Where Have Thousands Of Rhode Island Students Gone Since The Pandemic?

RHODE ISLAND — The number of Rhode Island students who are chronically absent from school jumped to 44,413 in the 2021-22 school year, up from 30,027 in 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.

During the 2021-22 school year, Rhode Island had the fourth-highest chronic absence rank in the U.S. at 31.9 percent. This was a significant jump from the 20.9 percent rate in 2019-20.

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.

Rhode Island was not one of the states included in the data. Still according to the available date from the federal Education Department, the absence rate in Rhode Island in 2022-23 grew to 37.9 percent.

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.