BALTIMORE — Children out of school is a long-standing problem in Baltimore. But new data obtained by The Baltimore Sun and FOX45 shows absenteeism in city schools is more dire than previously known — with thousands of students missing a third, a half or most of the school year.
Data shows that about 11% of students in Baltimore City – more than 8,000 of the 75,000 students – missed 60 or more days of school in the 2022-2023 school year. About 3,500 of those students were away for 90 days or more, which is half the school year. About 1,500 students were absent for 120 days or more.
Missing even 18 days of school – the definition of “chronic absenteeism” according to the Maryland State Department of Education – can harm a student academically, not to mention 60 days. Nearly half of Baltimore City students were chronically absent by 2023. The approximately 49% of students absent that year was a slight improvement from the 54% the year before.
“If a student is not in school, they will definitely fall behind in their work, and it will really affect their ability to succeed in the classroom because they will miss class time,” said Baltimore City Principal Stacy Place Tosé. Public schools.
Previous reports show that most city school students who miss more than 60 days of school are still promoted to the next grade.
The Sun and FOX45 obtained the new data through a lawsuit against city schools that was settled earlier this week. The lawsuit was filed by Jovani Patterson, a former City Council candidate and parent of a former Baltimore public school student. The lawsuit was financially supported by David Smith, co-owner of The Sun and executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, FOX45’s parent company.
The new data showing not only chronic but also “extreme” absenteeism is distressing, says Robert Balfanz, head of the Everyone Graduates Center and professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. At the same time, he said the data is not necessarily surprising, as the national rate of chronic absenteeism has doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why is absenteeism so high?
In the 2022-2023 school year, there were 8,364 students who were absent for 60 days or more. The numbers were even worse last year, when 10,478 students missed at least 60 days.
Apart from the consequences of the pandemic, there are many causes of absenteeism, according to Tosé. Sometimes students have problems finding transportation. Some have family-related problems, such as caring for their younger siblings, parents or grandparents. Others have chronic illnesses, doctor appointments, or struggle with “community factors” that make them feel unsafe going to school.
Some children have to take care of their own — even in middle school, says Chris Schulze, a former teacher at Beechfield Elementary/Middle School in southwest Baltimore. Other times the question is whether the student wants to go to school.
“For a lot of them, they didn’t see the value of education because it hadn’t really benefited them or their families in the past,” Schulze said. “So there was just a choice: ‘Hey, I don’t want to spend my time here.'”
Poverty is a key factor, said Carl Felton, a policy analyst at EdTrust and a former employee of Baltimore City Public Schools. About half of the city’s students are considered low-income, and children in poverty are two to three times more likely to be chronically absent than other students, he said.
Asked about the more extreme cases of absenteeism, Tosé said the school system is focused on “every child” who is absent. But the more extreme cases raise even deeper questions about why students can’t go to school, she said.
“I don’t think anyone wakes up and says, ‘My child isn’t going to school today,’” she said. “And we really tried to find out why the students are not coming to school. For example, what is the root?”
In the meantime, the question of who should be held responsible for the high absenteeism due to illness is not easy to answer.
“The question of blame is a difficult issue,” says Nat Malkus, who, as deputy director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, researches national trends in chronic absenteeism. “What is more important is determining who should take responsibility for reversing this trend. I think districts have a clear role to play, but they can’t do it alone, and if families’ behavior is keeping students at home…then we have to make sure families are part of the solution. ”
What is the school system doing to reduce absenteeism?
Each school has an “attendance team” tasked with assessing attendance numbers and finding ways to help children get to school, Tosé said.
At the district level, there are “attendance pop-up shops” and an Office of Student Conduct and Attendance, which includes a director and coordinator to support individual schools, she said.
“Attendance is everyone’s business in the school district,” Tosé said.
The school district sends out a daily robocall for students who are absent, followed by a call from the school attendance monitor. If students are absent for an extended period of time, letters, emails and requests for parent conferences will follow, Tosé said.
Students who cannot physically attend school have a virtual option, she said. Others who have to work during the day can attend evening school in person.
There are also school staff who help students if they need to move to a new school, in addition to salespeople who make home visits to determine why students are absent.
“Sometimes it seems like there is an empty house, or that there is no one left,” says Tosé. If a child can be located, the school will continue to encourage them to come to school. If not, the child will be deregistered, she said.
Mayor Brandon Scott, in an emailed statement to The Sun, mentioned his “Attendance Challenge,” which periodically highlights schools that have improved their attendance numbers.
“While we continue to deal with many of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the district are improving their attendance by establishing attendance teams to provide case management and daily assistance to students struggling with absenteeism,” said he. “The work of getting all our young people to school every day continues – and that’s a job for all of us, not just headteachers and teachers, but also parents, carers, neighbors and students.”
Tough love or timely intervention?
Should students be moved to the next grade if they are chronically absent from school and not academically ready to progress?
On the one hand, promoting them means it will be difficult for them to catch up academically. On the other hand, repeating a grade may not help much if they remain absent from school or do not receive additional learning assistance, experts told The Sun.
According to new data obtained by The Sun and FOX45, the majority of city school students who are absent from school for more than 60 days will be moved to the next grade. The data shows that 62% of all students who missed 60 days or more in the 2022-2023 school year were able to move on to the next grade, along with 39% of children who missed at least 90 days of school and 24% of children who missed 120 days of school. missed days of school.
When high school students, who must complete a certain number of credits to graduate, are excluded, the data shows that more than 95% of preschool, middle, and elementary school students advanced to the next grade despite missing 60, 90 or 120 days. or more from school.
Absences do not factor into the city’s grading policy, Tosé said. The school system’s practice is that children are not restrained more than once in their primary school years, and not more than once in their secondary school years, and that a student receives additional support if he or she is restrained.
“We’re not going to keep a child in third grade three times. That is not conducive to the child,” Tosé said.
A lot of research on retention shows it doesn’t work, says Kalman Hettleman, a former member of the Baltimore City school board and the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education.
“Kids usually get a second year of the same thing,” he said. “You can’t have a kid who’s fourteen years old and has a beard in the second grade.”
He noted that social promotion is also unpopular.
“Nobody thinks retention is a good thing. No one thinks social promotion is a good thing,” he said. The only thing that works are “timely interventions,” such as tutoring students who struggle with reading and math, he said.
Student retention was recently discussed at the state level. Some members of the Maryland State Board of Education disagreed with a proposal to keep students in third grade if they couldn’t read at grade level. A revised version of the proposal recently passed and allows parents to opt out of retention for their students.
While some believe retaining students will help them take school more seriously, others say a “tough love” approach only works for a fraction of children, said Balfanz, the Johns Hopkins professor.
“You would probably see a little improvement, but you wouldn’t fundamentally change the dynamic,” he said.
Some absent students do catch up on their schoolwork
Some high school students are able to make up school credits despite being absent most of the year, according to an affidavit from Chief Achievement and Accountability Officer Theresa Jones in the recently settled lawsuit against city schools.
Of the 160 high school students who were promoted despite missing at least 120 days of the 2022-2023 school year, at least 99 of those students earned college credits through one of the school’s credit recovery programs, Jones said. That includes after-school programs, Saturday school and summer school.
Jones also noted that some high school students who have maintained their grades despite high absenteeism, are on an individual education plan due to a disability, are absent due to “high mobility” due to homelessness or state-run care, are pregnant or are elderly, or have been hospitalized or are being treated for a serious illness.
“City Schools’ significant, resource-intensive and often costly efforts to address the unique circumstances of some of our neediest student populations have been mandated by federal and state law, rather than evidence of any illegal action,” Jones wrote in the affidavit declaration.
Of all the high school students who missed 120 days in the 2022-2023 school year, only 160 students passed, compared to the 1,185 who did not.
Truancy court: the school system’s last resort
In some cases, chronic absenteeism is resolved through truancy court, which Tosé described as a “last resort.”
Last year, the school system received more than 1,000 truancy court referrals. But not all referrals ultimately end up in court, says Tosé. First, the school tries different ways to increase student attendance. But if the family does not respond and attendance does not improve, the case is sent to the Public Prosecution Service.
Tosé said the school system is working to “reinvent” truancy court as a place that supports families.
“We don’t want it to be a punishment because again, we want people to come to school,” Tosé said. “We want them to feel good about coming to school and have a positive experience.”
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