A consistent challenge since the invention of public schooling is getting kids to attend. Making it compulsory can only go so far. Chronic absenteeism, defined as when a student misses 10% or more of a school year, has long troubled educators and policy wonks. In the aftermath of the pandemic, chronic absenteeism rates have soared.

The bad news? It is one of the reasons, perhaps even the biggest reason, that we as a nation are struggling to recover from pandemic-related learning loss. The worse news? Nobody seems to have a solution. So as schools let out for the summer, we’re left wondering: what will attendance look like when the fall comes?

A Quick Tour of Indiana’s Chronic Absenteeism Rates

For the 2019-20 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate across Indiana was 10.6%. In real terms, that means 10% of Hoosier students missed at least 10% of the school year for a variety of reasons.

Not great, but not so bad. Not exactly a crisis. Then the pandemic hit, and rates shot up to 18.5% that first year. The year following (2021-22) you might have expected a recovery. Instead, our rates rose again to 21.1%. The 2022-23 school year brought it back down to 19.3%, but that was still almost double pre-pandemic rates in Indiana.

The New York Times published a deep dive into this issue on the national level back in March (based on a report from the American Enterprise Institute). The piece offered a brilliant look-up tool for chronic absenteeism rates by school district nationwide (comparing pre-pandemic rates to 2023 data). Here’s how key districts across Indiana shake out.

• Indianapolis Public schools – from 26% to 35%
• Fort Wayne – from 14% to 23%
• Gary – from 26% to 66%
• South Bend – from 27% to 39%
• Evansville – from 6% to 21%

It will likely come as no surprise that whiter, wealthier districts tend to not have experienced such stark increases. Here’s a few donut county examples. Hamilton Southeastern Schools went from 5% to 9%. Brownsburg went from 5% to 10%. And Carmel Clay Schools from 4% to 8%.

Why Have Rates Not Recovered Since the Pandemic?

I imagine nobody is surprised to see rates skyrocket during the pandemic. But why haven’t they returned to pre-pandemic rates in the years since? With COVID largely, though not entirely, in the past, you might have thought rates would fall back closer to where they were four years ago. I certainly did.

While it’s a simplification to say, it would appear students left and never came back. Something that jumped out at me from the NYT piece is that absenteeism rates today have very little to do with how long a district stayed remote. Those who stayed remote the longest have only a three percentage point higher absenteeism rate (28%) than those that fell somewhere in the middle (25%) or that opted for mostly in-person instruction (25%). So it’s not as if schools that had less remote learning weathered the storm better.

Near the middle of the piece, the NYT also said this: “The trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting. What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous.”

Why haven’t kids been coming to school? I’m sure you can think of a rather long list in a matter of minutes. Here’s one (non-exhaustive to say the least):

• Growing caution for attending school when sick with a cold or flu
• A lack of reliable transportation
• Strained relationships with peers or educators
• Student mental health
• The perception or, indeed, the growing option, that classwork can be completed online

(Quick aside on the mental health component. The Guardian published a thoughtful piece on this phenomenon in Australia, capturing the anxieties and mental anguish some students feel about attending school, which there has come to be known as “school refusal.”)

The reasons are basically endless, as are the possible responses. On the idea that we shouldn’t try to get kids physically back to school and resort to increased virtual options I say this: I think it’s too soon to throw up our hands and say the kids aren’t coming back. That may be worthwhile in specific cases but, at-scale, virtual schooling just doesn’t work for most students.

(Even this seemingly positive review of virtual schooling featured the sub-headline of, “Though detrimental to most, in Los Angeles, virtual learning actually improved test scores for 10% of students.” Another way to look at that is to say it did not improve for 90%, which is a pretty clear sign that we shouldn’t scale up on virtual options.)

A wealth of other strategies are being deployed, with varying degrees of success. Some schools have responded with fun activities designed to entice kids back to school. Others have created home visit programs. Meanwhile, a recent Mirror Indy piece looked at a suite of tactics deployed by Sankofa School of Success here in Indianapolis. Their chronic absenteeism rate has been cut by nearly 20 percentage points over the past three years through a more holistic approach (though they remain well above the statewide average).

What remains is the icy fact that there’s no silver bullet here. That NYT piece closed by quoting a school superintendent who said, “We haven’t seen an answer.” They’re right. No single answer can get kids back in schools. It’s going to take a combination of smart interventions.

And, if we’re being honest, it can’t all be on the shoulders of our school districts. I won’t quote the overused adage about it taking a village. But I will say it takes an entire community to educate and care for our kids. That starts, by necessity, with getting them physically back in schools.