slides: The 25 Central MA Schools with Worst Chronic Absentee Problem

Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Patrick Sargent, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

Over the past two school years, the percentage of students in Massachusetts that are chronically absent from school is 12.5 percent. Chronic absenteeism refers to students that miss 10% or more of the school year.

SEE SLIDES BELOW: 25 Central MA Schools with Worst Chronic Absentee Problem

In Worcester’s public secondary schools, the average number of students that are chronically absent is nearly 20 percent.

Statistics from Mass. Dept of Secondary and Elementary Ed. 2013-2014.

In a recent column for GoLocalWorcester, Worcester School Committee member John Monfredo, said “Research shows that improving student attendance is an essential, cost-effective but often overlooked strategy for ensuring our students are on track to learn and succeed. Chronic absence is a leading early warning indicator of academic trouble and later the student may become a dropout statistic.  The data shows that truancy and chronic absenteeism can be precursors to school drop-outs, academic failure, and juvenile delinquency.”

Monfredo, an advocate for putting an end to chronic absenteeism and for implementing new approaches into the Worcester Public School system to lower student absentee numbers, notes that there are four factors that contribute to chronic absenteeism - and each factor has several issues that contribute.

According to Monfredo, these factors are:

• Individual: school phobia, learning disabilities, poor school attachments, behavior problems, perceived or real lack of safety, boredom/indifference in class, lagging schoolwork, need for employment;
• Family:  low family income, single-parent status, child maltreatment, parental disabilities, lack of parental involvement in education, family mobility, family care responsibilities;
• District/School:  district/school attendance policies, diverse student learning styles that make individualized instruction challenging , relationships between students/families and teachers; and
• Community:  high levels of family mobility, violence, child maltreatment, crime, drug abuse, and unemployment.

According to the statistics from the 2013-2014 school year from the Department of Secondary and Elementary Education, the districts across the state that have the worst chronic absenteeism issues are Fall River (31.7 percent of students are chronically absent), Holyoke (29.4), Southbridge (27.8) and Boston (24.7).

Across the entirety of Worcester Public Schools, the percent of students whom are chronically absent is 14.4%.

Monfredo writes “...the best predictor of chronic absenteeism  is a history of continuing poor attendance. The schools need to list those students at each grade level and start putting together an individual educational plan. The schools need to partner up with community partners and figure out available resources to motivate and assist the students. The support could be in the form of a personalized welcome to school or visits to the home from teachers or a community member. The schools, as part of their plan, can assign a mentor to the students and the mentor can check in with the students daily and call home for each absence.”

For a list of the 25 Schools in Central MA with the worst chronic absentee issues, see below: