As a high school student, I see the effects of what the government calls “chronic absenteeism” on a daily basis, as well as their proposed solutions. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% of the school year. Almost every morning I show up to Spanish and sit in my seat, waiting for the rest of the class to arrive. Every day since the beginning of the year my Spanish teacher has had us sign in if we are even a minute late. Three tardies equal a detention. Month after month, she has enforced this rule, even though we have told her numerous times that this rule is not working, that it shouldn’t matter if we are a minute late a few times, and that most of us can’t control when we arrive at school. We have siblings to take care of, our parents drive us, or there is bad traffic on our way into the school. It’s not our fault that we are late, so why are we the ones being punished?

Rules like these are not specific to one teacher. All of the teachers in the school, and in the district have to follow these rules. Why is this happening? The reason that schools seem to have become so strict about being late or being absent is because of the rise in chronic absenteeism after the pandemic. An article from the White House titled, “Chronic Absenteeism and Disrupted Learning Require an All-Hands-on-Deck Approach'' explains that chronic absenteeism before COVID was about 15%, but now it has nearly doubled to about 30%. This rise in absenteeism has a huge impact on students' learning, causing test scores and grades to drop significantly as a response to the amount of chronic absenteeism.  At my school, if you miss 14 or more days of a full year class you will automatically lose credit, even if you have an A+. Implementation of this rule has led to people missing credits required to graduate and being required to stay after school to make up hours. What is causing all of these students to miss so much school?

One of the main reasons that students do not come to school is a lack of transportation. Many parts of the country have reported driver shortage for buses to get people to school. If you don’t have a ride to school, then how are you supposed to get there? Furthermore, I’m sure many of you have heard about the nationwide teacher shortages. Many students value the connection that they have with their teachers. I know many people that will skip class when there is a substitute because they feel like there is no point in being there. Additionally, there are a myriad of personal reasons that students do not attend school from chronic illness, mental health issues, needing to work, and more. A large part of the problem is that people in charge of attendance think that people just don’t care about coming to school and for the majority of students, that is not true at all. We want to be here, most of us care about our education, and I am in a position where I am able to get to school every day but that is not the case for many of my classmates. 

A part of the problem that I have observed in my own school is the ways that we are trying to combat chronic absenteeism is not working. All the administration does is punish those who don’t show up, or who arrive late. None of these rules are working because as I said earlier, it is not our fault. If the district and the country want real solutions to chronic absenteeism, then they need to look to the root of the issue. They need to ensure that students have a ride to school, provide better mental health services in schools and actually tell people what they are and how to access them. One Richmond public school found that creating meaningful relationships with the families of the students helped to reduce chronic absenteeism. Administration needs to speak with students and families directly to determine the root of the cause and find solutions to those problems instead of just punishing us for things that are out of our control.