1. Chronic Absence in the Early Grades
A Closer Look at New York City and Baltimore
February 10, 2009

2. Webinar Agenda
Welcome from the Coalition for Community Schools, Marty Blank, Director
In depth look into Early Chronic Absence –
National Perspective
Local Perspectives
New York, NY
Baltimore, MD

3. What is Chronic Early Absence?
Chronic early absence occurs when K-3rd graders miss 10% or more days (nearly a month) during a school year including excused and unexcused absences.
National research found this level of absenteeism was associated with lower academic performance. 3

4. Why Does It Matter?
Consistent attendance starting in the early grades is critical to gaining the social and academic skills essential to school success.
Chronic absence in kindergarten predicts lower academic achievement in 1st grade for all child and the lowest achievement 5th graders living in poverty.
Chronic early absence can reach high levels locally – as high as 25% district wide or half of all the children in a particular elementary school.
If children miss extended periods of school in their first years, they are unlikely to learn to read so they can read to learn by 4th grade. 4

5. Why Does It Matter (Cont.)?
The experience of regularly attending children is adversely affected when teachers must divert their attention to meet the needs of chronically absent children when they return to school.
Chronic early absence could be a critical tool for identifying troubled children, families or educational institutions early on before problems are more difficult to ameliorate. 5

6. Why is It Often Overlooked?
Schools typically only track data on attendance and truancy (unexcused absence).
It is easily hidden by typically high elementary school attendance rates.
School data systems underestimate prevalence of chronic absence because they do not electronically track absences for individual children.
Communities may be less concerned that young children will cause trouble if they miss school. 6

7. What Contributes to Chronic Early Absence?
Factors vary and can be related to what is happening in:
-Schools
-Families
-Communities 7

8. How Can Chronic Early Absence Be Addressed?
Through family, school & community partnerships that:
Address the factors contributing to chronic early absence in their community
Maintain a sustained focus on attendance over time.
Begin early when children are entering school or before.
Take a comprehensive approach combining universal and targeted strategies.
Offer positive supports before punitive responses. 8

9. Encourage families to help each other attend school
Engage families of all backgrounds in their children’s education
Offer incentives for attendance to all children
Early outreach to families with poor attendance, and as appropriate, case management to address social, medical, economic and academic needs
Coordinated public agency and, if needed, legal response for families in crisis
Targeted
Prepare children for school through quality early care and education experiences
Offer a high quality education responsive to diverse learning needs
Ensure access to preventative health care, especially as children enter school
Educate parents about the importance of attendance
Encourage families to help each other attend school
Universal 9

10. Instructive Example #1: New York City
Presented by: Kim Nauer, Education Project Director of the Schools Watch Initiative at The Center for New York City Affairs 10

11. Chronic Absence in NYC: Dramatic Findings in 2008 Study
The Center for New York City Affairs at The New School analyzed individual student attendance data citywide with a focus on elementary students. The prevalence of chronic absenteeism in grades K-5 shocked school officials and the broader public.
One of every five students in grades K-5 was chronically absent. And this number was as high as one in every three students in the poorest neighborhoods.

12. Citywide: Absenteeism Most Intense in Poor Neighborhoods

13. The Individual Student Analysis Revealed an “Invisible” Problem
New York City’s Department of Education (DOE) monitors school-wide attendance numbers.
Principals and officials also see attendance alerts when a student is missing for 10 consecutive days or 20 days over a 40 day period.
Both numbers mask the problem.

14. NYC PK-12 Trends Similar to Other Inner-City School Systems

15. Sporadic Absences Over the Year Add Up to Big Numbers
Individual absences were generally unremarkable to principals. They were shocked at how the days add up so quickly for students.
Corrosive effects in the classroom – and on achievement.
“A quiet problem that drives a lot of noisy problems.”

16. NYC: What’s Happening Today
DOE alerting principals earlier with lists of kids who are building absences.
DOE targeting 75 schools with highest chronic absence rates.
DOE working closely with principals to identify issues driving absenteeism – these change from school to school.

17. Instructive Example #2: Baltimore, MD
Presented by: Rachel E. Durham, Assistant Research Scientist at CSOS with the Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC)
and
Charmayne Little, Community Schools Coordinator, Baltimore Public Schools 17

18. How is ‘Chronic Absence’ Defined?
We defined Chronic Absence at two levels:
‘Chronically Absent’: attending school between 79% and 88% of the total days they were on the school’s rolls. (If there are 178 days in the school year, this is missing 20 days total.)
‘Severely Chronically Absent’: attending school less than 79% of the total days on roll. (Or, that is missing 40 or more days of school per year.)

19. Who are the students we are examining?
All students in first grade in all schools in BCPSS in school year
This group originally included 9,176 students.
2. All student in sixth grade in all schools in BCPSS in school year
This group originally included 8,560 students.
These students were followed from through
to examine attendance and school outcomes
over several years.

20. Examining Attendance Over Time and at the Individual Level
Even when average daily attendance rates at a school are fairly high, some students may still be missing significant amounts of school.

21. *1st grade
*Grade level assumes on-time promotion. Not all were promoted each year.

22. Of those who were chronically absent, how many years were they showing this kind of absenteeism?
About 51% of these students were chronically absent in only one year between and
Almost 50% of these students were chronically absent in two or more years…. 

24. Remedy the Absence Problem Early
Since some students are chronically absent year after year, identifying the obstacles to getting to school early in their school careers may prevent later frustrations with school and additional years of chronic absence.
The levels of chronic absence in the early years of school seem to predict later chronic absence in middle and high school.

25. *1st gr
3rd gr
4th gr
5th gr
6th gr
7th gr
8th gr
9th gr
10th gr 25

26. 26

27. Over a 5 year period, how many total days of school do these students who are chronically absent over the years actually miss during middle and high school?
Number of years Chronically Absent
Average number of Days Absent from to 1 76 2
118 3
164 4
215 5
281
The bottom line: Missing so many days of school will undoubtedly affect academic progress, and a student’s chances of graduation.

28. Students starting sixth grade in would be on-time 12th graders in Based on their rates of chronic absence in (on-time 9th grade), what were their final outcomes in ?

29. Baltimore’s Results Areas
Baltimore’s Community Schools Initiative focuses on three result areas:
Parental Involvement and Community Engagement
School Climate and School Safety
Attendance
Briefly describe how we decided these area – essentially all community schools principals, site coordinators, community members, parents and students in each school expressed that increased attendance and decreased truancy was a major issue for them. There was a results workgroup convened to look at indicators and outcomes.

30. Traditional Community Schools Supports
School improvement team
Attendance subcommittee
Professional development
Knowing & understanding attendance procedures
Student Support Team
Referrals for additional supports when necessary
Issues surrounding these supports include: the subcommittee is usually chaired by another staff member that just do not have the time to devote to attendance considering other responsibilities. In this case, attendance falls by the waist side and the committee falls with it
Professional development – this is good, provided there is a designated staff member that focuses on attendance. Often times there is an attendance monitor that is a para professional and may not understand the procedures, teachers may not follow the procedures or there. Only one
Student Support Team – If operable, this team is reactive to absenteeism. Students are referred to this team after they have already been labeled chronically absence. The good thing about this team though is that they will address the issues and put some supports in place

31. Addressing Attendance in the Box
Using data - average daily attendance
Incentives - student based, perfect or good attendance awards, etc.
Being reactive to absenteeism
ADA – Average Daily Attendance – only looking at the data in terms of how many students come to school each day
Student attendance – only looking at incentives for the students and of only awards and certificates
Being re-active – addressing individual needs after the fact when their attendance is chronic opposed to being proactive and putting measures in place to address issues early.

32. Looking at Attendance Outside the Box
Integration of the three results areas
Using data to help drive strategies
Creating a educational “campaign” around attendance and it’s importance
Involving all stakeholders in the process
Integration of result areas – begin looking at attendance and how that other two areas can be supported at the same time.
Looking at the data in subcategories – by grade level and really zeroing in on where the absence exist and then put strategies and activities in place to support attendance proactively before it becomes early chronic absence.
Looking at educating everyone around the importance of attendance, getting young people, their parents and all other stakeholders involved to understand the implications of students not being in school regularly.
Thinking about the entire community supporting attendance, this is not just an issue of the school and the parents.

33. New Strategies
Education – educating parents and students on the importance of attending school
Creating school infrastructures – collaborating the all school staff to assure immediate interventions
Data - providing strategies at each grade level using what the data tells us.

34. New Innovative Activities
Getting kids excited about coming to school:
"adopt a kid" (advisory)
greet them as they come in & say goodbye when they leave
reward good behavior with surprise praise and "happy notes"
provide exciting inviting after school opportunities
providing incentives for parents

35. New Innovative Activities
Engage and provide incentives for parents:
provide bags of groceries
create parent support groups
create contingency plans before absences get out of hand
work with parents to create safe passages to and from school
make sure parents are aware of the attendance policies
Maryland Food Bank Partnership
Surveys found that parents actually need support in getting their children to school

36. Additional Ideas
Circulate a list of best practices from other schools/principals/CS sites
Market support services to students and families available at school and in community
Safe Passages working with the community
Work closely with community police to bring truants and talk with them about the importance of coming to school
Truancy Court

37. Baltimore’s Attendance Workgroup
The attendance workgroup is a collaborative effort among City Schools, local and state government agencies, universities, foundations, community organizations, parents and students to understand and make recommendations around those obstacles that prevent students from attending school and to promote policies, practices and programs that support a culture of students attending school regularly.
This group is hosted by OSI, City Schools and the Mayor’s office and is staff by ACLU.
First thing that this group did was a survey to determine all the groups in the City that are working on attendance so that they could invite them to the workgroup and collaborate with them.
Workgroups that have been formed are
Community schools is one of those groups and therefore will help inform the work of this group from the community perspective.
ACLU – American Civil Liberties Union
Workgroup chaired by the Office of Student Support and Office of the Mayor in partnership with OSI and is staff by ACLU.

38. Contact Information
Hedy N. Chang, Co-Author, Present, Engaged & Accounted For,
Kim Nauer, Center for New York City Affairs The New School,
Rachel Durham, Baltimore Education Research Consortium,
Charmayne Little, Baltimore Public Schools, 38

39. Additional Resources
Chang & Romero, Present, Engaged & Accounted For: The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades, National Center for Children in Poverty: September 2008 (
Nauer, White & Yerneni, Strengthening Schools by Strengthening Families: Community Strategies to Reverse Chronic Absenteeism in the Early Grades and Improve Supports for Children and Families, Center for New York City Affairs, The New School: October,
Balfanz, Robert; Rachel E Durham; Stephen Plank. "Lost Days: Patterns and Levels of Chronic Absenteeism Among Baltimore City Public School Students to " Johns Hopkins University, Center for Social Organization of Schools: June
Sundius, Jane and Molly Farneth. "Missing School: The Epidemic of School Absence." Open Society Institute-Baltimore: September