It’s been more than five years since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, forcing schools to close, and teachers and families to pivot to virtual instruction. While those changes were temporary, the impacts have lingered.
Chronic absenteeism nearly doubled across the country in the year after the pandemic began. And while it’s fallen slightly, it’s still much higher than it was in 2019, posing major challenges to academic recovery.
In a new three-part series exploring chronic absenteeism in the region, WFDD’s Amy Diaz explores how schools are addressing the barriers that prevent students from coming to class, starting with a focus on mental health.
Slowed academic recovery
Kids in North Carolina returned to class about a month ago for the start of a new school year.
Alongside test scores and graduation rates, officials will be closely monitoring another measure: chronic absenteeism.
Last year, about a quarter of students in North Carolina were considered chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% of the school year or more.
That’s more than 50% higher than pre-pandemic levels. And according to Harvard researcher Tom Kane, that’s a bigger problem than people might realize.
“You know, folks nationally have been talking about like, ‘OK, what was the effect of the pandemic on student achievement?’ But I think that misses the point a little bit, because the decline in achievement is at least partially due to things that are continuing now," Kane says. "The rise in absenteeism is a current issue.”
Kane is one of the researchers behind The Education Recovery Scorecard, which tracks how states and districts are progressing since the pandemic.
While it wasn’t the only factor, Kane says districts with higher rates of chronic absenteeism between 2022 and 2024 have seen slower academic improvements, and for obvious reasons.
“What's been happening with the rising chronic absenteeism is a big chunk of students are receiving less instruction, and then for the remaining students, their instruction is being disrupted too, because teachers are having to reteach material for the students that were absent," Kane says.
And trying to catch students up with less instructional time, he says, is like trying to defy the laws of physics.
“I just don't think the school district should expect to recover without getting absenteeism rates back down at least to like 2019 levels."
But to understand how to solve the problem, schools need to know what’s causing the problem — and that can vary.
We’ll start in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County. In the 2022-23 school year, state data shows nearly 40% of students were chronically absent. That dropped the following year to about 32%, but that’s still higher than the state average.
Robin Fisher, the district’s lead school social worker, says there are lots of potential barriers to attendance.
“Everything that's going on in the community, whether it's an increase in gun violence or an increase in housing insecurity, all of those factors impact our families and increase our issues around attendance," Fisher says.
She says schools with a higher population of students in poverty see higher levels of chronic absenteeism. There are clear physical barriers associated with that, like a lack of housing or transportation. But some obstacles are harder to see, like mental health.
School avoidance
Fisher says a big factor in chronic absenteeism is a phenomenon known as “school avoidance,” where a student develops fear around coming to class.
“A fear of failure, a fear of embarrassment, a reluctance to do something that's difficult or uncomfortable," Fisher says. "The more you allow that student to avoid those situations or circumstances that are making them feel bad or feel uncomfortable, the more you reinforce that avoidance of that behavior.”
And the more school a student misses, the harder it is for them to come back, especially when other kids have already formed relationships.
“So that student, when they finally do come back to school, oftentimes feels excluded, through nobody's fault. It's just kind of the norm of group dynamics," Fisher says. "I mean, you have to be there and be present to be part of a community and be engaged in that community.”
Fisher says this has a huge negative impact on students’ interpersonal relationships, and their self-esteem.
And while providing safe and supportive environments at school is crucial, she says research shows parent behavior is the most powerful force when it comes to school avoidance.
While someone might not want to send their child to school when they’re feeling anxious, Fisher says allowing them to skip ingrains that habit of avoidance, rather than helping them overcome their fears.
“Because kids read off of their parents. If they're getting the messages that, ‘Oh no, this is so hard, you can't do this,’ then they're going to believe that about themselves," Fisher says.
Fisher notes that social workers are talking to parents about this and helping them establish incentives at home that support good attendance. That kind of approach is a result of the pandemic.
Planting seeds
When absences soared, Fisher says the district rewrote its attendance policies and moved from a punitive, truancy approach to a “chronic absenteeism lens.”
“It has shifted our focus away from just punishing families when they're in violation of compulsory attendance law, to really doing more of a problem-solving approach with them early on, to address whatever the barriers are that are contributing to poor attendance,” she says.
The district’s attendance manual lists several types of effective strategies that schools can implement to mitigate absenteeism, too. Like offering mentorship programs, opening food and clothing pantries and doing more regular outreach with parents about attendance.
Sheila Thorp is the district’s director of school social work. She says all of these measures are ways of doing one key thing.
“It's creating relationships and maintaining relationships, whether that's with the parent, with the students, with the community," Thorp says. "Relationships matter tremendously. That's where you get trust.”
And Thorp has seen it work. She remembers taking a chronically absent student to meet with a juvenile court counselor one day, years ago.
“And she saw a car seat in my car, and she's like, ‘You have a daughter?’ I'm like, ‘Yes, I have a daughter.’ And at that time, I was a single parent, and I said, ‘I'm a single mom,’ because her mother was a single mother," Thorp says.
Thorp kept meeting with the student, and her attendance improved.
“Sometimes you are simply planting seeds that you don't know when they're going to grow."
Despite the obstacles, the student turned things around.
“In fact, she called me one day trying to walk to school to say, ‘I'm not going to be able to get there.’ I picked her up that day," Thorp says. "That's not something we do all the time, but I was able to do that."
Years later, Thorp says that student came back to the school to find her. She’d gotten her GED and was now in the radiology program at Forsyth Technical Community College.
While school officials can’t fix all of the barriers that make it hard for kids to come to class, they can help students feel safe, engaged and cared for when they do. And that can go a long way.