How will South Carolina curb spike in student absenteeism?
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Recent test scores indicate students who are chronically absent from school are falling behind their peers – including being half as likely to be on their grade level in math.
Students are considered chronically absent when they miss at least 10% of the school year – and the latest data shows one in four students in South Carolina falls into this category.
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For the past several months, addressing chronic absenteeism has been a focus of a group at the State House known as the Education Oversight Committee.
Soon their work will spread to more parts of South Carolina as they try to tackle this problem.
“Students who are chronically absent are not performing well academically, regardless of socioeconomic status, so there’s definitely an academic component of this,” said Dana Yow, Education Oversight Committee executive director.
Some education researchers call chronic absenteeism the greatest challenge facing American public schools post-pandemic – and South Carolina’s chronic absentee rate is nearly double what it was before COVID.
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The state’s Education Oversight Committee has held focus groups with students and parents in recent months – to find out *why so many students are missing school more than ever … and what can be done to get them in the classroom.
Now the state is getting ready to launch a public awareness campaign to reinforce the importance of being in school.
It’s in the early stages of development now – but the Education Oversight Committee plans to start it as a pilot with two or three districts next school year – and then expand from there.
“As parents will be thinking about back to school, we kind of want to ride that wave in helping them to also think about being present at school for the year,” said Tenell Felder, communications director for the committee.
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Those focus groups found a lot of students and parents don’t realize exactly what chronic absenteeism is.
To put it in perspective, a student who misses an average of two days every month is in line to become chronically absent – and more likely to fall behind on their work and their grades.
Chronic absenteeism isn’t just a problem in South Carolina.
While the Palmetto State’s rate of chronic absenteeism has shot up post-pandemic – it is slightly better than the national average.
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