Soaring numbers of high school students are failing classes or are considered “chronically absent” this school year, leading to a nationwide push by educators to track down and engage older students they fear might not reach graduation after a year disrupted by the pandemic. A...
Schools should be encouraged by state education agencies to take daily attendance during online and hybrid learning, says Attendance Works Executive Director Hedy Chang in a recent interview with FutureEd’s Phyllis Jordan. The pair discussed a new Attendance Works report focused on state attendance policies...
A new set of recommendations from the California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission says schools in the state should become community-based “wellness centers” that coordinate mental and other health services through new partnerships with local and regional nonprofit providers. The commission sites a...
A new study from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA describes how middle and high school students in 28 U.S. school districts lost more than a year of learning due to suspension, reports Linda Jacobson for the 74 Million. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act,...
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...
Researchers and advocates are calling on districts to implement better attendance tracking systems for the upcoming school year. While they note that though “it wasn’t realistic to expect districts to develop and implement perfect attendance systems immediately after the pandemic hit,” such data will be...
A recent piece in Education Week highlights the various ways in which different states, districts, and schools are monitoring and tracking attendance in light of nationwide school closures due to the coronavirus. While “the federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to report chronic absence...
As Phyllis W. Jordan writes for FutureEd, the spread of coronavirus and the need for social distancing is posing serious challenges for states that use chronic absenteeism as a factor for determining school performance and accountability. “Currently, 36 states and the District of Columbia use...
The Department of Education (DOE) released guidance last week for schools closing in response to the spread of COVID-19. As more schools implement a minimum two-week closure, DOE says “it will consider providing states with one-year waivers of assessment requirements” mandated under ESSA. Specifically, DOE...
According to data presented to the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) board last week, “chronic absenteeism was set to increase by nearly 3%,” raising concerns among district officials. According to Ted Dwyer, chief of data, research, assessment and accountability for PPS, chronically absent students—those who miss...
