Students at Bessemer Elementary School don’t have to go far to see a doctor. If they’re feeling sick, they can walk in to the school’s health clinic, log on to a computer, and connect with a pediatrician or a family medicine provider. After the doctor prescribes treatment, students can in many cases go straight back to class – instead of having to go home.

The telemedicine program was launched in fall 2021 by Guilford County Public Schools, North Carolina’s third largest school district, as a way to combat chronic absenteeism. The number of students missing 10 or more days of school soared in the district – and nationally – during the pandemic, and remains high in many places.

Piloted at Bessemer, the program has gradually expanded to 15 of the district’s Title I schools, high-poverty schools where families may lack access to health care. Along with other efforts aimed at stemming chronic absenteeism, the telemedicine program is helping, said Superintendent Whitney Oakley. The chronic absenteeism rate at Bessemer fell from 49 percent in 2021-2022 to 37 percent last school year, an improvement though still higher than the district would like.

“It really doesn’t matter how great a teacher is or how strong instruction is, if kids aren’t in school, we can’t do our job,” she said.

Oakley said district administrators focused on health care access because they were seeing parents pull all their children out of school if one was sick and had to visit the doctor. Rates of chronic absenteeism were also higher in areas where families historically lacked access to routine medical care and had to turn to the emergency room for non-emergency health care needs.

The telemedicine clinic is also a way to relieve the burden on working parents, Oakley said: Many parents in the district’s Title I schools work hourly wage jobs and rely on public transportation, making it difficult to pick up a sick child at school quickly.

Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that combats chronic absenteeism, said that early research indicates that telehealth can improve attendance. According to one study of three rural districts in North Carolina that was released in January, school-based telemedicine clinics reduced the likelihood that a student was absent by 29 percent, and the number of days absent by 10 percent.

Some districts are also turning to virtual teletherapy services to fight chronic absenteeism. Stephanie Taylor, a former school psychologist who is now vice president of clinical innovation at teletherapy provider Presence, says the company’s work has expanded from 1,600 schools to more than 4,000 in recent years as the need for mental health services grows. Therapy can help kids cope with emotional issues that might keep them from attending school, she said, and virtual services give students more choice of counselors and a greater chance of finding someone with whom they mesh.

Read the full article about chronic absenteeism by Javeria Salman at The Hechinger Report .