by Jon Baliles
It’s hard for young students to learn if they are not in class, and Richmond Public Schools revealed some “unacceptably high” numbers regarding “chronic absenteeism” (aka truancy) at their meeting this week. Tannock Blair and Rolynn Wilson at WRIC filed a report in which Shadae Harris, RPS’ Chief Engagement Officer, presented the latest data showing truancy dropped from 27.7% in 2021 to 25.9% in 2022.
Harris explained to board members that certain steps could be taken in the first 15 days of the school year to increase the likelihood of student attendance. These suggestions include engagement offices, social workers and family liaisons.
Holly Rodriguez at the Richmond Free Press also filed a report on this in which Harris said the pandemic and online learning had increased truancy to 37% but the numbers had trended back down since then.
But Rodriguez notes, “In December of 2021, 27.7 percent of RPS students were chronically absent, the highest number during Superintendent Jason Kamras’s administration. The number barely budged a year later, dropping only 1.8 percentage points to 25.9 percent in December of 2022.”
When the superintendent put forth his strategic plan in 2018, the pandemic was unanticipated. But, the goal was to bring chronic absenteeism down from 19 percent to 9 percent by the end of the 2022-2023 school year. However, during Mr. Kamras’s tenure, chronic absenteeism was increasing before the pandemic. In the 2018-2019 school year, his first year, the division was at 15.7 percent; in 2019-2020, the number jumped to 19 percent and in 2020-2021, to 19.5 percent.
3rd District Board Member Kenya Gibson addressed these numbers straight up: “We do ourselves a disservice to blame the pandemic for this — these issues go back for some time. In 2019, the district eliminated 17 attendance officers from the budget to save money . . . when attendance dropped, the administration requested funding to add the positions back, but it came at a cost.”
Harris said RPS is using data to document and track an engagement strategy for truant students, including “phone calls, home visits with students and their families and community events.” She said it has helped lower truancy by 10% at Fairfield Court Elementary, Albert Hill Middle and Lucille Brown Middle school, and by 19% at John Marshall High School over the last year. They are working on implementing that strategy in every school, she said.
4th District Board Member Jonathan Young said while the latest data show “a colossal failure,” he also said the original 9% goal is still achievable. “The goals are achievable, but the strategy, the approach is too central-office-focused and involves more relationship development with the students by the teachers and staff the students see (or are supposed to see) every day.”
This isn’t an issue that gets fixed overnight, but the numbers tell the story pretty clearly and should be watched closely to see what is working and what needs more emphasis in order to meet the goal.
This column originally appeared in RVA 5×5 and is republished here with permission.
