‘They’re behind in all aspects;’ Utah educators brainstorming ways to boost school attendance

SALT LAKE CITY — According to data from the Utah State Board of Education measuring chronic absenteeism, more Utah students are absent from school than the national average.

According to Utah State Board of Education officials, a student is labeled as chronically absent when they miss 10% or more of the school year. Absences excused by a parent count toward that figure.

“Last year, we were at 26%, which is a slight decrease but still slightly above the national average,” said state board attendance specialist Garrett Russell.

The statistic is based on the 2022-2023 school year. The previous year was 27%.

In the Salt Lake City School District, a student is chronically absent if they miss 18 or more days of school during the year, which averages out to be two days per month.

Salt Lake City and the district are recognizing September as Attendance Awareness Month in order to inform the community of issues with attendance.

“Families face a host of societal factors that explain why a student may be absent, from lack of adequate housing and food insecurity, to lack of access to mental healthcare,” said Mayor Erin Mendenhall.

“For a parent, it might not seem like missing a day or two is a big deal, but it is when it adds up,” added Northwest Middle School Principal Andrea Seminario.

Seminario sees students with lower attendance not progressing as much as their peers.

“It doesn’t only disrupt their learning, it disrupts vital connections with teachers, vital connections with their peers and their school community, and it makes it difficult when they return to school because they’re at a deficit,” she said. “They’re behind in all aspects. And, they tend to have more disciplinary issues. They have difficulty with friendships because they’re not here.”

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Russell said studies show the negative impacts chronic absenteeism has on students.

“Kindergarten through second grade are less likely to read on grade level by third grade, which is where instead of learning to read, we are reading to learn,” he said. “Chronic absent students in the junior high and middle school years tend to have a higher percentage of dropout as they get into the high school grades.”

He said there are many reasons why a student isn’t coming to school as often as they should.

“They could be transportation issues, health issues, a lot of them could just be misconceptions about how we approach school during Covid and how we are out of Covid,” Russell said.

Russell said the board is helping districts reevaluate policies and procedures.

“The barriers that we’re seeing are just a lot,” he said. “There’s not a higher number or percentage based on one.”

Seminario said her school revised its attendance tracking protocol a few years ago when far more students fell into the chronically absent range. Now, 10% of her student population fits into the category.

According to the district, 37% of students living in poverty were chronically absent in Utah in 2022.

“We call our families first to get to the root cause, and after that we set up an appointment with the counselor to figure out what is the root cause,” she said. “Does the kid need an alarm? Do they need a schedule change? Do they need friends? Are they being bullied?”

Seminario said the school’s attendance secretaries also do home visits. She said when families communicate with school administration, it’s typically an easy fix.

“I met with a family today, and it was severe anxiety for that student, and all the student needed was a schedule change,” Seminario said. “They needed friends at their lunch and a couple of classes with some peers.

She said school administrators also set up attendance goals for students, and they’re rewarded when they meet them.

“Sometimes it is, families need an alarm clock so we can wake up and get to school,” Seminario said.

She said transportation to and from school is often a factor that impacts attendance. She said the commute can be a hardship.

“The law is they need to live further than two miles to get school transportation, but some of our families live 1.98 miles away, and that’s a long walk,” Seminario said.

The principal pointed out the school’s bus stop was removed two years ago, forcing kids to walk Redwood Road.

“I know our district is addressing that issue, and hopefully we’ll have that again,” she said.

Some argue the time it takes to walk to and from school is a lot to ask of students.

“Freight trains are often blocking the rails for almost an hour at a time,” said Rio Grande Plan volunteer advocate Andrew Katsohirakis.

Members of the citizen-led Rio Grande Plan argue the east-west divide of the city greatly impacts students.

“You have the west side students that have to get up extremely early in the morning and sit on the bus for a long time, and then when they finally get to school, they’re more tired than they’re east side counterparts,” he said.

The group wants to bury the rails under a new route and reactivate the Rio Grande depot as the central train station. The plan would eliminate several at-grade crossings.

“The physical barrier creates an economic, social and then cultural barrier that really divides us,” Katsohirakis said.

He said students spend a lot of time waiting in traffic to get to and from school, especially students who have to cross the tracks. He pointed out that there are no high schools on the west side of municipal Salt Lake City.

“There are so few bus routes that connect the west side to the east for school kids specifically, and not only are there very few of them, because of the very few safe crossings that there are to get from the east to the west across the rails, the busses have to take very long, circuitous routes to get from the west to east,” he explained.

He said the current system keeps people from getting to appointments, offices, and school on time.

“I don’t think it’s a no-brainer to assume that the fact that their commutes are longer would definitely be adding to multiple instances of students not wanting to come to school that day,” Katsohirakis said.

Russell said state board data and conversations indicate there is no one-size-fits-all solution to chronic absenteeism. He said the board is helping districts reinvent policies and protocols, especially in a post-COVID-19 world.

“I think it has gotten worse after Covid,” Seminario said. “We got a little bit comfortable with being at home, but I want our students and families to know that it is very important for them to come to school.”

Russell said it’s helpful to have communication on what counts as an excused absence and what doesn’t. He visits schools to help them set up plans and add resources to address the problem.

“That is a multiyear process to reevaluate policies and procedures to develop systems and teams, and to engage in that work so that it’s sustainable for the future,” Russell said. “There’s schools that are putting resource hubs in their district and school offices so that families can do laundry, cook meals, have a safe place to come, and that’s turning our schools into community hubs so that people are willing to reengage with them.”

Russell said the Utah Board of Education plans to release its 2023-2024 school year data within the coming weeks.

The Salt Lake City School District said families who need help getting their child to school or accessing healthcare, food, transportation, or clothing can contact their student’s principal to connect with resources.