Pandemic Closures and Virtual Learning Complicate Policies on Attendance
September 25, 2020
This in-depth look at the progression of attendance policies in recent times details how, following the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, 36 states and the District of Columbia chose to use attendance as non-academic measures of success in their state accountability plans. With the disruption brought by the COVID-19 pandemic complicating what it means to simply take attendance, a slew of states have begun updating their policies on attendance, representing a sharp shift away from “punitive” policies that were more common prior to the need for virtual learning.