School Nurse Perspectives on Addressing Chronic Absenteeism

Chronic absenteeism is associated with poor health and educational outcomes. School nurses have great potential to address the health and educational needs that contribute to absenteeism. Through qualitative analysis of interviews with school nurses, we characterize their current role in reducing absenteeism and identify barriers 3 that limit their capacity to meet this goal, organized by the Framework for 21st Century School Nursing Practice. Interviewees ( n = 23) identified actions perceived to reduce absenteeism aligned with domains of care coordination, leadership, quality improvement, and community and public health. Barriers perceived to limit the capacity of school nurses to address absenteeism were identified within these domains and ranged from student- and family-level to federal-level barriers. Specific healthcare system-level barriers included insufficient communication with community-based healthcare teams and the need for coordinated approaches across health and education sectors to address absenteeism. Strategic opportunities exist to address barriers to comprehensive school nursing practice and reduce absenteeism.

Education and Crime across America: Inequity’s Cost

Much of current research on crime and education has focused on the effect of minimum dropout age on rates of crime. Combining the FBI’s uniform crime reporting database and district finance data, we study the longitudinal relationship between crime in every town/city (whose police department has reported crime statistics) and its school district spending in years 2003 to 2018. We combine over 213 datasets to control for population, density, wealth, education, employment, cost-of-living, race, law enforcement, and voting history. Additionally, we also look at teacher salary, teacher engagement, and student chronic absenteeism. Using linear mixed-effect modeling, we find an overall average of 2.35% percent decrease in property crime for every $1000 more a school district spends per pupil on education. Moreover, a $1000 increase in education spending decreased property crime nearly four times as much as a 10 percent increase in per capita income. We also looked at the range in district spending in towns/cities and counties whose students attend multiple districts. We find that for every $1000 difference in district spending within a city, property crime increases by an average of 3%; interestingly, violent crime decreases by 3%. When we lag variables of education quality, allowing these effects to playout, we also find that for every 10 percentage-point increase in chronic absenteeism among students, violent crime increases by 4%. Importantly, we find no such effect for property crime, suggesting a distinct mechanism of education on violent crime. Additionally, both law enforcement and unemployment explain little variance in crime. Our results demonstrate a robust relationship between education funding and reduced crime across America with regard to amount spent per student as well as equity in spending.

State Recreational Marijuana Laws and Dispensaries: Chronic School Absenteeism in Washington State

Objective: Whereas states continue to experiment with liberalized marijuana laws, how these laws impact health, education, and social factors is not yet fully understood. In this study, we examined whether chronic school absenteeism rates changed in Washington State in the presence of recreational marijuana dispensaries pursuant to implementation of the state’s recreational marijuana laws. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis using school district chronic absenteeism rates before and after the presence of recreational dispensaries. Results: The results of the independent samples t-test showed no statistically significant difference in chronic absenteeism rates among districts with or without recreational marijuana dispensaries. Conclusions: The finding of no statistical significance for chronic absenteeism in districts with and without recreational dispensaries – a pattern that largely persisted among at-risk groups – supports that the presence of recreational marijuana dispensaries seems neither to exacerbate nor improve chronic school absenteeism rates. This finding is important for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers trying to understand the changing marijuana legal landscape.

Application of Discrete Regression Models for Analyzing K-8 Students Nonchronic Absenteeism in the United States

Absenteeism is a national crisis in the United States, and must be addressed adequately at the early stages or at its onset, to prevent consequential disaster and burden due to absenteeism. A pervasive and persuasive nonchronic absenteeism results in chronic absenteeism, and causes severe damage to students’ life, schools and societies. While a good number of articles address various issues relating to chronic absenteeism, no evidence of research exists investigating nonchronic absenteeism. The aim of this article is to investigate factors affecting nonchronic absenteeism in K-8 students in the United States by applying discrete regression models. Initially, we investigate K-8 students nonchronic absenteeism discrepancies due to socio-demographic and parental involvement factors via descriptive analysis and then employ Poisson and negative binomial regression models for exploring significant factors of K-8 nonchronic absenteeism. The findings of this study will be of great use to stakeholders in developing appropriate incentive measures for reducing nonchronic absenteeism early and thereby reducing chronic absenteeism.

What’s Your Excuse? Sensemaking About Chronic Absenteeism in a Rural, Latinx High School

Nationwide, over seven million students are chronically absent from school each year, impacting academic success and future job earnings. Latinx high school students have among the highest absentee rates across all racial groups. Using critical sensemaking theory, this qualitative case study examines how school, district, and community leaders make sense of chronic absenteeism in their diversifying local high school. This study is situated in Hensonville Secondary School (a pseudonym), a small, rural high school in Iowa serving a predominantly Latinx student body. Findings reveal that persistent deficit narratives placed upon Latinx and/or low-income students drive the perception of absentee students as “others” that do not fit the expectations of the educational leaders or of the broader community. Power and privilege in the district were evident as white educational leaders blamed Latinx students and those from low-income backgrounds for chronic absenteeism while minimizing the institutional and contextual factors that may be contributing to low student attendance. Collaborative partnerships are increasingly being used to address chronic absenteeism, and we also investigate these efforts in Hensonville. white educational leaders in diversifying rural communities, and the leadership preparation programs educating these future leaders, must rely on culturally relevant/responsive strategies in order to best support their students and reduce chronic absenteeism.

Advancing an Ecological Approach to Chronic Absenteeism: Evidence from Detroit

Background/Context Chronic absenteeism has received increased attention from educational leaders and policy makers, in part because of the association between attendance and important student outcomes. Student attendance is influenced by a range of student-, school-, and community-level characteristics, suggesting that a comprehensive and multilayered approach to addressing chronic absenteeism is warranted, particularly in high-poverty urban districts. Given the complexity of factors associated with chronic absenteeism, we draw from ecological systems theory to study absenteeism in Detroit, which has the highest rate of chronic absence of major cities in the country. Purpose/Research Questions We use administrative and public data to advance the ecological approach to chronic absenteeism. In particular, we ask: (1) How are student, neighborhood, and school characteristics associated with individual absenteeism? (2) How are structural and environmental conditions associated with citywide rates of absenteeism? Our study helps to fill a gap in the research on absenteeism by moving beyond a siloed focus on student, family, or school factors, instead placing them in relationship to one another and in their broader socioeconomic context. It also illustrates how researchers, policy makers, and administrators can take a theoretically informed approach to chronic absenteeism and use administrative data to conceptualize the problem and the potential routes to improving it. Research Design Using student-level administrative data on all students living and going to school in Detroit in the 2015–2016 school year, we estimate a series of multilevel logistic regressions that measure the association between student-, neighborhood-, and school-level factors and the likelihood of a Detroit student being chronically absent. We also use publicly available data to examine how macrosystemic conditions (e.g., health, crime, poverty, racial segregation, weather) are correlated with citywide rates of absenteeism in the 2015–2016 school year, and we compare Detroit with other large cities based on those conditions. Findings/Results Student-, neighborhood-, and school-level factors were significant predictors of chronic absenteeism in Detroit. Students were more likely to be chronically absent if they were economically disadvantaged, received special education services, moved schools or residences during the year, lived in neighborhoods with more crime and residential blight, and went to schools with more economically disadvantaged students and less stable student populations. Macro-level factors were also significantly correlated with citywide rates of absenteeism, highlighting Detroit's uniquely challenging context for attendance. Conclusions/Recommendations Our ecological understanding of absenteeism suggests that school-based efforts are necessary but not sufficient to substantially decrease rates of chronic absenteeism in Detroit and other high-absenteeism contexts. Policies that provide short-term relief from economic hardship and aim to reduce inequalities in the long-run must be understood as part of, rather than separate from, a policy agenda for reducing chronic absenteeism.

Masking Attendance: How Education Policy Distracts from the Wicked Problem(s) of Chronic Absenteeism

Traditionally, education policy focuses on reforms that address class size, teaching and learning within classrooms, school choice, and changes in leadership as ways to improve students’ educational outcomes. Although well intentioned, education policy can distract from the multi-layered causes that impact achievement and opportunity gaps, and how students’ life circumstances can affect their school attendance. Students who miss school frequently are less likely to be impacted by even the most robust and comprehensive education reforms. This paper discusses how the root causes of chronic absenteeism are complex and that policy distractions can stifle solutions to solve school attendance issues. As a wicked problem, chronic absenteeism, requires a conceptual framework that helps to organize policy responses within all levels of the educational system, as well as expansive to include other social sectors within public policy.