Fewer Michigan kids are missing a substantial amount of school, according to new data on chronic absenteeism released Wednesday, but the numbers remain higher than before the COVID pandemic.
Last year, 27.9% of students in the state were chronically absent, defined as missing 10% of the school year, or 18 days’ worth of classes, according to the Michigan Department of Education.
That was a drop of 1.6 percentage points from the year before, when 29.5% of kids were missing that much school.
The numbers have steadily dropped over the past three years, after peaking during the pandemic with 38.5% of students chronically absent in the 2021-22 school year.
The state still has a ways to go, however, to reach pre-pandemic levels. In the 2018-19 school year, 19.7% of Michigan students were chronically absent.
“We are pleased that the statewide school attendance rate and the chronic absenteeism rate have improved significantly for the third year in a row,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement. “School staff, students, parents, grandparents, and community members have been working hard to improve school attendance. Students cannot learn if they are not in school.”
Attendance rates are also trending in a positive direction, from 90.8% two years ago to 91.3% last year.
“While we have made very substantial progress in the last three years, our attendance has not returned to the levels before the pandemic, so it’s important for communities to continue to collaborate to emphasize the importance of good attendance and assist children most in need of attendance support,” Rice said in the statement.
The Michigan Department of Education’s release also stated that “it remains concerning that economically disadvantaged students are far more likely to be chronically absent than the rest of the student population.”
“That’s why it is important for schools and communities to continue to collaborate, to the absolute extent possible, to remove barriers to children going to school, such as lack of transportation, older children needing to care for younger siblings, health issues, homelessness or inconsistent housing, and clothing needs,” the statement said.
Some Michigan districts have made aggressive efforts to fight chronic absenteeism.
Baltimore-based Concentric Educational Solutions has been working with five Michigan school districts — Westwood, Ecorse, Harper Woods, River Rouge and Pontiac — by using a team of seven people to take on the time-consuming task of locating students one at a time. The company’s workers ask direct questions about why kids are not in school and offer specific solutions to get them back.
School experts have said chronic absenteeism is one of the biggest problems facing American schools because it undermines widespread academic recovery efforts to catch students up from the learning losses during the pandemic school years when many spent months, or even years, away from classrooms, schedules, adults and peers.
jpignolet@detroitnews.com
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