Student absenteeism remains stubbornly high at APS

Aug. 7 is the first day of school for most Albuquerque Public Schools students and Superintendent Gabriella Blakey has a message for them.

Show up.

“We really need to encourage parents to get students to come to school,” Blakey said Friday. “If students aren’t there to learn the foundational skills of reading and math, they get behind very quickly.”

The message is relevant because about 31% of APS students were chronically absent in the 2023-2024 academic year, according to district data. A student is considered chronically absent if they missed 10% or more of school days.

That figure is somewhat better than the 2022-2023 absentee rate of 34% districtwide.

Students need to be on site and learning from day one or risk starting the school year at a disadvantage, the new superintendent said at an APS event Friday at the Berna Facio Professional Development Complex.

“If you miss just three days of school, that starts to add up on the concepts that you missed in order to build up those foundational skills,” Blakey said.

National data shows student absenteeism increased during the COVID-19 pandemic but never returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Employers could help by encouraging their employees to make sure their kids get to school, Blakey said.

APS can visit workplaces to speak with parents and employers, she said.

“Our attendance team, our community school coordinators, can go to large places of business to maybe talk to parents about what they can do to encourage their kids to go to school,” she said.

The state’s largest school district has had better success filling vacancies than in past years, said Human Resources Chief Todd Torgerson.

Teacher pay raises approved by lawmakers have helped fill vacancies, he said. Teachers salaries this year range from $56,000 to $79,000, exclusive of benefits.

Excluding special education teachers, APS has 69 teaching vacancies compared with a total staff of about 6,200 teachers.

The district is having more difficulty hiring special education staff and bus drivers.

APS had openings Friday for 149 special education teachers and 27 bus drivers, according to APS data.

The district also has 172 vacancies for educational assistants, with a majority in special education classrooms.