Education Program Invests Over $2.2 Million to Address Chronic Absenteeism in Early Grades

Originally Posted by the Heising-Simons Foundation
By Malia Ramler, Program Officer, Education at the Heising-Simons Foundation

Across the country, chronic absenteeism –defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days during the academic year– has remained persistently high in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In California, the greatest increase has been in elementary schools, especially in kindergarten. This crisis has resulted in the White House Policy Council issuing a public call to support actions that increase children’s school attendance.

In this context, the Heising-Simons Foundation’s Education program has awarded over $2.2 million in grants to support various strategies that can help lower chronic absenteeism in the early grades.

Attending school in the early grades is more than just being present in a classroom: it’s about laying the foundation for a child’s educational and social success. Young learners who consistently attend school are better equipped to develop the ability to read, self-regulate, and focus. They also learn to develop social awareness through interactions with peers and educators. These are fundamental skills that compound over time. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Education reported that children who are chronically absent in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade are much less likely to read on grade level by the third grade, and that these students are four times more likely to drop out of high school.

The Foundation’s grants are meant to support partners conducting research to understand the drivers of chronic absenteeism, and to also share successful family engagement strategies being used in some schools. A grant to U.C. Davis School of Education supports Dr. Kevin Gee’s work to conduct focus groups with select school district leaders, staff, educators, and parents in California to identify positive strategies that engage families of kindergarteners, especially multilingual learners. A separate grant to Learning Heroes will produce a family engagement tool that will be tested in several schools across the country, based on research being conducted in 15 schools in Illinois. Grants awarded to Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE), Families in Schools, and Attendance Works complete the program’s effort to support school attendance in the early grades.

In addition, Attendance Works has launched a national challenge to state and school districts leaders to cut chronic absence in half over the next five years. To date, fourteen states have signed onto the challenge. Attendance Works has developed a roadmap that help states organize around specific goals, choose appropriate strategies, and work with partners to craft and implement their plans to improve engagement and attendance. They are also planning to create tools to help states determine their reduction goals and identify which student groups need additional support.

The early grades represent a crucial window of opportunity in a child’s development. Understanding the importance of school attendance, and identifying and amplifying strategies that schools and educators can use to engage families, remain vital strategies to ensure young learners’ success in school and life.