Chronic absenteeism and truancy are on the rise, hindering student success. In our debut episode of the Educator’s Playbook podcast, host Kimberly McGlonn speaks with two experts on the issue, exploring the sudden increase in attendance issues as well as ways to get students back into the classroom – and help keep them there. First, she’s joined by education economist and Penn GSE professor Michael Gottfried to learn why students are missing more school, how the pandemic accelerated trends, and insight into some easy, proven ways schools can improve student attendance. Then, Kimberly chats with fellow professor Ericka Weathers about her research on state truancy policies, and how in the face of social inequalities, punitive policies actually prevent schools from addressing the root causes of student absences. Listen in as we explore the underlying reasons for absenteeism and truancy, and the ripple effects both have on academic achievement, teacher morale and classroom dynamics.

FEATURING:

• Michael Gottfried, Professor, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
• Ericka Weathers, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education

NEWSLETTER:

• Subscribe to the Educator's Playbook newsletter for ongoing resources and content

RELATED PLAYBOOKS:

• No. 72: Back to School: How to encourage student attendance (09-13-23)
• No. 70: Keeping students present: 4 ways to address absenteeism (04-13-22)

OTHER RESOURCES:

• Educational inequities? Follow the numbers, says Ericka Weathers (04-04-23)
• Perspective: Common sense approaches to address bus driver shortages from EdNC (12-16-22)
• These 6 strategies can help schools tackle chronic absenteeism from K-12 Dive (11-04-22)

Students are not showing up.

This is the Educator's Playbook from the Penn Graduate School of Education. I'm your host, Kimberly McGlonn. After finishing my PhD in curriculum and instruction, I spent 20 years in urban and suburban schools as an English teacher. And like most classroom teachers, student absences were something I had to deal with pretty much from day one.

Absenteeism can be really disruptive not only for the student who's out, but also for classmates who are missing their playmates and group mates or lab partners. It also seems to be getting much worse, as data confirms that chronic absenteeism and truancy have accelerated in the wake of the pandemic. According to research group Attendance Works, an estimated 16 million students were chronically absent, missing 15+ days of school in the '21-'22 school year.

So today on the Educators Playbook, we're sitting down with two experts on student absence to explore where the students have gone, how we get them back into the classroom, and how school policies can sometimes exacerbate the issue. My first guest is Michael Gottfried, one of the top experts on the issue of absenteeism working today. Michael, thanks for coming in to speak about your work. Could you introduce yourself, and what you do?

Yes. So I'm Michael Gottfried, I'm a professor in the Graduate School of Education. I'm also currently the division chair of Policy Organizations Leadership and Systems. By training, I'm an economist. I actually went to Penn for my PhD, so I studied the economics of education.

That is fascinating. I've never met anyone who sits at that particular intersection, and I think it's such an interesting lens for looking at every problem that, essentially education is really tied to solving. It's like in some way, I think, through causation.

Yes. What I research, it's also what I teach. So this fall I'm teaching economics of education. In the spring though, I teach causation.

I be knowing.

I started the class with, how do you know a policy actually worked in education? How do you actually know it did?

That's the first question?

Yeah. How do you know it was the policy? How do you know it wasn't something else?

Right, right, right.

I think that's the job of someone who studies econ of ed is, we do all these policies in school, we put them in schools, we have states that are doing policies. How do you know that actually did anything? So people like me, we use data and say, yeah, this worked, or importantly, this didn't work.

And for our conversation, I'm really interested in what that data says about student absenteeism. If we really narrow in that causation versus correlation and the economics of education, how student attendance has shifted, particularly in the last decade, and maybe why.

So a first piece of that is asking, does absenteeism even matter?

That's valid.

And it does. So there's been enough work that's moved it from, are these things related? So is absenteeism related to achievement scores, or is it actually causing lower achievement scores? And there's been enough work done, including some of my own that says, yes, missing school causes lower test scores to happen. So I think that's an important piece. We're concerned about kids missing school because it's going to cause lower test scores. It's also going to cause other things.

It will.

Some of my work focuses on, it causes more disengagement, it's causing teachers to perceive me differently if I'm not there.

And their own work. When kids are cutting, that can affect your own relationship with your practice.

Absolutely.

And how do you decide whether that's personal or not?

Especially in the past few years, the numbers are striking for how student attendance has changed, particularly since COVID. So before COVID, 15% of kids in the United States were missing enough school to be labeled chronically absent, which is 10% or more of the year. So 15% were missing 10% or more. That number on average is now in the mid-30s. And for student groups that are underrepresented, that are at risk, they're in the 40s. So 40% of foster youth are missing 10%.

10% of the time.

40% of kids with disabilities are now missing enough to be labeled chronically absent. So we've seen this stretch and this gap being increased dramatically since COVID, and it's pretty staggering. And I think this is why chronic absenteeism right now continues to be in the media. Principals are throwing their hands up and saying, what do we do? What do we do about this? We've never experienced a crisis like this before with absenteeism.

And I think too about the ways in which absenteeism reduces just general cultural stickiness. When students aren't coming or when people look around the room and they can't know who's going to be sitting next to them day after day, it can really change your experience with your sense of community in school, in Ways that can be really toxic.

Yeah. We're just seeing this huge US trend towards, everyone's missing school.

And that's becoming the new cultural norm.

Yeah. And it's becoming the norm that we're thinking about four days a week of school instead of... And that's not because of absenteeism, but that's happening.

It's responding to culture.

That's right.

In the same way that the current school calendar essentially was a response to an agriculture.

Exactly right. Exactly right.

By and large, what does your research say about the reasons why students are chronically absent?

So one reason is routines. Just students have not built routines, i.e. going to school every day. And so if we don't build those routines, we don't go to school. And with COVID disrupting those routines, we had kindergartners who never learned to go to school, and now they're in third or fourth grade.

And so in this formative year, the first year of formal school, they're not there every day, and so routines aren't being built. The second reason is logistics. It's difficult to get kids to school, especially when it's your first kid and you haven't done this before and they need to go every day. You have a job that requires you to be there before your kid goes to school, or after. It becomes difficult to figure it out. How do I figure out transportation? What about lunch? How do I do all of these things? And so it just becomes a lot for families.

It's a lot. And I only have one kid. And when you said all that I was was like, "Wow, I just got exhausted just thinking about all the things I'm responsible for managing."

Yes. And so having to do that every day and with COVID, parents maybe have eased up on that. You didn't go to school for a couple years, if you don't feel like going today, I'm also not happy with the idea of making you lunch.

I think too about the space between what is accepted as an excuse for cultural absenteeism, and then what isn't a cultural excuse. So I spent 20 years, most of that was teaching in a very high resourced school. And there was an attitude that if you were traveling with your family, then that was an acceptable reason to be gone from school. If you were visiting colleges, that was an acceptable reason to be gone from school. And I think that that's another thing that we're trying to navigate is, what's the culture of what's an appropriate reason for being absent? And then who's defining what's appropriate and what's inappropriate?

Absolutely. And when there's lack of congruence between the adults and the rule makers and the children and the families, that becomes problematic.

But beyond that, right, beyond the obvious, the missing of instructional time that happens when students are chronically absent, how does absenteeism affect students?

So the first thing is you're just missing opportunities to learn. So on the academic side, you're just not there to take in the information. And I find in my work that this particularly affects math. And part of my theory for that is that math is something that isn't often taught at home.

Whereas reading, still you're hurt by missing school. But parents read to their kids a lot. There's opportunities to read. There are libraries, there are books at home, so there's easier approaches to reading that if you miss school, there are ways at home. But often parents don't have the capacity to teach math, and so there's just missed opportunities to be learning. But then there are just missed social opportunities.

So kids miss school, they come back, my research shows they feel more alienated, they feel more disengaged, they don't want to be there. And there's actually an effect on the other kids. So I miss school, I come back, I feel disengaged. My classmates are around me, see me missing school, now the teacher has to catch me up. That slows the class down, or maybe I just feel disengaged, not making great classroom environment, they start missing school.

Or they feel resentful. I remember being a classroom teacher and hearing feedback from students who were like, "I have a group project to do. They're never here, or they come late, or they weren't here for a big part of it, or I had to pick up the weight." And that creates resentment.

That's absolutely right.

And teachers feel resentful too.

Totally.

Because it's like, "You were absent. Where were you?" Now I have to reteach this, or now you didn't get it and now I have to stay after school to give you a quiz that you could have taken had you just been here.

That's right. That's exactly right. And there's econ theory about that, a congestion effect. So a student's missing school, comes back, he or she's congesting the flow of information, the instruction. And so teacher gets resentful, teacher has to slow down, other kids have to wait-

Accommodate.

... classroom becomes boring, less interesting-

Repetitive.

... repetitive. I don't want to be there either, so now I start being absent from school.

Because it starts to lose value.

That's exactly right.

I love how you made this clear chain of how absenteeism affects the whole ecosystem, how it impacts students, how it impacts educators, how it impacts school culture, school climate-

Which is why some of the solutions are at the whole school level, is that we do need to change the culture or the climate. Some of the solutions for absenteeism are more specific and they get more... Think about a funnel. So we start very broad when we think about absenteeism solutions. And that's whole school because exactly what you're saying, that this becomes a whole school problem. If we have one student missing, that becomes two students quickly, and then it just sort of-

Snowballs.

... snowballs from there. It's problematic. It's really difficult.

And now we have this era where kids can communicate where they are and aren't. So it's not even like it just stays within the boundaries of the school. On social media, other kids your age, when they should be at school, they're at home living their best life.

That's right.

Some of them anyways. And then that becomes a story of where you should be.

Yep. I started doing this work in the mid-2000s. And you start off thinking, well, this is so easy. You're either there or you're not, and let's just see what happens if you're there or you're not. But quickly, it becomes so complicated. It's just a complicated problem and policy.

Have you come across approaches, strategies that your research shows to be effective in combating absenteeism and reducing the rates?

Yep. It's something that I started thinking about about 10 years ago. I started working with VP Harris when she was Attorney General of California, and I worked with her team to think about two things, scalable, replicable. So it needs to be cost-effective, scalable, it needs to be replicable. We were back in California. If we're doing it in Pasadena, it also needs to work in Fresno. So I think about that. Is this scalable and replicable?

Going back to the reference of VP Harris, of whether or not it is actually creating unhealthy measures for punishing students?

Yes, absolutely. And I have a policy memo that came out through the Annenberg Institute at Brown University last year, and we talked about all the things that are working. And we also said, what doesn't work? And what we said immediately was, punitive doesn't work.

That's the word I was looking for.

Yes, this needs to be positive. But I think on the bigger scale of what seems to be working, starting at the top of that funnel. So issues that parents have raised are transportation. So it breaks my heart every time that I see that a district is cutting access to school busing. So New York City, maybe you can't have buses, but you can give students or families a filled MTA card for the year, and you use that to help your kids get to school, and you go with them. Some of my work has looked at access to meals. Rather than serving free breakfast to just a certain group of kids, my work shows that when you serve it to everyone in the classroom, first thing of the day, absenteeism goes down.

Because people, when they show up to get food.

They show up, they're not feeling singled out. I don't have to enter a code, I don't have to give a voucher, I don't have to.

And where there are kids who have to deploy their own agency as a part of their school experience, it creates another incentive for them.

And it's causal. My work from five or six years ago says that if you give all kids breakfast in their classrooms, they will come to school.

Can you just really quickly, we've talked about these two words causation and correlation, just like in passing, and I don't want it to be lost, how you just distinguish between the two?

So, I think about correlation as two things that look like they're moving together. So for example, TV hours and lower test scores. More hours, worse test scores. And we'd love to say, well, TV is causing everyone to not do as well at school. But it's hard to say, is that really the reason? Or is it maybe the parents are allowing the kids to watch more TV and maybe now it's the parents that are causing the lower test scores because they're not involved.

Or is the content actually driving down attention span?

Yes, exactly.

Or not contributing to improving literacy, generally.

Exactly. So it's hard to say, is it really the TV time, or is there something else? Is there another factor that might be related to test scores? And this is what I study in my work is trying to tease this out. Whereas using the breakfast example, I have found that free breakfast causes better attendance. So I've been able to rule out any other factor in the study. And we know that it was the breakfast itself, the serving of the breakfast that caused kids to come more.

And that is causation.

And that's the causation piece, yep.

So do you have any tips, resources, something that can just be like, that's just helpful to somehow tackle with some nuance absenteeism?

So we'd love to move mountains in education, right? We'd love to fix all of these problems, but that is very overwhelming. It's not practical, and no one has the budget for that. So thinking about ways that we could address absenteeism by what you might already have at your school sites, or maybe you add an additional piece to it. So for example, let's use breakfast again.

Moving breakfast from cafeteria to classroom is not moving mountains. It's not creating a new space, it's not hiring new teams, it's using the cafeteria staff to help bring breakfast to the different classrooms. So thinking about these small changes. In absenteeism, texting seems to work.

I think it would work. When I was in the classroom, if I were to throw out a group text to my students that felt personal, like, "Hey Brian, good morning. Can't wait to see you. Get out the door." Giving them a personal invitation.

Yes. And so schools can hire or restructure one person to work as the texting person, texting with kids, asking them why they're not there. Texting with parents saying, "Your child's not here today. What's the reason?" And what a lot of this texting does is it brings kids to school, it makes kids feel welcome, but it also helps schools problem solve if they find a common problem.

As a great example, a lot of responses at this particular school, which I don't remember which one, was, "My child doesn't have clean clothes."

So they had to install a washer and dryer.

They installed a washer and dryer.

Just decided that they could make a public access. They could do that.

And why I love that is that the structure is scalable and replicable, i.e. the texting program. But you can use that to work on your site specific, your school specific issues. And that's what's going to change. So if we brought together all the principals in Pennsylvania, we're going to find out 5,000 reasons, different reasons why kids are absent. But what could be common is they all have the texting program. And then from that, they can self-reflect on what's going on in their particular schools.

What do you think the future looks like for combating attendance issues at large?

In the long-term, I think we need to change to use what we've been talking about, school culture and context. So I think children and families need to see teachers and staff that look like them. And that is reflected in many ways, whether that's demographics, whether that's disability, whether it's immigration status. I think that's the longer term solution. I have some work that shows that when a student and teacher do share the same racial makeup, the student comes to school more. What's actually amazing about the study, if I do say so myself, is that this was for high schoolers, and we were able to look at period-specific matching between student and teacher. And what we find is it's the first period that matters the most to have that shared demographic. We find it doesn't matter at all at the end of the day.

Fascinating.

These again are malleable ways that schools can work in the short term with, if we have these kinds of students... And again, this could be for disability, for income, whatever, gender, there's all different ways to think about how I feel like I belong at the school. And if we can work on that in the short term and just try to... Maybe you can't have all of the female teachers teaching only female students first period of the day/ but if you could have a 15, 20 minute advising session, and so forth and so forth.

That was just hyper intentional.

Exactly. That's the short term. The longer term is that we need the schools to look like the students and the neighborhoods. We need to think about teacher pipelines, we need to think about principal pipelines, staff pipelines, how we're hiring, how we're making decisions, culturally relevant, pedagogy. All of these things are much longer, and don't necessarily address just absenteeism, but I think that we need to create schools to look and feel like places where students belong and identify.

Thank you so much, Michael, for coming in and spending some time with us today.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thanks again to Michael for sitting down with me. I'm now joined by Ericka Weathers, who researches truancy policy. Erica, your work shows that the current rules and approach might actually be keeping us from getting to the root problems behind absenteeism. Thank you for coming in today to explore with us why that is. So can you please introduce yourself to our listening audience?

I am Erica Weathers. I'm an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. I study research around education policy, particularly K through 12 policy. My research looks at the causes and consequences of inequality in education. And I also think a lot about how education policies either reduce or exacerbate educational inequality and educational harm, and thinking about how can we amend policy and practice to better serve students, particularly students of color.

I think it's so interesting that you use that word harm. That's one that we don't often put in conversation with education, and that education can in fact be guilty of causing harm. So I think one of the ways that we're most interested in illuminating how your research speaks to some of that harm is how you've examined school attendance policies, and how that is linked to notions of absenteeism. And so what have you been learning about absenteeism? How do you define it?

Yes, that's a really good question. I have been interested in this topic for a little bit now. I think it started during the 2020 presidential campaign season when now Vice President Kamala Harris and California came under the hot seat for their policy around charging parents or guardians with misdemeanors for their children's, or their youth's absence from school were above and beyond a specific threshold. And made me wonder, what are other states doing? Particularly the state that I live in, Pennsylvania. And I came across this news story of a woman in Pennsylvania, a mother of either five to seven children, I can't remember exactly how many. I don't know her race, but she was poor, and all of her children had been habitually truant. Which in Pennsylvania, that means you have missed six or more days of school without an excuse, what they call it, an unlawful absence.

And so she was fined $250 for each of her kids' habitual truancy instances. She couldn't afford to pay that fine, and then she was sentenced to jail as restitution for those fines. But she ended up dying in jail. And I'm not saying that her going to jail caused her death or that this attendance policy caused her death, but it's relational, right? A mother, a father, a guardian, a caregiver, whatever grown up in a kid's life, what does it mean to place that individual in jail temporarily, removing the kid from their care, what does that mean for school attendance and school engagement? Those are the things that I think a lot about. So that's led me to one, how are we defining habitual truancy? So there's some work out there that was published, I think in the Peabody Journal of Education, that work shows that habitual truancy is defined differently across states.

And not every state has a habitual truancy policy, but it seems that every state as a response to habitual truancy, there can be external legal action taken at each state. We talk a lot about the school-to-prison pipeline, and how exclusionary discipline policies contribute to that, particularly for black students. But what's the role of truancy policy in the school-to-prison pipeline? A truancy policy has elements of exclusionary discipline. In some states students can be suspended for unexcused absences, which seems very, very counterproductive. You're going to suspend a kid from school for missing school. Makes zero sense.

In other instances, there can be arrest and jail time for children who are of a certain age for their parents. There can be fines. Some states will revoke driver's licenses and all sorts of things. So some of my research, I've done a systematic review on the literature on truancy and truancy policy, and thinking about how truancy policy and practice contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline. And we find that it's because laws are written in a way that treats truancy and the challenges with attendance as an act of deviance. And that's not the case for so many students.

There are kids that just miss school because they want to, but I also believe that there are deeper reasons for why they just want to, right? Is school a welcoming place? What's the home life like? What's the community life like? Do the schools have the resources that the kids need? Are there other challenges at home that take priority, caring for a sick loved one or caring for siblings and things like that?

Are there emotional causations? Exactly. Are they dealing with depression? Are they avoidant? Why are they avoidant? You spoke about that to some extent, but how are we framing what are the barriers to being able to get to school? And then what are the challenges to being able to stay in school, which is another part of this absenteeism spectrum. It's not just getting in the building, it's also like, why are kids choosing to leave?

Yeah, and I think it goes back to the overall definition and conversation about absenteeism, right? Absenteeism is this very large bucket of understanding school attendance, right? Absenteeism is any absence from school for whatever reason, excused or unexcused. Then there's chronic absenteeism. So it's sort of excessive absenteeism. Even the definition of that varies in a research perspective, in a policy perspective, from a practice perspective, and I think that's one of the challenges.

And then also there's truancy, there's unexcused absences and truancy and habitual truancy, and those are unexcused absences at or above a policy defined threshold. And that threshold varies so much from state to state. In some states, you can be considered truant for as few as three absences. Other states it takes as many as 20 absences, some states count half day absences. And then even within states, school districts and other school entities have the discretion to implement these policies as they see fit. And I imagine in some of the research that we're looking at now, which suggests that there's disparity in how truancy policies are enforced across district and place and based off of demographics and things like that.

How do these policies, particularly around truancy, actually exacerbate the problem of absenteeism?

That's a really great question. From my understanding from the research that I've done or the things that I've read, it exacerbates it because truancy policies aren't addressing root causes of attendance. If the root cause was solely deviance, one might argue, okay, these more punitive approaches make sense. I don't believe that punitive approaches are going to evoke any sort of response that you're looking for that's desired or favorable. But we're not thinking about, okay, how do we make situations better? I know someone who was bullied in school, and to the point of the bullying became physical, and this person no longer wanted to go to school. In fact, stopped going to school for a while, and this person got in trouble for it. But the school did nothing about the bullying, right? So you could suspend this student because they didn't show up, you could put them in detention.

You could not allow them to make up schoolwork. But did you ever address the problem of bullying, right? Did you ever do anything to make the environment safe for this student and all other students? And so there's about 40 something states that have truancy policies, and what we're doing is a policy analysis, a document analysis of all 43 state truancy policies to try to rate the severity in these truancy responses, and the language that's used to describe truancy, and to describe students and things like that. But the policies aren't addressing the root causes.

And when I say, not completely, right? There are options, they talk about restorative approaches, but there are also still these legal consequences that are allowed. Even in Pennsylvania's policy, they've amended their policy after the situation with the mom that I told you about, but it still says, "Schools and districts have the discretion to enforce truancy as they see fit." And no, that's not the exact language of the policy, but that's the essence of it. And I think until policies at the state level and districts and schools are thinking about it in the same way, until responses to truancy are more restorative, I think it's going to continue to cause more harm.

What would you like educators to understand about the ways that your research suggests that race and perhaps socioeconomic inequality contribute to student absenteeism? Do you see a correlation between those things?

Yeah, I do. And I think my biggest thing here is, and I operate this way in my personal life, I believe in grace. We should offer students and families more grace and not just make negative assumptions about the reasons why students show up or don't show up. I think the thing that I really want people to focus on is that... And I believe educators believe this, I believe folks who work in schools know this, because they're the ones on the ground, they know that schools are tasked with solving a lot of problems.

But in order to solve education's challenges, it takes a systems approach. It's not just education, it's housing policy, it's economic policy, it's health policy and practice. All those things matter. And the thing that I want to think about is, how can educators, in giving grace, really tap into why students are not showing up? Is it something that the school can do? Is it the schooling environment? Is it warm? Is it welcoming? Is it culturally responsive or sustaining? What type of relationships do students have with the teachers in the school? Not putting the blame solely on students or sort of external to what's happening in school or what's happening with the people in school.

What they can control.

Yeah.

Really, really doing a deeper dive about what is under their control, which is not a student's home life or the interior landscape of a student's world. I love that word grace. I think that's a really important one. But also nuance around looking at the students as individuals, versus having collective policies that don't necessarily allow for individual visibility.

And then also thinking about other, along racial and socioeconomic lines. I think about capital, who has the social capital and the cultural capital to interface with schools and to interface with other systems in a comfortable and confident way? Who has the ability to say, you know what? My kid is sick today, and I can go to the doctor and get a doctor's note to have an excused absence. That's not the case for everyone. A kid can really be sick, but can that parent or guardian get the kid to a doctor?

And I do think that brings up a socioeconomic reality of the nature of who gives what kinds of excuses, and what kind of excuses are deemed as acceptable excuses. I think it's something that is worthy of some exploration in terms of, again, painting a fuller picture as to why and how certain families are able to craft narratives about what their journeys are. Their daily journeys, their family dynamics, and how language can become a gateway to finding a legitimate excuse or barrier.

And who gets trust, like, who's trusted? I taught last fall, and I talked a lot about truancy in this policy and politics course that I have. And one of the students, she's a white student, grew up in a more affluent area, but she goes, "I was absent all the time without a note, and one time my parents got a call. 'Or we know she's a good student, so we're not worried.'" And that was it. So she's given the benefit of the doubt because she's a "good student." But what does that mean, and who gets to take advantage of that particular title?

Who gets the privilege of being able to have that play? Yeah, it's so, so interesting. Thinking about the way forward and how school districts could perhaps reimagine their policies. What right now, based on your research, would you propose as being a more restorative approach to addressing absenteeism and truancy?

I would say family needs assessments. I know that's placing more work on schools, but what do families need? What are the concerns? What are the barriers to not just attendance, but to everyday sustainability and livelihood? And then how can schools partner and coordinate with communities and community organizations? The school district of Philadelphia is doing some stuff where they're really trying to connect with community partners. And I think that's really important because those community partners can help to provide services that students who are experiencing issues with attendance, particularly habitual truancy, can tap into and take advantage of. So is it healthcare? Is it mental health care? Is it resources, right?

Access to food.

Access to food. Thinking about neighborhood safety. Some kids don't want to walk to school because they don't feel safe. So are there alternative ways to get people there? Maybe they live too close to take a bus, but they don't have grownups who can take them to school because grownup has to work. But is there some sort of school walking system, right? Where it's not a bus, but it's a set of people employed by schools-

I love that.

... like, hey, this is a central meetup location, and we're going to make sure these kids get to school.

But also to create a sense of embedded community.

Right, exactly.

I think that'd be a really interesting way to support kids literally in the journey to get to school.

Absolutely. And I haven't seen it, I was just thinking about it, but I think that's one effective, potentially effective strategy. Just partnership, partnering with families and partnering with community organizations to think about... We know that schools can't do it all, but we know that these policies are based off of school attendance. So school is the central focus, and how can we do coordinated systems to be able to work together on behalf of children?

Do you have any tips for educators as to how they can close that gap for the kids that they serve immediately with the children that they serve immediately? I mean, I can think of easily a half a dozen in my time as a teacher where it's like, I know that he lived literally across the street from school, and we really struggled to figure out how to get him to cross the road.

And to get there on time. And it was never a matter of him leaving, it was just literally getting him out of the door and up the hill. And so I don't know if you have just some suggestions for how teachers can work on building those bridges. Is there language to use perhaps? Is there language to avoid using?

That's a really good question. So I don't have it from an empirical perspective. But I would say relationships matter, climate matters. There's a whole lot of research on school climate and why it's important, and how that helps for students to be able to show up. And it's not to say that every kid who's not showing up to school is not showing up because the school climate is bad or they don't feel welcomed. But sometimes that might be the case. And I think what's in teachers control and what's in educators control more broadly is relationship building and establishing trust. So why is it that Ericka can't get to school in the morning, but once she's there, she's engaged and thriving? To me that says, right, okay, maybe something's happening at home and how do I build enough trust to be able to tap into that, and to get students to support they need. So I think for me, it just goes back to grace.

But that idea of the kid who I know is across the street and he's not coming to school on time, I think that there's something about me as a teacher that couldn't see the full circumstance, which is that he couldn't come to school because he was responsible for dressing his brother who had down syndrome. And if his brother was not feeling it, then that meant that he wasn't going to make it to first period. And I think that because kids oftentimes carry so much shame about the complexities of their inner landscape, they become these private barriers to being able to arrive. So I don't know, what do we do with that as adults?

And that's a very good point. It makes me think about newer research or research or areas that's looking into caregiving youth. What responsibilities do they have? That's one thing. But the other part this made me think of is it goes back to the earlier point I made about Grace. So I think about the student that you described, and he has his brother, and it's not something that he wanted to talk about, but he was having a hard time. He was tired, he was frustrated. And just, how much adults get the grace, right? We get a pass, but we don't give the same pass to students. I'm a mom of two kids, and sometimes it's really difficult to get out of the house in the mornings. I just think about how many times I'm like, I have to cancel this meeting. I can't make it. I'm just not in the head space to be able to do that. But students, students don't get that. It's you better show up in school, better be on time,-

Or there's a punishment.

Yeah.

There's a policy that dictates a punishment, and depending on how often you're unable to meet the standard, then the punishment gets more and more severe, and it never really accommodates for the fact that, it's complicated.

Exactly. No one ever addressed the fact, Okay, well, he's having a hard time in the morning because he has this responsibility to his brother and to his family." And the solution that they chose was to maybe make up schoolwork or to-

Give him detention.

... to give him detention. But how does that solve the problem of what this student needs in that moment?

We got work to do.

We do. We do.

Thank you so much, Ericka Weathers for joining us today to kind of figure out how we can do a better job of combating absenteeism, but also thinking about how we can better serve the kids in our care.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much to Erica for sharing her education. Policy insights, absenteeism is complex and something we all need to work towards addressing. There are diverse reasons why students face challenges in coming to school, and a compassionate approach is necessary. Be sure to subscribe, give us a five star rating, and visit educatorsplaybook.com to sign up for our newsletter.

Some of the most useful advice I ever received came from fellow teachers. Here's a helpful tip that you too can implement in your classroom.

Hi, my name is Nicki, and I've taught high school English for nearly 15 years. I believe building relationships with my students is my best tool. I stand at the door and call them by name nearly every day. Some of our school's biggest behavior problems have found a sense of belonging and safety in my class, and act like model students. We all deserve to feel seen and validated. I try to look at them through the lens of not how my day is going, but how theirs might be going. So if they aren't performing to my expectations, I try to check in and see why.

What works best for you? Give us a call at (267) 225-4413, or share your own advice on social media and tag us with the hashtag #PennGSEPlaybook. Educator's Playbook is produced in Philadelphia by the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and Partnership with RADIOKISMET. This podcast is produced by Amy Carson. Our Mix engineer is Justin Berger. Christopher Plant is RADIOKISMET's head of operations, and Ben Geisy is our project manager. Matthew Vlahos is our executive producer. And I'm your host, Kimberly McGlonn. Thanks so much for listening. This has been Educators Playbook.