Addressing one of the greatest barriers for our students: chronic absenteeism

At the beginning of the school year, Fernando was learning letters quickly and improving his counting skills. He loved reading. But then Fernando racked up 60 absences, an entire trimester, missing countless opportunities to practice letter names and sounds, read-alouds, and daily word problems. His academic progress stagnated, from scoring in the top 10% of the class to the bottom 10%. Now, at spring family teacher conferences, my principal and I are breaking the news to his dad that his 5-year-old son will need to repeat kindergarten.

Fernando is one of the 125,000 New Mexico students who are chronically absent, defined as missing more than 10% of school days. His dad protests that he calls Fernando’s mom every day and that she tells him that she has dropped Fernando off at school. There’s a fundamental disconnect, and it’s not only between his parents. Our front office has called and left a voicemail with Fernando’s mom every day, but we did not find out that she had gotten a new number until months later.

According to a recent report by the New Mexico Legislative Education Study Committee, chronic absenteeism in New Mexico grew by 119% from 2019 to 2023, the largest increase in the nation. While new data shows a 9% decrease in the 2023-2024 school year over the year before, finding solutions to support students like Fernando remains urgent.

First, schools need to implement accurate attendance systems that allow teachers like me to efficiently and consistently identify chronically absent students. Most New Mexico schools focus on collecting average daily attendance, measuring the percent of present students in each class. This measure masks the number of chronically absent students, who might not all be absent on the same days. A class can have 95% average daily attendance, which seems excellent, but could hide the fact that five chronically absent students are missing a day of school every single week.

New Mexican schools use more than 40 attendance systems, which vary in how they collect attendance data and make it accessible to staff. Pulling attendance reports for individual students helped me identify a student with consistent absences due to medical reasons and enabled me to work with her family to develop a plan for remote learning. Making individual attendance reports easier to access would provide schools, administration and teachers with a more efficient way to find and help students struggling to be in school.

We must also build deeper relationships with parents and families, so that they are more comfortable sharing the challenges of bringing their child to school every day. I contact each of my student’s families once a month to share how their child is doing in school, building more trust with each conversation. In this way, I learned from a parent that their work schedule was making transportation to school difficult. We were quickly able to find a before-school program in which the student could be dropped off first and later driven to school on time, preventing an attendance issue before it occurred.

Finally, schools can connect families with community resources to support students who have been chronically absent, a recommendation my cohort of Teach Plus New Mexico Policy Fellows put forth in a recent memo. When one of my students contracted a bad ear infection, I learned that she did not have medical insurance. While this issue was beyond the direct jurisdiction of the school, we were able to connect with a community partner who treated the infection quickly, allowing the student to return to school within a few days. My school has worked to create a list of family resources that we can refer families to, including partners that provide food, uniforms and counseling. Comprehensive, statewide lists of such resources would allow schools to help families address problems beyond our scope.

I am still not sure whether it was an issue with health, transportation, lack of resources or something else that began Fernando’s pattern of chronic absences. Meeting his dad to make him aware of the gravity of the situation was a step toward addressing it. He has now arranged for Fernando’s grandmother to bring him to school for the rest of the year. As a result, Fernando’s attendance is improving dramatically and so is his academic progress. Let’s ensure that every student in New Mexico has what they need to be in school and reach their full potential.