Idaho students are less likely to be chronically absent than other states, according to Associated Press data, and State Superintendent Debbie Critchfield said that's mainly because Idaho students have had more time in class during the pandemic.
“We never stopped doing in-person work, and I believe that's why it's had the least impact (four years later),” Critchfield said.
Just 16.1% of Idaho students were chronically absent last school year, according to data released by the Idaho Department of Education — a rate even lower than the year before and one of the lowest rates among 42 states and Washington, D.C., according to a report by The Associated Press.
Idaho's data has been called into question because of some outliers, but it's still worth looking at, Critchfield said, and he plans to conduct the drills in the future. Reporting needs to be strengthened in future. See the sidebar for more details.
Critchfield's push for in-person learning during the pandemic is in line with findings from experts across the country. Tom Dee, a professor and education economist at Stanford University, said the increase in chronic absenteeism at the state level was “significantly higher” in states that had longer school closures during the 2020-21 school year.
One reason is that distance learning “may have led to a loss of recognition among students and parents of the value of regular school attendance,” Dee said in a video call with reporters covering the issue of chronic absenteeism.
But Dee warned that some are using the data “to politically re-examine the controversial school closures that took place several years ago”. He argues that the current attendance “crisis” “deserves immediate attention and we need to refrain from finger-pointing”.
Breaking down the jargon: chronic absenteeism
Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of school days and includes school-excused absences for non-instructional reasons such as athletics.
In Idaho, students average 159 days of schoolingSo to be chronically absent, a student must miss 16 or more days of school, or a minimum of three to four weeks.
Other factors, such as the rise of the four-day week and attendance-based school funding, have also been cited as reasons for Idaho's relatively low chronic absenteeism rates, though some school leaders have repeatedly insisted that the latter is not the driving factor.
While Idaho students are less likely to be chronically absent than other states, there are still about 46,000 students who miss more than 10 percent of the school year. And chronic absenteeism is especially high among vulnerable students.
But state and district leaders are finding creative solutions to the problem.
Check your school or district's 2023-24 absenteeism rate here.
The four-day work week could increase, improving attendance rates
More than half of Idaho's school districts and charter schools have adopted a four-day week, which has become more popular with each passing school year. “You can draw the lines and connect the dots between a shorter week and lower rates of chronic absenteeism,” Critchfield said.
Parents can schedule vacations or activities on those extra weekdays, and coaches will try to schedule games on those days, resulting in students missing less class time.
Ryan Cantrell, an administrator in the Bruneau-Grandview School District, which follows a four-day school week, said that by scheduling long-distance travel and games on a fifth weekday, “we ended up saving our college football players 60 hours of game time.”
Many of Idaho's schools are in rural areas, another factor that may contribute to the low absenteeism rates, Cantrell said. “In small rural schools, it really stands out if a kid is absent for a day or two or three days,” and it's common for a teacher, principal or superintendent to make a home visit.
But a scatter plot of chronic absenteeism data for 2023-24 shows that district size and number of days per week don’t correlate with higher or lower absenteeism rates. But that data may not be reliable.
How funding affects attendance depends on who you ask
Education leaders across the state have tended to be hesitant to discuss another potential factor: attendance-based funding.
Simply put, higher attendance rates mean local school districts will receive more state funding. During the pandemic, funding was temporarily based on enrollment, but reverted to being based on attendance last school year. The change put even tighter strain on school district budgets.
Politicians who have promoted attendance-based funding say it is a way to incentivize school principals to improve attendance.
It's “almost an insult,” said Deputy Superintendent Joey Palmer of the Valivre Police Department. “We want our kids to go to school not because we want money, but because we care about the students.”
“We want our kids to go to school not because we want money, but because we care about the students.” — Joey Palmer, Vice Superintendent, Valley View School District
Other school leaders, including Critchfield, echoed the sentiment: attendance-based funding doesn't provide the impetus to keep kids in class.
Critchfield said that if funding remained based on enrollment, educators would work just as hard to get kids to class, largely due to other accountability measures such as statewide standardized tests. If students don't show up to class, it will show up in their test scores.
But Gooding School District Superintendent David Carson said recently that attendance-based funding does work and has helped the district improve its record-keeping.
While chronic absenteeism rates are low, about 46,000 students have missed weeks of school. Learn how school districts are working to get students back in the classroom.
To address attendance issues, school leaders need to find low-cost solutions tailored to their student populations, said Dee, the Stanford education economist. He noted that districts currently face severe financial pressures due to school closures caused by “sustained enrollment declines” and expiring COVID-19 relief funds.
Related articles: School closures will affect vulnerable students, but it's unclear what that means for their education.
In Idaho, a return to attendance-based funding has exacerbated financial difficulties.
Dee came up with some cheap but effective solutions: Engaging with families about attendance through text messages and postcards “can raise awareness among parents and motivate them to send their children to school,” he said.
Warm, inclusive communication is more effective than legalistic or threatening language, and when communicating with parents, it can also be helpful to compare a student's attendance to others, he added.
Several school districts in Idaho are already implementing these solutions.
Pocatello aims to curb absenteeism by customizing solutions and communicating with families.
The Pocatello/Chubbuck School District launched an attendance campaign this school year by sending magnets to students' homes to track absences.
Addressing the absenteeism issue requires going beyond numbers and data and “digging down to names and figuring out how we can connect with those families,” said Tonya Wilkes, the district's director of student support services.
Raina Patterson, the district's director of federal programs, said the district has also “softened” the wording in letters sent to parents whose children have missed five days of school. Previously, the language was more punitive, but now it focuses on working with parents to get their kids back in school.
Additionally, school districts are working to remove barriers and provide tailored supports for each child. Solutions range from providing kids with alarm clocks to connecting families with child care resources so older children don't have to care for younger siblings during school hours.
Courtney Fisher, communications director for the school district, said it's all part of a larger effort to “create a culture of no-loneliness” when kids leave school.
About 35% of students at Pocatello/Chubbuck High School were chronically absent in the 2020-21 school year, a figure that dropped to about 17% last school year.
At Vallivue, relationships make the difference
In Caldwell's Valley View School District, chronic absenteeism rates fell from about 34% in the 2022-23 school year to 20% in 2023-24.
Joey Palmer, the district's assistant superintendent, said the district has produced a series of videos featuring interviews with students and teachers about the importance of attendance, including one that is being featured prominently on the district's website.
The district had staff, including principals, attendance officers and resiliency advocates, contact families when a student began missing school. If that communication didn't work, the district would hold truancy hearings, which are not punitive but aimed at working together to find a solution, Palmer said.
Out of that hearing, student-specific plans were developed that would include everything from having a student affairs officer drive students to school every day to parents withholding gaming consoles unless a student attends school five days in a row.
Over time, a trend emerged: Students who felt isolated or left out were more likely to miss school. For these students, assigning them an adult mentor with whom they could check in daily helped.
“At the end of the day, it's about relationships,” Palmer said.
One school in his district tried a unique strategy: They posted the percentage of staff who came to school each day alongside the percentage of students who came to school. And so a friendly competition began.
As not all districts can afford to run attendance campaigns using videos and posters, the state recently Attendance Toolkit Social media graphics, letters, flyers, posters, etc. that districts can use.
But Critchfield, Recent Columns The responsibility of sending children to school also rests on parents. “… “Schools are not responsible for getting kids out of bed every morning,” she writes. “By reminding kids and parents that coming to school is one of the most important parts of school, we can reinforce strong, lifelong habits.”“
Idaho Education News data analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report.