Chronic absenteeism up in most districts
Greater Columbus area schools are no exception
Chronic absenteeism is up in Ohio according to new Ohio Department of Education data, and schools in the Greater Columbus area are no exception.
In fact, suburban school districts in Greater Columbus saw an increase in chronic absenteeism rates. And while districts in more-urban areas such as Columbus City Schools, South-western City Schools and Whitehall City Schools saw a decrease in their chronic absenteeism rates from the previous year, they remain problematically high.
The Ohio Department of Education defines a student as chronically absent when they miss 10% or more of instructional time during a school year for any reason, which includes both excused and unexcused absences.
The state also tracks chronic absenteeism by the number of hours a student misses per month. So, things such as tardiness, excused suspensions and leaving school early can contribute to a student being chronically absent, said Tyree Pollard, Columbus City Schools’ director of attendance.
“When students miss that 10%, we see that on a national trend that it’s a direct correlation to student achieve
Nearly one in three children were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year, but the percentages vary widely by district.
“For the most part, this is an urban school district problem. And I think this gets down to a school administration problem. They aren’t prioritizing why the kids aren’t in school. Don’t get me wrong. I think they are trying, but they’ve got to be a lot more forceful at it.”
Sen. Andrew Brenner,
ment,” Pollard said.
According to the state data, most districts in Franklin County saw an increase in chronic absenteeism rates — mostly in the suburbs.
Dublin City Schools, for example, had an 8.1% chronic absenteeism rate in the 2020-21 school year, increasing in 202122 by almost 9 percentage points to 16.7%.
Westerville City Schools saw one of the highest percentage increases, with its chronic absenteeism rate increasing from 9.6% to 21.7%, which was just under the statewide average in the 2020-21 academic year. The only suburb that saw a decrease was New Albany-plain Local Schools, dropping less than one percentage point from the 2020-21 to 2021-22 school year.
Despite continuing to have substantially high chronic absenteeism rates compared to the 2021-22 statewide average of 30%, districts including Columbus City saw decreases in chronically absent students.
Columbus City Schools saw nearly a 10% point drop in its chronic absenteeism rate from 74.6% to 65%. Southwestern City Schools saw around a 15% decrease dropping to 40.8%, and Whitehall City Schools saw a decrease of just less than 5%, with absenteeism sitting at 41.7% in 2021-22.
Ohio Education Association president Scott Dimauro said that his guess on why urban districts saw a decrease in absenteeism may be due to the “huge spike” that occurred in the previous school year during the height of COVID-19. He said for many districts in lower-income areas, many students needed the support of in-person schooling which is why reopening the schools fully in the 2021-22 school year may have contributed to the declines.
Dimauro said possible reasons for the increased chronic absenteeism in suburban schools could be due to students having the resources and support during remote instruction in the 20202021 school year during the pandemic. However, he said waves of COVID-19 during the 2021-22 school year where schools returned fully in-person could have caused that spike in absenteeism numbers.
Chronic absenteeism rate in Greater Columbus school districts
● Bexley — 2021-22: 14.1%. 2020-21: 8.4%
● Canal Winchester — 2021-22: 28.6%. 2020-21: 19.9%
● Dublin — 2021-22: 16.7%. 2020-21: 8.1%
● Gahanna-jeffeson — 2021-22: 14.3%. 2020-21: 8.5%
● Grandview Heights — 2021-22: 13.9%. 2020-21: 4.9%
● Groveport Madison — 2021-22: 27.9%. 2020-21: 39.4%
● Hamilton — 2021-22: 29.7%. 202021 29.4%.
● Hilliard — 2021-22: 18%. 2020-21: 13.8%
● New Albany — 2021-22: 15.3%. 2020-21: 15.9%
● Olentangy — 2021-22: 14.2%. 202021: 3.4%
● Pickerington — 2021-22: 26.9%. 2020-21: 22.6%
● Reynoldsburg —2021-22: 32.7%. 2020-21: 22.2%
● South-western — 2021-22: 40.8%. 2020-21: 56.0%
● Upper Arlington — 2021-22: 11.2%. 2020-21: 5.3%
● Westerville — 2021-22: 21.7%. 2020-21: 9.6%
● Whitehall — 2021-22: 41.7%. 202021: 46.0%
● Worthington — 2021-22: 18.3%. 2020-21: 6.6%
South-western attributes much of its decrease in chronic absenteeism to the Ohio Department of Health recommending in January that local health departments move from universal contact tracing to cluster monitoring, which changed isolation and quarantine guidelines, said district spokesperson Evan Debo.
“We continue to exhaust resources aimed at keeping students engaged and connected to their passions so that they are motivated beyond expected to play an active role in attendance each day,” he said.
Talking to parents is key when it comes to improving attendance, said Whitehall Superintendent Sharee Wells.
“We continue to create two-way communication with parents to establish understanding and involving them in the process for overcoming attendance issues,” she said.
Westerville Superintendent John Kellogg said he wonders how many absences last school year were due to COVID-19.
“We’re planning to continue monitoring attendance over the first several weeks of this current school year to see if those numbers are improving,” he said. “If they’re not, then connecting with and supporting those impacted families becomes a critical first step to their return to the classroom.”
Canal Winchester said it is challenging to evaluate absenteeism data for the last two school years because of quarantines and isolations during COVID-19.
“We want our students in school as much as possible because we know the positive impact of in-person instructional time with our dedicated educators,” said district Superintendent Kiya Hunt. “We closely monitor each student’s attendance and work directly with students and their families to address attendance concerns and provide support to help students meet their attendance and educational goals.”
Grandview Heights told The Dispatch they it nothing to say about the increase in chronic absenteeism from nearly 5% to nearly 14% in that district over the last two school years.
Despite the drop in numbers, districts including Columbus City Schools still remain at a high chronic absenteeism rate, even compared to other Ohio districts such as Cincinnati Public Schools and Cleveland Metropolitan Schools.
Machelle Kline, Columbus City Schools chief student services officer, said that even today, some students are still out with COVID-19, something the country continued to deal with during the 2021-22 school year with the virus’s variants.
“The pandemic is not over,” Kline said.
Pollard added that other reasons for the spike was due to transportation and not being able to find kids who were absent.
Laura Henry, a gifted intervention specialist who was working with over 50 students grades 6-8 at four Columbus City Schools buildings in the 20212022 school year, said she had seen a large proportion of students marked chronically absent at three of her schools.
She said finding out why her students were absent a lot of times was “not necessarily a straightforward answer.” Some of the reasons Henry listed included students quarantining because of COVID, missing the bus and not having a ride to school, or if they have to take care of a younger sibling at home.
“But then knowing that they just have so many things going on outside of that, that’s not a great feeling to know that no matter how much support you can provide on those certain days in the building, there’s a lot more going on outside the school’s control,” Henry said.
The Columbus district partners with Attendance Works, a national organization that collaborates with schools and communities to stress the negative impact of chronic absenteeism. Pollard said they’ve helped the district with its messaging and attendance infrastructure — like creating an attendance team that includes administrators, principals, social workers and teachers.
He said it’s partnerships and messaging like that which will help combat the absenteeism issue. He added that one of the main misconceptions families have is not knowing how many days their kids are missing.
“They don’t really understand that when it comes to chronically absent, that it includes excused and unexcused (absences), but also coming in late and leaving early,” Pollard said. “All of that is really baked into that (messaging) education, and really making sure that our families and our community partners know that it’s going to take a community effort.”
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