Guest Opinion Essay

From success mentors to washing machines, ways to help kids stay in school

By Phoebe Boyer, The 74

Posted on July 29, 2024

Absenteeism: Wide angle view of empty elementary school classroom with interactive whiteboard no people and lights turned on.

Chiarascura/Shutterstock

This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education.

For lack of a washing machine, a seventh-grader was nearly lost.

This student, who lives in temporary housing in the Bronx, missed the first two weeks of class. When his mother finally agreed to a visit from a social worker, she revealed that she had no money for laundry and her child had no clothes or shoes for school. Working with a city organization, the school obtained two pairs of sneakers, new clothes and a haircut for the student, plus detergent and a laundry card for his mom. His attendance increased by 25 percentage points over the course of the school year.

With students missing class at alarming rates, it’s well past time to acknowledge that chronic absenteeism has become an educational emergency. Considered a hidden educational crisis before the pandemic, COVID accelerated the problem. In 2022, nearly 16 million students were defined as chronically absent, meaning they missed over 10% of school days — nearly four weeks of class. That’s double the rate of pre-pandemic absences.

NYC community schools are battling chronic absenteeism through emotional support, financial aid, free health checks and access to food pantries

Educators are urgently asking: What kinds of interventions actually work to get students in the classroom? Community schools have some answers. Through the holistic support they provide, from free school health check-ups to food pantries, community schools have reported significantly lower rates of chronic absenteeism than traditional New York City public schools. The 20 community schools in New York City’s Children’s Aid network saw an average decrease in chronic absence of 4 percentage points in 2022-23 from the previous school year.

Start a success mentors program

A major factor in absenteeism is that students face tremendous personal barriers outside the classroom that impact their attendance, and educators don’t have the opportunities or bandwidth to touch base with them individually and help find solutions. As a result, students fall through the cracks because intervention comes too late. To address this, several community schools in New York piloted a success mentors program that pairs students with adult staffers, including teachers, coaches, custodians, security guards and administrative professionals. These mentors create a welcoming environment that can foster consistent attendance and improved academic performance.

For example, when educators in the New Venture Community School in the Bronx discovered one middle schooler was chronically absent because her mother had suffered a stroke, Success Mentors stepped in. They built a trusting relationship with the student, checked in with her regularly and engaged her in extracurricular activities such as cheerleading and dance. They also helped to connect her family to financial support and better nutrition through a school-based food pantry. Because of these holistic interventions, the student was able to prioritize school while her family’s critical needs were met.

Form social-emotional support groups

One group of students facing the steepest absenteeism and mental health challenges in New York is children of asylum seekers. One community school tapped a social worker to lead a support group that meets regularly to work on social-emotional wellness as a community, as well as to provide students with individualized attention. One student who arrived in February 2023 was consistently missing one out of every four school days. This year, she joined the support group and got more involved in school activities. She began participating in the soccer club, attended fun events such as Waffle Fridays and received health and vision screening. The school also helped arrange a paid internship for her. Her attendance rate for the school year was 96%.

Prioritize accountability

During the pandemic, directors at several community schools made it a priority to assess data on individual students’ attendance, behavior and coursework to identify new solutions. They looked at the numbers and decided to focus on peer accountability — if students are waiting for one another to go to school, and expect their classmates to be there, there is a higher chance of attendance. From there, the community school leaders implemented a virtual school bus program, where success mentors create a walking route and pick students up along the way to school, providing that extra layer of group support and accountability. This tactic has been effective in improving attendance.

To keep students learning, educators must find innovative ways to deliver them to the classrooms where the magic happens. School leaders, working with community partners, can assess individual student and family needs and confront barriers to regular attendance. Whether it’s virtual school buses, success mentors or mental health, it’s time to advance creative yet common-sense solutions to the absenteeism crisis. Sometimes, all a student needs is clean clothes to show up at school.

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Phoebe Boyer is president and CEO of Children’s Aid, a New York City-based organization serving 50,000 children and families. Previously, Boyer worked for a decade with the Robertson Foundation, a $1 billion foundation that takes a targeted approach to supporting critical national issues, including education reform.

This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.