Chronic Absenteeism in APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, the lesson of the pandemic is that in-person school matters a lot, as evidenced by all of these outcomes. The message of COVID sent by our leadership is that school is not that big a deal and lost learning can be made up easily down the line.



Yes, this is a huge problem. When APS said coming to school didn't matter, parents believed them. I can understand a parent thinking oh well, they didn't make kids go to school for almost 2 years so I guess my kid doesn't really need to be there, they can just read the assignment on canvas. It's the same thing.

if APS wants to fix the issue, they need to come out and admit the mistake of keeping schools closed, apologize and begin a campaign to get kids back to school.

Oh, c'mon. It's time to stop blaming everything on the schools and the pandemic. Look at the numbers--the SA schools are experiencing MUCH higher absentee numbers than NA schools. That would indicate that something else is wrong, correct? If it was just the pandemic causing this, the numbers would be low across the board.

The problem has more to do with SES. There needs to be more outreach to immigrant and low-income families so school expectations are understood--that education is critical to student futures and that parents understand the direct link between grades and absenteeism. In some cases, students are not attending school because they are expected to care for younger siblings or other family members. Perhaps the bloated equity office should take this on--more home visits, etc. to provide information to families in their home languages. The schools themselves are overwhelmed, having only one social worker and a limited number of counselors to do this work.

No it is the pandemic unless you can find another reason for 50%-100% jumps in absenteeism across the board between 2019 and 2023. Just because SA schools are experiencing it more doesn't mean the pandemic has nothing to do with it.

Then why did the numbers jump from 2021 to now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ and that parents understand the direct link between grades and absenteeism. ”

I mean, this might be effective for high school age kids, but elementary kids literally don’t even get grades anymore. I’d try a different angle to convince parents school is important.

But the PP is right that APS should apologize, or at least acknowledge what happened during the pandemic re: schools, attitudes, etc. Maybe show families studies of how much no school screwed things you for kids. How can they espouse the importance of school attendance with a straight face after 2020-2021 otherwise?

No, APS shouldn’t “apologize”. WTF?

"We are so very sorry that we took measures to protect the lives and health of our students and staff, and that inconvenienced you. We apologize for doing the best we could to provide access to instruction virtually during a once in a lifetime event."

Feel better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Weirdly I just looked at this same numbers! You mention a few schools but I think all APS schools have higher rates since the pandemic. No idea why the pandemic would change that. I just googled it and it is a nation-wide phenomenon. This article says that some reasons are, poor student mental health, staffing shortages, transportation issues, and housing instability. But also the pandemic fractured relationships between schools and parents, and parents got used to the idea that school doesn't have to be in-person from 9-3 every day. Interesting stuff.

https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/missing-students-chronic-absenteeism/index.html

My kids aren’t in those schools but another local district. We had the hardest time with our oldest last year. Think of it like adults who didn’t want to go back to the office full time when they got used to working remotely- same thing. There are lots of reasons for absenteeism and/or school refusal but one for older teens is that they don’t see the value of sitting there in a room all day when it’s all online. We didn’t have this with our younger kids who wanted to go back. Our oldest is happier this year, with a modified schedule where he can sleep in and then take some classes virtually. He’s still completely his classes and we don’t have to deal with school refusal. It took us a while to understand his point of view, but then again, DH works from home and can’t imagine going back to the office daily either.

I can buy this argument for teens. But many of the schools at the top of the list for absenteeism are elementary schools. This is a failure of parents to do the bare minimum to ensure that their children get an education. The numbers show that nearly 30% of economically disadvantaged kids in APS are chronically absent, while only 7.5% of white kids are. How on earth is the achievement gap suppose to be closed with numbers like this? No homework or grading policy will ever be able to make up the difference.

How does this data show what % of each student demographic category is absent? What am I missing?

Clearly chronic absenteeism is a bigger problem outside of the wealthiest part of Arlington. But it doesn't correlate to race or economic status based on these #s. If it did, Carlin Springs, historically around 80% FRL and majority hispanic, should be at the top. Instead, it's a mere 12.84%. Compare that to Randolph, the next highest FRL school in the County, at 21.76%. Barcroft, typically in the 60% range for FRL and more diverse, is at 15%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, the lesson of the pandemic is that in-person school matters a lot, as evidenced by all of these outcomes. The message of COVID sent by our leadership is that school is not that big a deal and lost learning can be made up easily down the line.



Yes, this is a huge problem. When APS said coming to school didn't matter, parents believed them. I can understand a parent thinking oh well, they didn't make kids go to school for almost 2 years so I guess my kid doesn't really need to be there, they can just read the assignment on canvas. It's the same thing.

if APS wants to fix the issue, they need to come out and admit the mistake of keeping schools closed, apologize and begin a campaign to get kids back to school.

Oh, c'mon. It's time to stop blaming everything on the schools and the pandemic. Look at the numbers--the SA schools are experiencing MUCH higher absentee numbers than NA schools. That would indicate that something else is wrong, correct? If it was just the pandemic causing this, the numbers would be low across the board.

The problem has more to do with SES. There needs to be more outreach to immigrant and low-income families so school expectations are understood--that education is critical to student futures and that parents understand the direct link between grades and absenteeism. In some cases, students are not attending school because they are expected to care for younger siblings or other family members. Perhaps the bloated equity office should take this on--more home visits, etc. to provide information to families in their home languages. The schools themselves are overwhelmed, having only one social worker and a limited number of counselors to do this work.

No it is the pandemic unless you can find another reason for 50%-100% jumps in absenteeism across the board between 2019 and 2023. Just because SA schools are experiencing it more doesn't mean the pandemic has nothing to do with it.

Then why did the numbers jump from 2021 to now?

I have my theories that have to do with the pandemic, but what is your theory for the jump? Was there a massive jump in the proportion of low SES kids at these school during that year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Weirdly I just looked at this same numbers! You mention a few schools but I think all APS schools have higher rates since the pandemic. No idea why the pandemic would change that. I just googled it and it is a nation-wide phenomenon. This article says that some reasons are, poor student mental health, staffing shortages, transportation issues, and housing instability. But also the pandemic fractured relationships between schools and parents, and parents got used to the idea that school doesn't have to be in-person from 9-3 every day. Interesting stuff.

https://projects.apnews.com/features/2023/missing-students-chronic-absenteeism/index.html

My kids aren’t in those schools but another local district. We had the hardest time with our oldest last year. Think of it like adults who didn’t want to go back to the office full time when they got used to working remotely- same thing. There are lots of reasons for absenteeism and/or school refusal but one for older teens is that they don’t see the value of sitting there in a room all day when it’s all online. We didn’t have this with our younger kids who wanted to go back. Our oldest is happier this year, with a modified schedule where he can sleep in and then take some classes virtually. He’s still completely his classes and we don’t have to deal with school refusal. It took us a while to understand his point of view, but then again, DH works from home and can’t imagine going back to the office daily either.

I can buy this argument for teens. But many of the schools at the top of the list for absenteeism are elementary schools. This is a failure of parents to do the bare minimum to ensure that their children get an education. The numbers show that nearly 30% of economically disadvantaged kids in APS are chronically absent, while only 7.5% of white kids are. How on earth is the achievement gap suppose to be closed with numbers like this? No homework or grading policy will ever be able to make up the difference.

How does this data show what % of each student demographic category is absent? What am I missing?

Clearly chronic absenteeism is a bigger problem outside of the wealthiest part of Arlington. But it doesn't correlate to race or economic status based on these #s. If it did, Carlin Springs, historically around 80% FRL and majority hispanic, should be at the top. Instead, it's a mere 12.84%. Compare that to Randolph, the next highest FRL school in the County, at 21.76%. Barcroft, typically in the 60% range for FRL and more diverse, is at 15%.

If this was an easy problem to solve, it would have been solved already. It may be that there are multiple reasons for poor attendance. Also, what kinds of things are Carlin springs and Barcroft doing to promote attendance? Maybe these are success stories that could be imitated by other schools.

[Anonymous]

This does not seem like it will be helped by closing some of the elementary schools in the top half of this list for 1-2 years to renovate and expecting kids to be bussed to the other side of the county for "swing space".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This does not seem like it will be helped by closing some of the elementary schools in the top half of this list for 1-2 years to renovate and expecting kids to be bussed to the other side of the county for "swing space".

Nicely done. You inserted your agenda item into a completely irrelevant post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This does not seem like it will be helped by closing some of the elementary schools in the top half of this list for 1-2 years to renovate and expecting kids to be bussed to the other side of the county for "swing space".

Maybe kids will be more excited to go to a school building that doesn’t suck and had proper HVAC. I worked at one of the schools likely due for renovation and it was quite bad at times

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think one reason for the additional absences is that people are more aware that they should stay home (or keep their kids home) when they are stick, like until 24 hours after you vomited, had diarrhea, or started antibiotics, etc.

Yes plus there is a LOT of illness going around. There's a lot of Covid and a lot of other illnesses. Covid has been demonstrated to impact immunity so kids get sick more after getting it. It has also been demonstrated to cause a whole host of chronic health conditions that also cause more absences.

This is staring us in the fact but it's all political and there are so many Covid deniers that i'm sure i'll be flamed for even raising this.

And before the pandemic you would have said all those parents couldn't wait to drop their kids off at school even though there is some much illness going around and their kids has symptoms. You would have said all those parents want is free babysitting or something similar.

No one is denying Covid. But you are denying the reality that illness has nothing to do with the chronic absenteeism issue in APS.

Goodness! In the same breath you claim that you're not a Covid denier but also claim illness has nothing to do with chronic absenteeism. Go look up the Covid levels (we're in a surge) and the long term health impacts of Covid. Or stick your head back in the sand and enjoy denialism.

oh shut up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This does not seem like it will be helped by closing some of the elementary schools in the top half of this list for 1-2 years to renovate and expecting kids to be bussed to the other side of the county for "swing space".

Maybe kids will be more excited to go to a school building that doesn’t suck and had proper HVAC. I worked at one of the schools likely due for renovation and it was quite bad at times

Maybe, or more likely- kid misses the bus or has to go to the doctor, and mom says, I have no way to get you to school before work, guess you’re staying home today.

[Anonymous]

Where do we get the stats on chronic teacher absenteeism to compare to the student absenteeism?

[Anonymous]

I work at one of the schools mentioned and parents are not keeping their kids home due to illness. We have kids that should be home they are so sick with horrific coughs etc, but are sent anyway. They are missing school due to long weekend trips and vacations. No one thinks twice about having their kid miss school for that reason. Not sure what the solution is because an unexcused absence doesn’t scare anyone into changing the behavior.

[Anonymous]

We heard from the Hispanic community during the pandemic that the expanded wall zones are an issue. They have trouble getting kids to school, likely related to not having cars and needing to go to work themselves. I wonder if there is a correlation between the walk zones and absenteeism.

[Anonymous]

They should kick those kids out of regular schools and have them go to “Advanced Absenteeism programs”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where do we get the stats on chronic teacher absenteeism to compare to the student absenteeism?

You won't, because there's no comparison.