1. What Explains Chronic Absenteeism
What Explains Chronic Absenteeism? Understanding the role of children, families and schools
Kevin Gee
Associate Professor
University of California, Davis

2. Why Parents keep children home
“She’s afraid to drive her kids to school because she works 12-hour overnight shifts and she’s afraid she’ll be too tired in the morning to drive them. If she doesn’t work, she can’t support her kids. She has to drive them back and forth so her work is getting in the way of her kids getting to school.”

3. Why parents keep children home
“I’ve noticed this is a pattern in the Somali community [to which the worker also belongs], for (kindergarten) and first graders, they don’t understand the importance of what the law is. They’ll say, ‘It’s below 10 degrees! That’s ridiculous. How could you send a child to school?’”

4. Two Key Questions
What explains chronic absenteeism in early elementary grades at the national level?
Sorting out the influence of child and family factors as well as school-related factors.
How “much” of chronic absenteeism do these factors explain?
Factors that help explain more of absenteeism, can be considered more important.
So what?
Helps us identify factors that might be manipulable.
Helps us prioritize which factors we can address.
Will be zooming out and examining the ?’s at the national level. For your purposes, helps you think about a strategy/way of thinking in your own local contexts. Esp. multiple sources of information you can use to get a big picture of what you think is going on. How is what is going on align w/ what you know is happening on the ground? Emphasize the these factor help us understand correlational relationships—establishing causality is trickier.

5. Variability in Chronic Absenteeism
(missing 10% or more of school, regardless of reason)
Health
50% chance
0% chance
90% chance
Conceptually: imagine we had a school and measured each child’s probability of being chronically absent. Some kids will have a zero chance of being chronically absent, some may be close to 100% chance. Some will have a 25% chance, etc. So we take all of those probabilities and there will be variation or variability in all of that. Some schools will have lots of variability; others will not.
This overlapping section is the proportion that health explains

6. Factors influencing absenteeism
Sample of about 6800 children in 1st grade
Moderate chronic absenteeism
If a child experienced 11 or more absences
Factors Influencing Absenteeism
ChildNext
Approaches to Learning (e.g., pays attention and follows rules)
Health
Prior Chronic Absenteeism in Kindergarten
Family
Parent-School Involvement (e.g. PTA meeting)
Classroom & School
Teacher Experience & Quality
Teacher-Student Relationship (Closeness and Conflict)
Aggressive Behaviors
Bullying
Teacher Absenteeism
Theft at School

7. Key findings Key Findings
Whether a child was chronically absent in kindergarten matters the most.
Health is important, but explains only about 3.5%. Not a trivial amount, but also not a large amount.
Together, these factors help explain about 15%.

8. Family Key Findings Key Findings
A parent’s employment status helps explain the most. It explains a bit more than a child’s health did.
Involvement does matter, but it only helps explain a very small amount.
Together, these family factors help explain about 6%.

9. Classroom and School Key findings
Classroom and school factors explain a negligible amount.
Together, classroom factors help explain about <1%.
Together, school factors help explain about 1.5%.

10. Child > Parent > School > Classroom
Factors together as a whole: 20%
Of that, half is attributable to prior absenteeism
School

11. (Community/Neighborhood Data)
Pittsburg’s Integrated Data Systems (IDS) Approach to Chronic Absenteeism
Take Away
Implication 1
Multiple factors work in combination to explain absenteeism.
Chronic absenteeism is a holistic challenge, requiring holistic solutions.
In Action
Pittsburg’s Integrated Data Systems (IDS) Approach to Chronic Absenteeism
People
(Individual Data)
Place
(Community/Neighborhood Data)
Department of Human Services
Public Housing
Juvenile Justice
School Districts
American Community Survey
Police Crime Data
Property Records
[Transportation]

12. Sacramento’s Parent-Teacher Home Visitation Project (PTHVP)
Take Away
Implication
When explaining absenteeism at the individual-level, child factors help explain the most, followed by family, then the classroom/school.
If you’re seeking to address your overall chronic absenteeism rate, start by looking within schools and ask what is happening at the individual student level. 2
In Action
Sacramento’s Parent-Teacher Home Visitation Project (PTHVP)
Case management approach to understand (1) barriers to school attendance; (2) motivations for attending school

13. attendance

14. Baltimore’s Class of 2027: Kindergarten Attendance & Readiness
Take Away
Implication
Prior absenteeism matters the most.
Efforts at reducing absenteeism in earliest grades will be critical to prevent chronic absenteeism in future grades. 3
In Action
Baltimore’s Class of 2027: Kindergarten Attendance & Readiness
Examining linkages between participation in ECE to Kindergarten chronic absenteeism

15. people

16. Thank you! Kevin Gee Associate Professor
University of California, Davis