Concerns about the absenteeism of Arizona high school students

Helios launched its first chronic absenteeism report on high school students. More than 34% of high school students are chronically absent, meaning they miss 10 or more days out of a school year. Students who are in low-income areas have the highest rates of absenteeism. Also, online high school students had the highest rate of absences.

Lori Masseur, Early Learning Director, Read On, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss these statistics associated with chronic absenteeism.

“Chronic absence is defined as when a student misses ten percent or more of the school year for any reason,” Masseur said, “…this includes excused, and unexcused absences, and also includes suspensions.”

Masseur emphasized that while some absences may be excused, the student is still missing key instructional time.

“When we think about that definition of chronic absence, currently in how we calculate that ten percent…it does not account for student mobility,” Masseur explained.

Student mobility refers to when a student transfers or changes schools, either interstate or intrastate.

“If a student moves from one school to another, that clock resets,” Masseur said, “…so they have a fresh slate, and they are accruing new absences.”

According to Masseur, research says that every day a child misses, it takes two days to catch up.

“When we think about the point of when you have 20% or more of your students who are chronically absent,” Masseur said, “…it’s not only impacting the student who is chronically absent, it’s impacting the entire class.”

Masseur explained that they see absentee rates tend to be very high in kindergarten, and that number slowly decreases once they get to third grade. However, that number tends to climb back up once the student goes into middle or high school, as she described it as an “inverted bell curve.”

“For every one percent that a school improved their attendance,” Masseur said, “…there was a one point five percentage increase in ELA proficiency rates.”