Chronic Absenteeism Up 11 Percent In PA Schools Since Pandemic Onset

PENNSYLVANIA — The number of Pennsylvania students who are chronically absent from school jumped to 26.3 percent in the 2021-22 school year, up from 15.6 percent 2019-20, the year schools abruptly closed for COVID-19.

The number of schools reporting “high” or “extreme” levels of absenteeism in 2021-22 nearly doubled to an unprecedented 66 percent, up from 25 percent before the pandemic, Johns Hopkins University researchers said of their analysis of federal Education Department data.

A chronically absent student is one who has missed at least 18 school days, or 10 percent of the 180-day school year. Here are the percentages of students chronically absent from the last five years:

• 2018: 15.70 percent
• 2019: 15.40 percent
• 2020: 15.6 percent
• 2021: 18.60 percent
• 2022: 26.30 percent

Education experts had hoped absentee rates would return to pre-pandemic levels last year, but an analysis of preliminary data for 2022-23 school year data shows the high absenteeism rate was not an anomaly, the researchers said. Data is limited to eight states, all of which saw enrollment decreases last year.

These are the last five years, with student numbers for context:

• 2018: 271,454
• 2019: 266,383
• 2020: 268,506
• 2021: 317,750
• 2022: 445,481

There’s no single reason why absenteeism has soared. Robert Balfanz, a co-author of the analysis and professor of education at Johns Hopkins, told The Washington Post that some students skip classes to juggle jobs, or they could be wrestling with a mental health issue.

Education experts had hoped absentee rates would return to pre-pandemic levels last year, but an analysis of preliminary data for 2022-23 school year data shows the high absenteeism rate was not an anomaly, the researchers said. Data is limited to eight states, all of which saw enrollment decreases last year.

There’s no single reason why absenteeism has soared. Robert Balfanz, a co-author of the analysis and professor of education at Johns Hopkins, told The Washington Post that some students skip classes to juggle jobs, or they could be wrestling with a mental health issue.

In a 2021 youth survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 40 percent of students reported feeling so sad or hopeless that they gave up their daily activities. One reason, according to researchers’ estimates, is that hundreds or thousands of students had a parent or grandparent who died of COVID-19.

The authors said not only are teaching and learning more challenging when large numbers of students frequently skip school, elevated levels of chronic absence can easily overwhelm a school’s capacity to respond.

Stemming the problem requires systemic, blame-free efforts at the local, state and national levels to address the disengagement and increased barriers to attendance occurring during the pandemic and in its aftermath, they said.