Giving Compass' Take:

• John Rice explains how schools can dig into data to understand absenteeism and come up with appropriate solutions - from hygiene to haircuts. 

• How can funders help schools to collect, analyze and act on absenteeism data? 

• Learn about the problem of chronic absenteeism in U.S. schools. 

Can a hand washing campaign aimed at young children help improve school attendance? What about connecting middle schoolers with a barber who will give them a cool haircut, for free? These are among the numerous creative and locally targeted solutions that educators are trying out, guided by digging into student data to address a pressing challenge: chronic absenteeism.

More than eight million students nationwide are chronically absent, typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of school time, or about two days per month. Chronic absence rates tend to be higher among racial/ethnic-minority students and low-income students. The causes of missing school are many and quite varied, but the consequences tend to be consistently negative, according to research summarized by WestEd’s Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) West. Each time a student misses school — whether the absence is excused or unexcused, due to illness, a suspension, or some other reason — schools miss out on teaching and students miss out on learning. Those lost opportunities add up. Chronic absence can lead to lower math and reading achievement by 3rd grade and to lower rates of high school graduation later. A student who is chronically absent during just one year between 8th and 12th grades is seven times more likely to drop out of school.

“Fortunately, though, chronic absence is a problem with really good solutions that many schools, districts, and states are pursuing,” says BethAnn Berliner, a REL West senior researcher and project director at WestEd. Berliner and REL West colleagues have partnered with districts to help educators expand and deepen their use of data to reduce absenteeism.

“We can use data to identify patterns and groups of students who are absent a lot,” says Berliner. “We can then figure out the barriers that get in the way of students’ attending school, and schools can partner with families and community partners to start chipping away at the barriers so kids get what they need in order to come to school every day and be successful. And that’s a pretty good recipe.”

Read the full article about understanding absenteeism by John Rice at WestEd.