In recent months, City Journals has highlighted educators’ response to the Utah State Board of Education and Jordan School District’s attendance initiatives. And while they have developed programs and measured improvement, educated parents and incentivized students there is still a question about what is the root cause of the state's increased rates of chronic absenteeism (defined as two absences per month)?

“We're still trying to figure out what might be at the heart of it,” Jordan School District Health and Wellness Director McKinley Withers said. He said the increased absence trend cannot be traced to one factor. It affects all schools, at all levels and in all communities. Since August, JSD schools have been keeping detailed attendance records to track patterns in students’ absences, both excused and unexcused.

“The schools can drill down into that information very quickly to see and to help them address the absences,” JSD Attendance and Prevention Specialist Michelle Reyes said. “We’re really trying to help the schools and the ones that are working with these students figure out what is the root cause and how we can connect them to some resources to help remove that barrier and get them back into school.”

Parent choice and attendance

Students miss school for a wide variety of reasons but some evidence points to parents’ attitudes about school attendance as a contributing factor of chronic absenteeism. Illness is the most common reason parents keep their child home from school, which schools encourage. However, determining how sick and how long is up to the parent and can vary widely. But parents excuse their child’s absences for other, less universally accepted reasons.

On a social media post, teachers and parents recently discussed what reasons for absences are valid and which are not. A secondary teacher said she is surprised at how many parents excuse their teenager’s absence when they stayed up too late the night before and were too tired to attend. One parent admitted they let their teen skip class if it is a “wasted day” such as a makeup work day or the class has a substitute teacher. Several parents downplayed the worry over absences because students have the opportunity to easily make up the work they missed online. 

Occasionally, families prioritize family time over class time. Students miss school for family vacations, sports competitions, parent lunch dates, family ski days, etc. Reyes said there are parents that keep a child home from school to babysit younger siblings while they are at work, or they allow older children, who contribute to the family’s finances, to miss class when it conflicts with their work hours.

Transportation problems are a common cause of students missing a partial or whole day of school. Cars break down, kids miss the bus after their parents have already left for work and parents keep kids home rather than risk driving in bad weather.

The impact of mental health on attendance

Withers said poor attendance can be rooted in social and mental health challenges, which is why Reyes, with her attendance focus, joined the Wellness Department this year.

“We're trying to bridge all of those resources and consolidate those efforts so that it's all really one thing,” Withers said. “We want your kids to be successful and healthy, and part of that is attendance. Part of being healthy allows for attendance, so it's a really important relationship there.”

Students who experience anxiety and depression often don’t want to go to school, but taking a ‘mental health’ day isn’t usually the best approach, Withers said.

“Usually people are better when they're around others,” he said. “Isolation is what you want to do when you're depressed, but it's typically just going to make it worse. We can do a lot to address that and overcome those barriers, but we don't typically recommend to someone who's really struggling that they just don't come to school because they're struggling.”

JSD mental health employees work with students to address and overcome their mental health barriers and break poor attendance habits.

“Sometimes the problem is perpetuating itself, because students are disengaged from life, they're not coming to school, they're sitting around at home, they're not making a lot of contacts, so that is more likely to just make depression worse,” Withers said. “So I think for the most part, when it comes to mental health, attendance is going to benefit kids.”

JSD school-based therapists, who are mental health professionals, have the skills and resources to address the underlying issues causing students to resist going to school, whether the anxiety is based on mental, social or physical health factors.

School-based therapist Kevin Mossel, LCSW, said it is common for students with mental and physical differences, such as OCD, ADHD, autism or other special needs, to resort to school refusal behaviors. He experienced this struggle as a parent of two children with high functioning autism.

 “My child knew they were different, and everyone else knew they were different, so they would just rather avoid going to school than be noticed by their peers and adults because of this feeling of being different," Mossel said.

Children who are distressed and engage in school avoidance behaviors may be experiencing fear and anxiety associated with bullying and cyberbullying, which Mossel said is a prevalent and widespread problem at both the elementary and secondary level.

“It can be difficult to identify, intervene and resolve this issue,” he said. “There are teachers and administration who try their absolute best to do what they can to manage it and keep all kids safe. Kids nowadays have gotten much better at knowing how to tease, single out, and/or bully other kids without ever getting caught.”

When a child’s reluctance to go to school evolves into arguments and refusal behaviors, which looks like defiance or immature behavior, parents often don’t know how to handle the situation. Knowing school refusal behaviors can be overwhelming for parents, JSD’s student support website provides resources specifically for families dealing with school anxiety and school avoidance behaviors.

In partnership with the Cook Center for Human Connection, JSD also provides mental health education for parents through free virtual videos which address common teenager struggles, such as strong emotions, risky behaviors and social skills. Parents can also get advice in an extensive database of therapists’ advice at parentguidance.org.

Parents can also get support from certified mental health employees at their child’s school.

Heidi Inuyama said school therapists have been a welcome resource for helping her get her daughter, who struggles with social anxiety among other diagnoses, to school every day. Problems began in the third grade, when her daughter resisted going to school. Inuyama said the elementary school staff were very understanding.

“They’re like, ‘We want her to come, even if it's late, so make sure she gets here,’” Inuyama said.

The situation improved when her daughter began middle school and formed a good relationship with the school counselor there.

“I can't literally drag her there—that's not gonna work,” Inuyama said. “I have had to tell her, we can go talk to the counselor. Let's go over there. We'll talk to [the counselor], and then see how you feel.” 

Once she gets in the building and talks with the counselor, her daughter is usually ready to go to class. 

In extreme cases, JSD can arrange in-home therapy.

“The therapist would come to the home and teach and model healthy coping skills and use evidence-based interventions so that they can start practicing them in hopes they will start going to school without crippling feelings of anxiety,” Mossel said.

The lack of consequences

The pandemic changed how people think about school attendance. But even before that, teachers and parents were noticing the lack of consequences for habitual absences. While there is an emphasis and rewards for good attendance, there aren’t the consequences to motivate families like there used to be.

Previously, Mossel worked for DCFS and got involved with the Juvenile Court system when students weren’t attending school. He said back then parents faced consequences and fines when their child was truant, but it’s a different system now.

“Parents are no longer getting in trouble for their kids not attending school and students are also not getting consequences severe enough to motivate them to go,” he said.

The effects of chronic absenteeism

No matter the cause of the absences, the effects of chronic absenteeism are the same. Statistics show a compounding effect on students’ academics in correlation to their attendance. USBE's  website states that “even students with good grades can quickly fall behind academically or socially when they are frequently absent.” According to their statistics, almost 90% of students who miss 15 days a year during their high school years drop out of college. However, increasing attendance just five days a year measurably increases their success in core subjects.

Beyond academics

But the effects of absenteeism go beyond academics. JSD’s attendance awareness campaign emphasizes the ripple effect of a student’s chronic absenteeism. When a student misses class often, they fall behind in understanding the lessons they missed. This creates extra work for teachers to catch them up and can impact the learning environment for the other students in the class. 

Poor attendance habits can also affect a student’s post-high school success. Students’ poor attendance habits follow them into the workforce where they will struggle to keep a job. Furthermore, Reyes said many of the soft skills needed for employment are developed in classrooms. Students who are frequently absent from class miss out on opportunities to develop skills such as collaboration, problem solving, time management and social skills which naturally occur in a classroom.

Vacations are among the reasons kids miss school. (Photo by Naré Gevorgyan on Unsplash)