Strengthening Schools by Strengthening Families

14
CHRONIC ABSENCE STARTS YOUNG AND GROWS WITH AGE
Citywide, more than 20 percent of elementary school pupils missed more than a month of school in 2007–08;
nearly 40 percent of high school students missed that much. Moreover, the rates of severe chronic absence
increase with the grade level. While 4.5 percent of elementary pupils missed 38 days (nearly two months),
24 percent of high school students missed that much.
CHRONIC AND SEVERE CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM:
NEW YORK CITY CITYWIDE TOTALS School Year 2007–08
Students with
0 to 9 absences
Number Percent
Center researchers interviewed leaders in six of the 13 elementary schools serving one zip code in
and around Morrisania (the neighborhood’s two charter schools were excluded). In each case, the
schools served almost entirely low-income families, but the percentage of kids with more than 20
absences a year varied widely from a high of 42 percent at P.S. 2 to a low of 19 percent at P.S. 88.
(See chart on page 12.) While the schools had a similar mix of issues, leaders tended to identify
one or two items driving their attendance problems—and these items tended to be different, as
were their approaches on how to manage them. Some issues required medical or social service
intervention: asthma, eviction, maternal depression, hunger, shifting shelter accommodations
and foster care placement. Others were bureaucratic problems, like issues with transportation for
special education pupils. Just as frequent, though, were cultural challenges like families that take
their children out of school for weeks at a time to visit relatives outside the country, or others that
routinely extend their weekends. “Mondays and Fridays were really bad days,” recalls Janet-Ann
Sanderson-Brown, principal of P.S. 146, where 36 percent of the pupils were chronically absent
in 2007–08.
“Being able to diagnose the cause of this is important. There are all sorts of different interventions,”
says Balfanz at Johns Hopkins. “Somebody has to talk to the kid and see if it’s an easy or a hard fix. If
it’s a hard fix, you’ve got to have somebody who can spend more time on it.”
makIng sChools welComIng
Students with
10 to 19 absences
Number Percent
CHRONIC ABSENCE 2
Students with
20 to 37 absences
Number Percent
TOTAL NUMBER
OF STUDENTS 1
GRADE
K to 5th 446,232 232,048 52.0 124,056 27.8 69,841 15.7
6th to 8th 227,121 113,003 49.8 60,329 26.6 36,813 16.2
9th to 12th 351,072 145,064 41.3 66,134 18.8 55,620 15.8
ALL GRADE
CITYWIDE TOTALS
1,024,425 490,115 47.8 250,519 24.5 162,274 15.8
SOURCE: New York City Department of Education, requested data run from ATS, July 2008
NOTES: Attendance numbers and totals were generated after the close of the 2007–08 school year. Data was obtained using each student’s universal identifier number,
assuring that their absences would be tracked properly if they changed schools within the school year. Students often leave the school system without notifying the school, thus
building up absences. However, school officials are required to correct the absence numbers once they have ascertained that the student is no longer attending New York City
public schools.
Some principals, working with community based organizations, have helped to make their schools
attractive and safe for parents and caregivers, too—especially important in neighborhoods with high
rates of homelessness, single-parent families, grandparents raising children, high unemployment rates
and other difficulties that affect life at home.
When Principal Paul Cannon arrived at P.S. 140 in Morrisania in 2003, it was on the state’s list of
schools facing possible closure and its attendance rate was a dismal 85 percent. Today, test scores are
soaring and the school is moving off the state’s list. Schoolwide attendance was at 90 percent by the
end of the last school year.