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. Continue reading
