Giving Compass' Take:

· Education Dive addresses the issues associated with chronic absenteeism and explains how the Orleans Parish School Board is partnering with the community to reduce these numbers. 

· What factors contribute to students being chronically absent? How can schools provide students with resources to reduce chronic absenteeism?

· Here's more on reducing chronic absenteeism. 

Across the country, chronic absenteeism has been deemed a crisis in education, according to a recent document released by the U.S. Department of Education. While educators and school administrators are working to make improvements to school programs, acquire more educational technology and revamp curriculum, these changes have little impact if students are not in the classroom consistently enough to benefit from them. And this absenteeism, experts say, not only affects student achievement and graduation rates, but it can also set students up for failure in adulthood.

As school districts delve into absenteeism data, numerous reasons emerge to account for this growing trend, though these issues vary in relevance from one community to another. In addition to student health and mental healthconcerns, housing instability is a growing factor and is the largest predictor of chronic absenteeism, according to a recent study. The opioid crisis is also having a growing impact, as more parents deal with the issue and some students are affected as well. In addition, some absenteeism results from school bullying or from embarrassment, because of things like students not having access to clean clothes.

Read the full article about chronic absenteeism by Amelia Harper at Education Dive.