation, unstable housing and maternal risk—can contribute to chronic absence . [ii]  Beyond the effect on grade-level reading, chronic absence can predict the likelihood that a student will drop out of high school, which in turn can adversely affect future earnings. By 6th grade chronic absence is a clear predictor of drop-out. By 9th grade, missing 20 percent of the school year is a better predictor of dropping out than test scores. [iii]   Too often, though, schools are not paying attention to these important clues. They are recording school-wide attendance or truancy rates, both of which can mask the number of children missing multiple days of school if all absences are counted, including excused absences.

What Can Policymakers Do?

• Encourage the tracking and analysis of chronic absence data . Tracking school-wide data or truancy does not give a full picture of how many students are missing 10 percent of the school year.

• Support interventions tailored to schools and communities .  Patterns found in the chronic absence data can often lead to solutions. For information on what school districts are doing, visit Attendance Works.

• Engage parents . Parents help children develop good attendance habits; schools can help by educating parents that attendance matters, starting in preschool and kindergarten, offering students incentives and providing welcoming environments.

• Promote school and community collaborations .  Especially when working in close partnership with community agencies, schools can reach out to families and help to address barriers to school attendance, such as the lack of reliable transportation, affordable housing or access to health care, and ensure families have the resources to raise healthy and prepared children.