Hartford schools find a partner to fight absenteeism

San Francisco-based nonprofit Attendance Works will help develop strategies to reduce a growing problem

HARTFORD – School leaders in Hartford are partnering with a national group to take another run at a pervasive and inimical problem: chronic absenteeism.

A quarter of Hartford’s roughly 19,000 public school students met the definition of chronically absent last academic year by missing at least 18 days, or 10 percent of the school year, according to state data. That’s up from 22 percent a year earlier. Prekindergarten was not included in the calculation.

Those absences include days that are excused or unexcused.

Schools Superintendent Leslie TorresRodriguez on Monday called the issue a “crisis.” The district will partner with San Francisco-based Attendance Works, a nonprofit, to study the data and come up with strategies for fighting absenteeism.

“While it does not sound like a lot, we know from the research that it makes a profound impact on student performance,” Torres-Rodriguez said of the time missed.

Only 17 percent of chronically absent students will read on grade level after third grade, the superintendent said. By middle school, the frequent absences are a leading indicator of student drop-out.

Schools with high rates of chronic absenteeism are typically schools that also struggle with academic performance. In Hartford, the number of absences was highest among high school students. Nearly 44 percent of students at Bulkeley High School were chronically absent last year. At High School Inc., an insurance and finance academy, 60 percent of students missed enough days to be classified as chronically absent.

Hartford’s public schools outranked those of other major Connecticut cities. In New Haven, 20 percent of the district’s 21,500 students were chronically absent last year. In Bridgeport, about 19 percent of the district’s 20,900 students amassed enough absences to qualify. Eighteen percent of

Waterbury’s 19,000 students were chronically absent.

Researchers have linked chronic absenteeism with a growing achievement gap between poor and wealthier students. They have also found that regularly missing days of school, even in elementary grades, is a major indicator of which students fall behind and eventually drop out of high school.

Low-income students — often those in most need of daily schooling to overcome their life circumstances — are more likely to be chronically absent, district officials said.

“One of the most effec- tive strategies for providing a pathway out of poverty is to do whatever it takes to get each and every student to school every day,” TorresRodriguez said. “That alone is going to drive the achievement, high school graduation and also have impact — positively — on college attainment rates.”

Attendance Works will assess absentee data across Hartford’s schools and come up with solutions. That could include early intervention — identifying students who have begun to rack up absences — and reaching out with a phone call or home visit. School leaders would then help connect the students with needed services, like transportation.

The nonprofit will also work with the district to expand programming. Through partnerships with community and faith-based groups, school officials are looking for ways to increase summer and after-school programs, which keep students engaged.

Alexa Marotta, a senior at Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy, said some of her classmates struggle with absences because of transportation problems. If a student misses the bus, he or she may have no other way to get to school. Waiting to catch a city bus can take more than an hour, she said.

And then there are family issues.

“I know in high school a lot of the peers have younger siblings, so they sometimes have to stay home to take care of those siblings if they’re sick because their parents have to go to work,” Marotta, 18, said. “Other times they might leave school early because they have to work and make that money for their families."

Torres-Rodriguez did not disclose how much the district will pay Attendance Works. The partnership will be covered with school funds and grants, including a contribution from The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

The state has allocated about $16,000 for Attendance Works to partner with Hartford under a separate effort, aimed at planning and on-site coaching for district attendance workers. Some of those funds may extend to the initiative announced Monday, said Peter Yazbak, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.

Torres-Rodriguez said it was unclear how long the partnership would run.