Chalkbeat

Detroit school district to hold parents accountable for too many unexcused early sign-outs

2026-08-27T23:12:05+00:00

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This year, the Detroit district is sending a stronger message to parents that their children must remain in class the entire school day.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District wants to curb unexcused early sign-outs, defined by administrators as instances in which parents pick up their children before the school day ends without documentation showing it is necessary, such as a doctor’s appointment.

Starting this school year, parents who repeatedly unnecessarily take their kids out of school early will have to attend meetings and sign attendance contracts.

“Principals and teachers have repeatedly asked Central Office to establish clearer guidelines for stronger and more uniformed communication and accountability for this challenge, so they are not constantly at odds with parents regarding early pickups,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat in an email.

Sign-outs disrupt learning for students who leave early and their peers, Vitti said. When a student is signed out early, teachers may be notified with phone calls to their classroom or announcements over school speaker systems. Sometimes administrators have to abandon other work to get students, and security officers must screen all adults who enter schools for pickups.

Some of the most common documented reasons for early sign-outs in the district are the same that cause chronic absenteeism: parents and students’ inflexible work schedules, inadequate childcare, poor health, a lack of access to reliable transportation, and unsafe routes to school.

“To be clear, parents should always work with the school about safety concerns so intervention can occur between students and families,” Vitti said.

But some parents don’t give an explanation, while others tell the staff they simply don’t like waiting in the pickup line, Vitti said.

DPSCD’s new policy

The district’s previous policy only discouraged early sign-outs.

Early pickups may now happen only on “rare occurrences” and require documentation, such as proof of an appointment, the newly adopted policy says. Early releases outside of documented emergencies are now prohibited within the final 30 minutes of the school day. A typical elementary and middle school day lasts around seven hours.

Students will also be marked absent from class if they miss more than half of the instructional period.

The policy mandates parent meetings when students have three or more unexcused early sign-outs in a quarter. During the meetings, administrators will discuss the impact of the early departures and what instruction the students have missed. School staff will determine the issues causing students to leave before the final bell and connect families with additional resources.

Parents will have to sign attendance contracts — formal agreements to follow attendance policies — if their children have six or more unexcused early departures in a quarter. Parents will be asked to agree that their child will check in and -out with an attendance agent or other staff member.

“If the family does not comply with the contract, and continues to miss periods of the school day, then those absences continue to add up and contribute to the overall chronic absenteeism numbers for the student,” Vitti said.

There already are consequences for students who miss too many days, such as making them return to their neighborhood schools, referring them to the Wayne County Prosecutor support program, or requiring them to repeat their current grade.

Housing, groceries, and medical needs: Detroit’s Health Hubs helping to get kids to school

2026-06-29T10:00:00+00:00

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Upbeat on-hold music blared from Jerrica Mickens’ cellphone for nearly 50 minutes as she searched on her laptop for affordable housing for a parent in Detroit.

Mickens was on a three-way call with a mother and a legal aide hotline the morning of April 21 in her Central High School office. As the two waited for a representative to answer questions about the mother’s landlord troubles, Mickens asked what else her family needed. Did they want to pick up a box of groceries for the month? Did the kids need new clothes? Did anyone in the family need mental health services?

Mickens is one of nine “navigators” whose job is getting to know school communities and discerning their needs. They play a critical role in the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s 10 Health Hubs. Since launching in 2023, the hubs have contributed to improved attendance in the district and helped thousands of families, officials say.

DPSCD Health Hub navigator Jerrica Mickens poses for a photo.

Mickens’ time and care is often a lifeline for parents in survival mode. Sometimes, she said, families just need someone to listen.

“My passion is serving people,” said Mickens. “So if that’s what a person needs, then I’m gonna be here for that.”

The navigators lead parents through a complex web of district resources, social services, and nonprofit assistance they may not otherwise know how to access. Their offices serve as a one-stop-shop to triage the root causes that keep students from regularly attending school, such as poor health, unstable housing, and food insecurity.

At the hubs, students are connected with vision and hearing screenings, as well as medical, dental, and mental health care. The centers connect families with housing, utility assistance, and legal services. The school community can stop in for food and hygiene product distribution.

From July 1, 2023, through June 14, the hubs served families 19,200 times and more than 1,100 referrals were made.

“We know that for students to show up ready to learn and focus on their academics, their basic health and well-being needs must be met first,” said Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. “Schools are the natural, trusted, and most convenient hub for families to access these vital resources.”

DPSCD's 10 Health Hubs are distribution centers for hygiene products and food, as well as onsight health centers.

Prolonged absenteeism has long been a problem for Detroit schools due to systemic socioeconomic barriers, which in turn severely hinders students’ learning.

Michigan students are considered chronically absent when they miss 18 days or more in a 180-day school year.

Nearly 61% of the district’s students were chronically absent in 2024-25. Though the rate was considerably higher than the statewide average of 28%, DPSCD has outpaced the rest of Michigan in reducing absenteeism since the COVID-19 pandemic.

District officials attribute the improvement to many long-term efforts – like creating a culture of improving attendance among leaders, hiring more counselors to address mental health needs, and student incentives – but they believe the hubs are a key piece.

Students get lunch inside Osborn High School’s Health Hub.

Overall, the district’s chronic absenteeism rate decreased by 5.2 percentage points last year compared to 2022-23, the last year before the hubs opened. Academic performance has also improved, with third-grade reading proficiency and graduation rates reaching historic highs last year.

“K-12 students who accessed the Health Hubs during the 2024–25 school year had better average daily attendance and lower rates of chronic absenteeism than students who did not access the Hubs,” said Vitti, though he didn’t provide detailed numbers.

Jaiden Mabins' house burned down when he was a 10th grader at Osborn High School. Health Hub navigator Jerrica Mickens helped his mom find new housing close to the school.

Jaiden Mabins, who recently graduated from Osborn High School, said his attendance improved and his postsecondary plans were affected by Mickens’ work as a navigator at his school.

In 10th grade, Mabin’s home burned down, which meant moving in with his sister near 10 Mile – a considerable distance from his school on the east side of Detroit. The limited transportation options forced him to stay home many days, he said.

“Ms. Jerrica, she helped us find a new place, still close in the neighborhood for school,” said Mabins.

The navigator gave him new clothes, school supplies, and a laptop. When it came time to think about his post-high school options, she helped him fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Addressing Detroit families’ needs beyond the school day

At 11:50 a.m. at Central High School, 17-year-old Jeremy McKinney was led by a school employee through Mickens’ office door, held open by two stacked boxes of canned green beans overflowing from the hub’s food distribution pantry.

McKinney squinted when he introduced himself, struggling to see. His glasses had been stolen. The navigator got him on the waiting list to get a new pair from a nonprofit that regularly visits the school.

Around 185 pairs of glasses have been given to kids in the district since the hubs opened, according to DPSCD.

As Mickens got back to packing boxes of groceries for scheduled pick-ups, she paused periodically to answer calls from parents.

Jerrica Mickens updates case files at her desk at Central High School.

“Oh Lord Jesus, I hope I can help her,” she said of a mother whose house flooded. Once a new place was secured, Mickens said she knew an organization that would build new beds for the kids. She could also help them get gas cards to get to school and some clothing.

While DPSCD has always tried to fill gaps for students with attendance agents and wraparound services, district officials say the hubs streamline the process. Navigators have the time for deeper conversations with families and take detailed notes on their case files. They can also better track how the children are served by outside organizations beyond the initial referral.

All of the hubs are strategically placed so every school has a location within 3 miles.

Mickens is currently responsible for 10 feeder schools in addition to Central and Durfee Elementary-Middle School. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she travels to the other schools to get to know parent outreach coordinators, principals, and social workers who relay family needs.

There are currently hubs in 10 DPSCD schools – Central, Denby, Henry Ford, Marygrove, Martin Luther King Jr., Mumford, Osborn, Southeastern, and Western International high schools, as well as East English Village Prep Academy.

There will also be hubs at the new Cody and Pershing high schools when they open for the 2027-28 school year. There are plans for a Detroit Lions Academy location, though an opening date has not been set.

A sign outside of a DPSCD Health Hub provides information for students.

It costs around $500,000 a year to operate each hub, said Vitti. But because most of the expenses are covered by donations from community partners, the actual cost for DPSCD is around $172,000 a year per hub, he added.

Coordinated school health plan models in New York City’s school system and the Oakland Unified School District served as models for the district. Those districts reportedly saw improvements in attendance and academic achievement, as well as lower rates of student discipline.

A third-party evaluator is currently examining how the hubs affect DPSCD student attendance. It is expected to be complete in the fall.

Later that day at Central, Mickens grabbed two tuna snack packs and a chocolate milk for a teen boy in between classes.

The navigator asked if he’d filled out the dental exam permission slip she gave him days before. No, he said, because he wouldn’t be at the school for long.

She consoled the student after learning the reason he had to leave. “No judgment,” she said.

Mickens said she understands some of the challenges the students she serves face. She dropped out when she was a ninth grader at Central years ago.

“A lot of it was because of the disconnect of social services that I needed,” she said. “ I have a heart to not let kids go through what I have.”

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit students to be able to ride city buses for free starting Wednesday

2026-04-08T15:30:36+00:00

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Students across Detroit will be able to ride city buses for free in a new program the city council approved Tuesday.

The Ride to Rise program is being launched Wednesday in part to address high rates of chronic absenteeism of Detroit students attending schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District and charter schools.

In her proposal to the council last week, Mayor Mary Sheffield said the free bus passes will also expand access to safe and reliable transportation, extracurricular activities, employment opportunities, and supportive services.

Sheffield, during her State of the City address Tuesday night, described the program as a “show your ID, ride for free” program.

It’s unclear how much it will cost.

“This is an opportunity for us, under Mayor Sheffield’s leadership, to learn more about how transit and DDOT in particular can work more effectively for students and their families,” Detroit Department of Transportation Director Robert Cramer said during the council meeting on Tuesday. Cramer said DDOT will also seek feedback about bus routes, schedules, bus stop changes, and amenities.

Cramer said they’ll present the feedback to the council and possibly submit an ordinance amendment to change the fare system and create a longer-term program in September or October when students return to school.

DPSCD doesn’t provide yellow school bus transportation for high school students, though exceptions are made, including for students with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness. The district does pay for bus passes for high school students who want them.

The district won’t have to pay for the city bus passes during the pilot. DPSCD “is working on plans to reinvest that funding in strategies that expand our work in improving student attendance and enrollment,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said.

Sheffield was more specific during her Tuesday evening speech, saying the city “reached an agreement in principle with the board and the superintendent so that the money currently spent on bus fare for students will now go towards much-needed after-school programs.”

Vitti said in an emailed statement that the district supports the city’s effort “to empower youth to use citywide transportation without cost or barriers.”

“This investment by the City will create greater awareness and access to citywide transportation,” Vitti said. “We believe this will support the District’s efforts in promoting stronger student attendance citywide.”

Transportation has long been a challenge for Detroiters, and it’s particularly so for families trying to navigate a range of options: yellow school buses, city buses, ride share services, their own transportation, or relying on others to get their children to school. Those challenges have made it difficult for many children to get to school regularly.

About one-third of families in Detroit don’t own a car, and 30% don’t have a reliable way to get their children to school every day, according to a report on transportation from Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research, or Detroit PEER, at Wayne State University. Researchers there have done extensive research on chronic absenteeism and its causes.

Half of the school-age children in Detroit attend DPSCD schools. The rest attend charter schools or suburban schools. While many of the city charter schools provide some form of transportation, parents often have to get their kids to a preset location for them to hop on a bus.

“Transportation is one of, if not the most important issue for student attendance in Detroit,” said Jeremy Singer, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Michigan-Flint and research affiliate at Detroit PEER.

Singer said the mayor’s initiative is an admirable way to tackle a challenge that schools can’t solve. He hopes the city goes further by addressing safety issues on city buses and at bus stops, as well as the frequency and reliability of bus service.

In a survey Detroit PEER completed in 2022, 40% of parents said free DDOT rides would be at least somewhat helpful. High school parents were more likely to say it would be helpful.

Among the transportation recommendations Detroit PEER made in its report last year:

The city should work with Detroit schools to coordinate public transit schedules and stops with public school schedules and locations.
DDOT should collect better data on public school students who ride public transportation to better understand their schedules and needs.
The city should work with local schools to increase safety, lighting, and complete sidewalks so more children can walk or bike to school when they live close enough.

Few students now are taking DDOT buses daily to get to school, Singer said.

Results from the 2022 survey showed that just 10% of parents said their children rode DDOT to get to and from school. Broken down by grade level, 18% of parents of high school-aged children said their kids sometimes took DDOT, compared to 6% for parents of K-8 children, Singer said.

For parents of high school-aged students, 8% said their children rode DDOT daily, 4% said they rode DDOT weekly or monthly, and 6% said they rode DDOT infrequently, Singer said.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note, April 8, 2026: This story was updated to reflect a slight change in the name of the program since the city council approved it last week.

Could holding parents accountable improve chronic absenteeism in the Detroit school district?

2025-10-15T21:01:04+00:00

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Two members of the Detroit school district’s board want to explore what can be done to hold parents accountable for their children missing too many days of school.

Based on trends in the attendance rate so far this school year, Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said at Tuesday night’s board meeting that about 45% of students are projected to be chronically absent by the end of the school year. Students are considered chronically absent when they miss 10% or more days of a school year.

Chronic absenteeism, which negatively impacts students’ ability to learn and progress academically, has long been a problem for DPSCD. High rates of poverty, a lack of transportation, health concerns, and unsafe routes to school are among the leading causes of kids missing too many days of class.

The district has made big strides in reducing absenteeism in recent years. Still, more than 60% of students in the district were chronically absent last school year.

When students are at risk of being chronically absent, the district’s intervention process includes engaging with parents and visiting the kids’ homes. Students are also required to sign an acknowledgement that they know they will be required to attend their neighborhood schools instead of opting to attend district schools outside of their feeder pattern if they miss too many days.

In an effort to solve transportation issues, DPSCD gives students free city bus passes, as the school system does not offer yellow bus service to most high schoolers. Some principals problem-solve for individual students with ride shares or carpools, one school gave its students bikes, and two high schools are piloting yellow buses this year.

In addition to solving transportation barriers and providing wraparound services, board member Monique Bryant asked Vitti what the district can do to address parents who are “not sending their kids to school.”

“I hear we’re working with students, we’re providing transportation, but I just don’t understand how we are not more firm with our parents and their responsibility to get their children to school,” Bryant said to some applause from the crowd at the meeting.

“I think there’s some work for the board to do, and I think now we need to step up more than ever, because we need to be the first people saying parents should be accountable,” said Latrice McClendon, another board member. “We need to be non-negotiable about some of the things that are happening in our district, and we are now outraged and upset about what we’re seeing … It starts with the parents.”

Vitti said during the meeting he believes “it is time to enhance the accountability and engagement” with parents. There are policy or administrative actions the superintendent said he would recommend that would put parents at the center of discussions around attendance, like mandatory in-person or virtual meetings.

“The more extreme cases of absenteeism, we are reporting those to the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, but they are way understaffed, and they are not prosecuting the vast majority of cases that we send them,” said Vitti. “They take the most egregious examples and move forward on those cases, especially for the youngest of children that are extremely absent.”

Bryant said she was not aware that there are cases referred by the district that do not get prosecuted, adding “they should be.”

McClendon said, “We need to personally contact our prosecutor to say, ‘Hey, we need to step up, and we need to do that.’”

Michigan parents can face a misdemeanor charge if they fail to ensure their child attends school. The penalty can range from 90 days in jail and fines between $5 and $50. Parents who get public financial assistance for their children also risk the aid being withheld by the state.

Some research suggests punitive measures do not reduce absenteeism. Officials with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services told Chalkbeat in 2023 they could not provide evidence its penalties for parents of truant kids improved attendance.

During public comment at Tuesday’s meeting, one parent told the board they should focus more on filling in gaps for families without transportation instead of prosecuting them.

McClendon clarified to the speaker that she agreed.

“The goal is never to criminalize parents,” said McClendon. “Accountability is not punishment, it’s partnership.”

The board member added she understands addressing absenteeism requires “empathy and understanding” because of the “complex realities families face.”

“I think the balance is delicate, but it’s necessary,” she said. “I do want to set high standards.”

Vitti said he will provide more information and recommendations on potential policy changes at a future board committee meeting.

Could yellow bus service improve high school attendance?

This school year, DPSCD began piloting yellow bus service for students within the boundaries of Henry Ford High School and East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Vitti said despite efforts to raise awareness and interest among students, the pilot is “not having a scaled impact” on chronic absenteeism data at either school so far this year. He didn’t say how many students are participating in the yellow bus pilot. The superintendent said there may be a positive impact for individual students and the district will look at whether attendance for kids taking the bus has improved compared to the prior year.

There may also be more use of the buses once the weather becomes colder, Vitti added.

He suggested the board decide early next year whether the pilot should continue based on participation and attendance data.

The schools have sent robo calls and texts about the service, made announcements during school, and offered incentives for ridership.

Anthony Peete, a student representative on the board who attends Henry Ford, said at the meeting that he had surveyed his classmates about why they do or do not use the service.

“A lot of what students replied was that it just wasn’t convenient for them in a lot of different ways,” said Peete.

Some said in the survey they felt the city bus was more convenient, and many said they didn’t know how to check if the yellow bus went to their neighborhood, Peete said.

Because the district received more state funding than was anticipated in its adopted budget for this school year, Vitti said there is some opportunity to expand transportation options.

Vitti said he would not recommend using the funds to add more yellow bus services, saying ride shares for targeted students or small groups of classmates who are missing too many days of school may be more effective and cost efficient.

The “big picture” solution to the problem is for the city to expand its transportation offerings. That has been successful for other large urban districts in the U.S. in improving attendance, Vitti said.

The district’s long-term goal is to “have more children attend their neighborhood school,” Vitti said, which would result in students traveling shorter distances.

About 50% of DPSCD students currently attend schools in their neighborhood, said Vitti.

“That will happen if we continue to improve neighborhood schools, which we are, and the data suggests that,” said Vitti.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: Oct. 17, 2025: A previous version of this story said the student representative’s name was Anthony Peele. It is Anthony Peete.

Fighting chronic absenteeism key issue as Sheffield and Kinloch gear up for November mayoral race

2025-08-06T15:25:03+00:00

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The two contenders to be Detroit’s next mayor both say they will invest city resources into addressing chronic absenteeism, one of the biggest challenges facing schools in the city.

Mary Sheffield, the president of the Detroit City Council, and Solomon Kinloch, the senior pastor at Triumph Church in Detroit, were the top vote-getters in the mayoral primary in Detroit Tuesday and will face off in the general election in November.

Just 17% of Detroit residents voted in the primary election, according to city of Detroit data. Sheffield, who led polling throughout the campaign, received 43,572 votes, or 51% of the vote. Kinloch came in a distant second, with 14,893 votes, or 17.4% of the vote.

They were among a field of nine candidates who said they intended to play a role in collaborating with schools across the city and improving outcomes for young people.

Mary Sheffield was the top vote-getter in the Detroit mayoral primary Tuesday.

The desire to get involved in education issues is happening at a critical moment in the city. Low academic achievement and high rates of chronic absenteeism are among the biggest challenges schools face. But contributing factors such as poverty, housing instability, transportation, and safety concerns — issues schools alone can’t resolve — impede school success for many students.

There has been a growing realization among many community leaders that the city’s rebirth from bankruptcy won’t be complete if schools continue to struggle, and student achievement won’t see substantial improvement if the city doesn’t partner with the education community.

Rev. Solomon Kinloch, right, hugs a community member on election day, Tues., Aug. 5, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan.

So what would the two mayoral contenders do?

In her response to a Chalkbeat Detroit survey on education issues, Sheffield said her role would “be a solutions-oriented advocate on behalf of parents, teachers, students and community members.” She said she would “commit significant resources” toward improving conditions that impact education that the city oversees.

“I will establish deeper collaborative ties with DPSCD first and foremost, acknowledging that a strong school system means a strong Detroit,” Sheffield said. “Everything from Detroit’s public safety to workforce to small business and entrepreneurship have direct ties to our educational system. So as a goal, we will understand the gaps and create solutions together.”

Kinloch, who didn’t respond to Chalkbeat’s survey, told the Detroit News that he would be an “educational mayor” and would appoint a chief educational officer who would work with Detroit school officials.

On his website, Kinloch said he would partner with Detroit’s school community to address social barriers to education.

The person he would appoint to the senior cabinet level position would be “specifically tasked with working with our school administrators, educators, parents, and children to coordinate city services that support student success.”

Both candidates say they would tackle attendance challenges. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, about 60% of the students were considered chronically absent during the last school year. That’s down from a high of nearly 80% at the height of the pandemic, but still far above state and national averages. Charter schools have similarly high rates. A student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10%, or 18 days, of the school year.

“Together, we will attack the root causes of truancy, such as housing instability, financial need, lack of transportation, and mental health, and set our students up for success,” Kinloch wrote on his website. “My administration will prioritize it, set metrics to track progress and keep us accountable.”

Sheffield said attendance and literacy rates must be addressed together.

“We have to make sure that we are having conversations about both, because they are inevitably linked. And possible solutions have to take this into account as well,” Sheffield said in her response to the Chalkbeat survey.

“If students are not showing up to school consistently, we are not able to accurately gauge the quality of the educational system itself,” she said. “I am committing to piloting realistic wraparound services solutions that include transportation, housing, employment and childcare supports to our students and households with the highest barriers to attendance.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Can bikes help curb chronic absenteeism? Some Detroit students say yes.

2025-07-10T19:45:22+00:00

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As the Detroit school district continues to explore ways to reduce chronic absenteeism, providing bicycles to students could help them travel to and from school, some board members say.

The bike idea was brought up by Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti during a school board meeting on Tuesday. He said district officials recently completed interviews with high school students who were chronically absent this past school year and weren’t eligible for any of the incentives the district provided, such as its gift card program. One of the recommendations the teens made to curb chronic absenteeism was bikes, Vitti said.

“They felt like if they had bikes, that might help get them to and from school,” he said. “It makes sense in the spring and fall, it’s more complicated in the winter. But I thought that was interesting that it came directly from students.”

Board Vice President LaTrice McClendon said the district has a warehouse full of bikes that could be used as part of an attendance incentive. BridgeDetroit reached out to a DPSCD spokesperson to find out where the bikes came from and how many are in the warehouse, but has not gotten a response yet.

“I hope we can take those bikes and immediately fill the needs of the students who have the request,” McClendon said. “When I went in there to tour the warehouse, I was told those bikes have been sitting for two or three years.”

The comments were part of a larger discussion on curbing chronic absenteeism in DPSCD. Board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo asked Vitti if he had a survey highlighting why students are chronically absent from school.

In response, Vitti said he will have a report soon for the board based on the interviews with the absent high school students. During his superintendent’s report, Vitti said the average daily attendance rate for the district slightly increased this past school year. In the 2023-24 school year, daily attendance was at 82%, and for 2024-25, the rate was at 84%. When Vitti first became superintendent in 2017, the average was at 80%.

Chronic absenteeism rates for DPSCD have dropped 10 percentage points since the 2017-18 school year, from 70% to 60% for 2024-25. Meanwhile, Michigan’s chronic absenteeism rate has increased since 2017, going from 20% to 30% in 2023-24.

“There’s still more work to do with student attendance, but we’re certainly making a difference in getting students to come more regularly and declining chronic absenteeism as well,” Vitti said.

Will bikes work as an incentive for better attendance?

Chronic absenteeism continues to be an issue not only in Detroit, but statewide and nationally as schools recover from the pandemic. According to a study released last year by The Associated Press and The Detroit News, roughly 1 in 4 students in the 2022-23 school year remained chronically absent. That represents about 12 million children in the 42 states and Washington, D.C., where the data is available.

During the 2023-2024 school year, 29.5% of Michigan students were chronically absent, down from 30.8% the previous year. Michigan defines chronic absenteeism as missing 10% or more of school days or 18 days or more during a 180-day school year.

Lack of transportation for families plays a significant role in why kids aren’t getting to school every day, especially in Detroit. A third of residents don’t own cars. DPSCD provides only limited school bus service, and none at all to high school students, who instead get passes to ride city buses. In the fall, there will be an exception to that rule, with the district launching a new transportation pilot program that will provide yellow school busing for students attending Henry Ford High School and East English Village @ Finney in an effort to reduce chronic absenteeism.

All Kids Bike, a national program that aims to teach kids to ride bikes by providing schools with a biking curriculum, stated that providing bicycles for students promotes their health and well-being and can boost their self-esteem while serving as a way to address chronic absenteeism.

School districts across the country have used bikes as an incentive to improve attendance.

Earlier this year, about 170 students who regularly miss school in Volusia County Schools in Florida were gifted bikes. A local hospital, AdventHealth Daytona Beach and the East Volusia Market, donated the money the district used to purchase the 168 bikes and helmets. Volusia County serves Daytona Beach and several surrounding cities.

For the Carson City School District in Nevada, Carson City Mayor Lori Bagwell launched a “Mayor’s Attendance Hall of Fame” campaign last year to help reduce chronic absenteeism. In January, the city and community partners awarded the district with six bicycles per elementary school and one bike for each middle school and high school, totaling 40 bikes. Additionally, they have provided gift cards, movie tickets, and other incentives.

During the first semester of the 2024-2025 school year, eight of the nine schools in the district saw a decline in chronic absenteeism, with two schools lowering their chronic absenteeism rate compared to pre-COVID percentages.

And in 2023, students in the Springfield Pubic Schools district in Missouri were gifted bikes through giveaways.

Board Secretary Ida Simmons-Short suggested at the meeting that the district send out a survey to parents to find out the reasons why their children are not going to school. She noted that transportation is a big issue for families.

“Even though we are the Motor City, we have a lot of parents who do not have cars,” Simmons-Short said.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Parents’ inflexible work schedules impact student attendance

2025-03-28T20:42:07+00:00

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Challenges faced by working parents can contribute to chronic absenteeism, according to a new book.

“The shift is like a twelve-hour shift,” said one parent whose experience was recounted in “Rethinking Chronic Absenteeism: Why Schools Can’t Solve It Alone,” which was written by two Wayne State University education researchers. “It’s hard to work around that and her going to school.”

The parent ended up quitting that job because of the strain of needing to rely on her mother to ensure her daughter made it to school. It’s a frequent reality for Detroit parents.

Housing instability, transportation inequities, and health challenges are among the most commonly reported causes of chronic absenteeism. Less focus has been paid to the role employers can play in the fight to improve attendance.

“It’s a perfect example of a sector that is likely not thinking at all about student attendance,” Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, one of the authors of the book, told Chalkbeat in an interview. Employers, she said, “could have a major impact on how much kids get to school.”

Frequent absences are a problem across the U.S., but particularly in the Detroit school district, where 66% of students are chronically absent. Students are considered chronically absent when they miss 10% or more of a typical 180-day school year. Citywide, the rate is more than 50% for district and charter schools. The high rates have a huge impact on schools, making it difficult to improve academic achievement and maintain continuity in the classroom.

Lenhoff and Jeremy Singer, who co-authored the book with her, were among a group of researchers that published a paper in October in the journal “The Urban Review” on the relationship between parent work schedules and their children’s school attendance.

“Parents’ work schedules in Detroit did have a strong association with their children’s attendance,” said Lenhoff, the Leonard Kaplan Endowed Professor and an associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State. “Essentially, kids who had a parent with a more flexible work schedule were more likely to get their kids to school regularly.”

Like the parent above, they heard from parents who quit their jobs because they couldn’t make their jobs work with their kids’ school schedules.

“Employers might want to know … they’re actually losing employees because of this issue,” Lenhoff said.

They’re now trying to explore the topic further to see for instance, what schools can do to ensure parents are able to communicate with their employers in advance about school schedule changes as well as “what are some things that employers could maybe think about being more flexible about, whether it’s schedule, whether’s it’s time off in the middle of the day to go to events or things like that.”

The book takes a wide-ranging look at chronic absenteeism in Detroit and offers a solution to solving it: getting policymakers as well as community organizations and coalitions involved in improving attendance.

Here’s more of what Lenhoff and Singer said in a Chalkbeat interview:

Charter schools also struggle with chronic absenteeism

More than half the school-age children in Detroit attend charter schools in the city or in the suburbs, or are enrolled in suburban school districts. The book, though, is focused on the district.

“We’ve been fortunate to have a strong research partnership with the district,” said Singer, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State. “It’s obviously easier to study what they’re doing at scale, because it’s one governing entity, whereas, of course, we have a number of charter operators.”

They have done some research on the strategies being used in charter schools and early evidence has shown that the way charter schools are approaching the issue tends to mirror each other and what the district is doing, Singer said.

“There’s, frankly, a pretty limited toolbox that schools are drawing from to figure out how to solve these issues,” Lenhoff said.

Some families struggle because they lack a support system

In interviews with parents, the researchers found that they often rely on a strong network of family, friends, or neighbors to help with getting their children to and from school.

Some lack that network, though.

“In a few cases, parents described being truly socially isolated,” they wrote in the book. Others have a network, but its members are less reliable for various reasons, such as their own inflexible work schedules, lack of transportation, or financial struggles.

“Scientists have been documenting this for 50 years — there’s been this just societal erosion of our social linkages between each other, such that, you know, all of us have fewer people who we can call in a pinch,” Lenhoff said.

Another factor, she said, is the effect school choice policies have had. The city has a number of charter schools, and a large percentage of children in the district attend a school outside their neighborhood.

“if you live in a neighborhood where none of the other children go to your children’s school, then it’s pretty hard to call on a neighbor or friend to, you know, give your kid a ride or pick your kid up at the end of the day,” Lenhoff said.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit and writes about Detroit school issues. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

‘Why schools can’t solve it alone’: New book tackles chronic absenteeism

2025-03-26T19:51:45+00:00

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Researchers Sarah Winchell Lenhoff and Jeremy Singer have been studying chronic absenteeism in Detroit for years, talking to scores of parents, students, educators, and school administrators along the way, and keeping track of many school efforts to reduce absenteeism.

One thing they’ve learned during that time is that no matter how much passion schools put into solving the chronic absenteeism problem, they may be fighting a losing battle. That’s because while chronic absenteeism “is a problem for schools,” it’s not a problem that can be solved by schools.

Their new book, “Rethinking Chronic Absenteeism: Why Schools Can’t Solve it Alone,” which was released Tuesday by Harvard Education Press, explains why and provides a road map for what they describe as an “ecological” instead of an “educational” approach to addressing chronic absenteeism.

Why? Because poverty weighs heavily into the reasons students miss school, particularly in communities like Detroit where the overwhelming majority of students come from low-income homes.

Chronic absenteeism has been a problem in Detroit for years and is also affecting school districts across Michigan. Statewide, nearly 30% of students were considered chronically absent, meaning they missed 10 or more days of school, during the 2023-24 school year, according to state data. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the rate was nearly 66%. Many charter schools in the city also have high rates of chronic absenteeism.

Sarah Winchell Lenhoff is an associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State University.

The pandemic fueled a surge in chronic absenteeism, though rates have since decreased.

The book has a number of recommendations for policymakers, school and district leaders, and community-based organizations and coalitions.

“I hope that folks outside of education pick up the book and think yes, there’s a role for me in health, or for me in housing, for me in transportation, or for me as a lawmaker,” said Singer, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State University.

For policymakers, who have the power to legislate change, the authors recommend they substantially increasing efforts to reduce poverty, eliminate punishments for schools and students for chronic absenteeism, invest in systems to ensure students have the resources they need, and reduce the emphasis on chronic absenteeism within school accountability systems.

Jeremy Singer is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State University.

Lenhoff said she hopes the book will shatter stereotypes people may have that children who are chronically absent aren’t motivated to attend school and that their parents don’t care.

“Detroit parents want their kids in school,” said Lenhoff, the Leonard Kaplan Endowed Professor and an associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State. “Many parents, even parents who have kids with really good attendance, are going to extremely great lengths to get their children to school, coordinating all kinds of different resources and backup transportation.”

Lenhoff and Singer lead the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research, or Detroit PEER, with Lenhoff as its director and Singer as its associate director.

Chalkbeat talked with Lenhoff and Singer in a wide-ranging interview about chronic absenteeism.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Stay tuned for more later this week.

Your book makes the argument that an ecological approach to chronic absenteeism is needed. Why is there such a need to rethink the way communities approach this problem?

Lenhoff: That’s a big reason why we wrote this book was feeling a real need to have an intervention on the current discourse around chronic absenteeism and attendance in schools. In Michigan, and the majority of states around the country, chronic absence is counted against schools when they have many students who are missing lots of school. We have observed how that has seeped into the everyday practices of schools, such that lots of people are thinking about chronic absence, lots of people are trying to do something about it. They’re spending a lot of time on things that may not have a lot of benefit for students, may not be able to improve attendance, which means that they’re not spending time on other things that might be more within their scope of influence.

The second big thing is we really wanted to expand the table of people and institutions who are thinking about student attendance as part of their scope of work. Primarily schools are like the only institutions where we look to solve this issue. Lots of other institutions are maybe even in a better position to solve some of the root causes that are keeping kids from school … things like housing instability, things like transportation inequity, health inequity, you know, a lot of these things are really far outside what schools can do, and so looking to other institutions to see what they can do to improve conditions for student attendance seems like a really important move.

What will it take for school districts, Detroit in particular, or communities, to pull off what you’re recommending?

Lenhoff: It’s all the more difficult in the current political climate where schools are likely to have less funding, not more. There’s going to be a deemphasis on things like social welfare programs and affordable housing, and equitable transportation. Things we think can make a difference are in this current federal political climate going to be really challenging to pull off. What I would say now is that working closely with the nonprofit community, with the kind of local government agencies that you already have connections with that are maybe already trying to do things around youth programming or supportive work with families, and just trying to connect the dots with attendance. A lot of groups are already thinking about kids. They’re thinking about families with kids — how to better support them, how to increase employment opportunities, increase extracurricular engagement. All these things, we think could have a positive effect on attendance, and they might require a little bit of coordination on the school side.

Singer: If there are policymakers who are thinking, ‘What could we do now, knowing that we have an important role to play,’ it could make sense to even just try small block grants or pilot programs that can help schools try some creative things in partnership with community organizations or other state agencies. The same goes for philanthropy. Foundations might be able to play a role in just helping to pilot something that might be otherwise unattainable financially, like giving rideshare credits or experimenting with some new form of … transportation, or some kind of new health intervention or providing health services. If there’s a way to try them at a smaller scale and start to identify promising models that we could then expand to other places that would be a great opportunity.

There’s no lack of advocacy around tackling these issues in Detroit. But what role should or can the City of Detroit mayor’s office play, and how pivotal that involvement would be?

Singer: We have a mayoral race coming up, and I’d love to see the next mayor of Detroit both acknowledge this as an issue but acknowledge the roots of this issue in the right way. We’ve heard Detroit Superintendent [Nikolai] Vitti speak to this issue in terms of identifying the root causes of poverty and inequality and the long history of that. Public figures can play a really great role in helping to set the tone for how we think about these problems. And so hearing the mayor speak to the fact that the city and departments within the city need to play a role in the solution — because the problem lies in things like transportation challenges, health problems, financial strain on families, housing issues —would be a really great place to start.

Lenhoff: it’s likely to be a priority for any new administration focused on economic and neighborhood development, right, and trying to increase the population of Detroit, or at least stabilize it, those conversations by and large, you know, to the extent that I’m aware of them, largely don’t have have much to do about schools. Schools are not often at the table in those conversations about which neighborhoods we’re going to invest in, where we’re going to cite affordable housing, where we’re going to invest in new commercial activity. if you’re trying to make a walkable neighborhood, a school should be part of that calculus, that you should be able to walk to a local public school, and because it’s an important resource. The affordable housing piece is essential. You know, investing in affordable housing that is big enough for families and that’s near schools, right? I’ve heard folks talk about building affordable housing for families, and they’re like, one-bedroom units. What does a family actually need to live in a home over the long term and stay there?

Sarah, you mentioned that you know that there are some things that that schools have done that aren’t necessarily beneficial? What are some of those methods?

Lenhoff: Some of the big ones have to do with the punitive approaches to student attendance. We’ve seen some move to deficit thinking about family … leads to this dynamic where the school is maybe not trying to build a trusting relationship with a family so that they can (learn) what barriers they face. The book shows that it’s really time consuming to build strong relationships with families. But that can be the root of figuring out what’s going on and solving those issues. Instead, schools are spending a lot of time on things that maybe take less time, and maybe are less costly, but maybe don’t have the weight of building those strong relationships. One example is we see a lot of short-term, incentive-based approaches. Schools love incentives. They love, you know, they love to celebrate the kids, and they should. But there’s very little evidence that those sorts of things actually improve attendance.

What do you say to those who feel very strongly that there needs to be some kind of punitive consequence for chronic absenteeism?

Lenhoff: It’s ultimately a reflection of schools and districts getting to the end of their rope and feeling like they’re not able to fully solve this issue alone. But these are counterintuitive ways of solving the problem, because they erode the very things that are at the core of good attendance. So punitive approaches like court prosecution can erode school family relationships and weaken families, parents and students, ties to the district, that sense of belonging or engagement. You know, taking away social services is getting rid of resources that are crucial to actually enabling regular participation in school if a family has financial issues or some, some host of problems relating to those that cause them to miss school.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit and covers Detroit school issues. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

The Detroit district offered gift cards for perfect attendance. 4,936 students have earned it.

2025-02-18T19:11:39+00:00

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Nearly 5,000 Detroit high school students have earned at least one $200 incentive for perfect attendance since early January.

High school students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District can earn $200 gift cards for each two-week period in which they have perfect attendance, from Jan. 6 through March 21.

There have been two cycles so far for which students have received the gift cards and, in addition to the 4,936 students who had perfect attendance in at least one of two-week periods, 2,028 have had perfect attendance in both cycles, according to data Superintendent Nikolai Vitti shared with Chalkbeat this week.

The attendance incentive is aimed at improving attendance in the district, where two-thirds of nearly 49,999 students were considered chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year. The incentive is among a number of efforts the district has employed over the years to create an attendance-going culture among students. The district has invested heavily into attendance agents to improve attendance and this school year announced that students with extremely high rates of chronic absenteeism will be held back a grade at the K-8 level and required to repeat classes at the high school level.

The number of students earning the perfect attendance incentive is a fraction of the nearly 15,000 high school students in the district, leading one school board member to question last week whether the incentive is working. But Vitti said he is encouraged that the program is getting more high school students to class and resulting in a small decrease in the chronic absenteeism rate for high school students. He said the district and board will have to evaluate the program’s success at the end of the school year.

Chronic absenteeism has been one of the district’s biggest challenges for years. The chronic absenteeism rate has declined, from a high of nearly 80% at the height of the pandemic, when quarantining rules meant many students missed school because of COVID exposure. But last school year’s much lower chronic absenteeism rate of 66% still means it is difficult to have consistency in the classroom and improve academic achievement.

Students in Michigan are chronically absent when they miss 10%, or 18 days in a 180-day school year. Statewide, 30% of students are considered chronically absent, compared to 23% nationally. A recent education scorecard cited the state’s rate as being a factor in students’ slow academic recovery from the pandemic.

Here are some of the highlights of the students who’ve received the incentive so far::

3,473 students had perfect attendance during the first cycle.
3,492 students had perfect attendance during the second cycle.
About 10% already had perfect attendance.
About 4% were considered chronically absent at the time the incentive began.
About 16% had missed 10% of the school year at the time the incentive began.
About 25% had missed 5-10% of the school year.
About 44% had missed 5% or fewer days in the school year.

At a Detroit school board meeting last week, Vitti said the statistic showing that just 10% of the students who earned the incentive already had perfect attendance is an indication that “this is not just rewarding those that have already been going to school.”

Board member Monique Bryant questioned what school leaders are doing to promote the incentive to students who haven’t earned it.

Bryant suggested that data Vitti shared at the meeting showing that chronic absenteeism is down by 5 percentage points for high school students since the incentive began is an illustration that most students aren’t rising to the goal of the incentive.

Vitti responded that it depends on how you look at the data.

“Right now, chronic absenteeism at the high school levels improved by five percentage points,” Vitti said. “That means that 700 high school students are not chronically absent where they were last year. I’d also say that at least on the 97th day, our chronic absenteeism at the high school levels is the lowest it’s been since the pandemic.”

The question for board members to decide at the end of the school year is whether the incentive “is the right investment with other challenges that we have districtwide,” Vitti said. “But I think the data is suggesting it’s working for many students … but not all.”

Board member Ida Simmons Short urged the district to survey students to learn more about what is preventing them from coming to school.

The causes of chronic absenteeism are numerous and include physical and mental health reasons, lack of transportation,and lack of affordable housing. Most of them tie back to poverty. Vitti specifically cited transportation, because half of the students in the district don’t attend their neighborhood school and the district doesn’t provide school bus transportation for high school students, who must take city buses to get to school.

“Sometimes they’re unreliable, they’re late, they’re too far away from where the child lives,” Vitti said.

Vitti said traditional school bus transportation for high school students “was decimated” under emergency management and it could cost between $50 million and $100 million to bring that level of transportation back.

Another factor, Vitti said, is that for some students, school isn’t relevant. Middle and high school students, in particular, “struggle to understand, ‘why am I going to school every day? How is this connected to what I’m going to I need to know for life.’”

Mi’Kah West, a Cass Technical High School student who serves as a student representative on the board, said that when talking to other members of the District Executive Youth Council last week, many said students overall are excited about the incentive.

One thing that stuck out, she said, was council members saying they heard students in the hallways or on social media saying they were coming to school because they want the money.

“And, while we don’t want to just say we want to come to school for the money,” West said, “I think it’s important to see that students … may have stayed home because they don’t want to come to school, but they’re willing to come to school now.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit district’s new attendance incentive draws more students to class

2025-01-15T22:01:54+00:00

A new attendance initiative in the Detroit school district that is luring high school students to the classroom with promises of $200 gift cards for perfect attendance is off to a promising start.

At a school board meeting Tuesday, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti reported that 1,800 more students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District have had perfect attendance since they returned from the winter break than at this time last year.

Students can earn the $200 gift cards for every two-week period they have perfect attendance through March, with the potential to earn as much as $1,000.

It’s of course too early to fully evaluate the program. The first two-week cycle began Jan. 6 and runs through the end of this week.

“But right now, the incentive is working,” Vitti said. He said he believes the increase in perfect attendance is due to the incentive.

The incentive is one of two new efforts aimed at improving attendance in the district, where 66% of the students were chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year. In November, Vitti announced new guidelines that would mean students who miss a significant number of days of school could be held back in grades K-8 and required to repeat classes or take credit recovery classes at the high school level.

Students are considered chronically absent in Michigan if they miss 18 days in a typical 180-day school year. Research is mixed on whether incentives are effective, and some experts worry that they potentially ignore the often insurmountable at-home challenges, much of it related to poverty, that prevents students from coming to school regularly.

This is the second program launched this school year that offers financial incentives for students. The district is also paying students up to $2,000 to attend literacy tutoring sessions.

The board heard from a parent who shared how the attendance incentive is motivating her son.

“I have a senior this year,” said Melissa Redman, a frequent commenter at school board meetings. The program, she said, has given him “willpower to get up and go to school because he wants to earn the money for the attendance program.”

“The paid incentive is very popular and a long time coming,” Vitti said, responding to a board member’s question about the potential of trying a similar incentive to get students to attend summer school. He said he’s been talking about paid incentives for students for years.

“I’m excited personally that we’re finally doing it,” Vitti said.

It’s unclear how much money it will cost for the program. But Vitti said Tuesday that the district is using interest money earned from money set aside in the bank for future facility projects.

“As we wait to complete projects, that money is in the bank. It creates interest. It gives us a lot of flexibility.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Can financial incentives and holding students back improve attendance in Detroit?

2025-01-10T23:07:29+00:00

The Detroit school district is employing some new methods in its fight to improve attendance, including paying students up to $1,000 each for perfect attendance and holding back students with extremely high rates of chronic absenteeism.

The new initiatives will add to work the district has had in place for years, much of it centering around attendance agents whose job is to improve attendance, connect with families of absent students, and provide resources families need to prevent absenteeism. That work has led to decreases in the rate of chronic absenteeism.

Incentives and negative consequences for repeated absences aren’t particularly new, though there is mixed research about their effectiveness and some experts worry that they potentially ignore the often insurmountable at-home challenges, much of it related to poverty, that prevents students from coming to school regularly.

Students are considered chronically absent in Michigan if they miss 10%, or 18 days, in a typical 180-day school year. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, 66% of students were chronically absent in the 2023-24 school year, down from nearly 80% at the height of the pandemic in the 2021-22 school year.

The still high rates impact efforts to improve academic performance in the district, leaves absent students far behind, and affects learning for all students.

Here is what the district is doing:

The district launched “Perfect Attendance Pays” this month, allowing high school students to receive a $200 gift card for each two-week period in which they have perfect attendance. The first two-week period began Monday and runs through Jan. 17. The final two-week period runs from March 10-21. Students who have perfect attendance in each of the five periods will earn up to $1,000 in gift cards. Students must be in class for every hour of the day in order to have perfect attendance. Detroit one million first reported on the incentives in December.
The district previously announced a new grade promotion policy. Students in grades K-8 who miss 45 or more days over the course of the school year may be required to repeat the grade. High school students who miss 23 or more days of a single course in a semester will need to retake the course or enroll in credit recovery.

Schools for years have provided incentives throughout the year to promote attendance, particularly on the two important days in the year when student enrollment counts are used to determine how much state aid districts will receive. In the Oakland Unified school district in California, students who were severely chronically absent were paid $50 each Friday if they attended school each day that week. That program differs from what Detroit is doing because it was targeted only at students who were struggling to attend school.

Also, state law allows students who are persistently absent from school to face penalties through the county court system. Parents also can face charges, and those who receive public assistance can have that money revoked if their children aren’t attending school.

In both instances, the district cited the need to improve attendance as part of the reasoning for the two initiatives.

“Consistent attendance is an essential part of students’ success and we know that when District students miss less than 18 days of school in our District, they are 3 to 5 times more likely to be at and above grade level in reading and math and to be college ready as defined by the SAT,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a letter to families.

Angelique Peterson-Mayberry, president of the Detroit school board, told the audience at a December meeting that students who end up being held back won’t be surprised because they will be communicated with throughout the process about their risk.

“This is not meant to be punitive. However, we are trying to foster accountability and enforce a set of excellence and standards with our young scholars,” Peterson-Mayberry said. “We know that there are extenuating circumstances, and so those will be dealt with on a case by case basis, but we have to make sure people understand the importance of being in school every day.”

Vitti declined an interview and didn’t respond to questions that were sent at the district’s request on Monday.

Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, said it is important to assess interventions that offer incentives or retain kids “in terms of how do they actually address the underlying reasons that are causing students to miss school. Any intervention is more likely to work if this is the case, and less likely to have an impact if that is not the case.”

Students appreciate the financial incentive

Raymond Kennedy, a senior at Davis Aerospace Technical High School, said he’s excited about the new initiative, and the gift cards are a positive incentive for his peers.

“It’s something I’m grateful for,” the 18-year-old said. “It will get a lot of people to come to school.”

Kennedy said due to family circumstances, he usually goes to school four days a week. However, Kennedy said when he’s in class, he’s there on time and is able to catch up on his schoolwork. Knowing that he can get awarded with a $200 gift card every two weeks will make him more willing to come to school for the full week, he said.

Meanwhile, Bavion Buford, 18, makes sure to be at school every day. The senior agrees that the incentive is a good idea, saying it could be a way for students to transport themselves to school when parents are unable to drop them off and pick them up.

“If they miss a day of school because they couldn’t get a ride, now they have the money to get themselves to school,” Buford said.

Kennedy said the program could also be beneficial for elementary and middle schools students if the program were to expand.

“I know some middle school and grade school parents have trouble getting them to school or from school, so I know if you use the gift card for an Uber or a Lyft, you’ll be able to have a guaranteed ride for your kids to school,” he said.

Like her students, Davis Aerospace Principal Michelle Davis is hopeful about the perfect attendance plan. The school has a 94% attendance rate, while the rate of chronic absenteeism is 30%. She said she supports any incentive that will push more students to come to school daily.

“A lot of the kids have extenuating circumstances like Raymond, so it would give them more of an incentive to come,” she said. “It’s an amazing opportunity for the kids.”

Davis added that while it’s important for the district to find alternative ways to get students to attend school, it’s also important for schools to create a welcoming, child-centered environment and be committed to excellence.

At Davis Aerospace, for instance, staff members offer students cups of hot chocolate during the winter and a hot breakfast throughout the school year when students arrive in the morning. And teachers are there to help encourage and uplift the students, Davis said.

“We believe that whatever children need in this building is our responsibility, but more than our responsibility, it is our pleasure to give it to them,” she said. “We have a high attendance rate because we are totally student-centered and we believe that if you create that space for students, then they’ll come.”

Studies show incentives have small effect on attendance

Still, studies on attendance incentives haven’t shown such policies to be a game changer.

The Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research in 2021 published a brief on the issue that highlights what researchers have found about the effectiveness of incentives: their review of research has found a small effect, if any, and one major study found negative consequences.

The report drew from PEER’s own interviews with Detroit families.

“Incentives do not necessarily address the contextual factors that are demotivating,” the report said. “For example, one east side parent we spoke to explained that her son takes DDOT to school, and that repeated instances of missing the bus (along with unsafe conditions and too-far distances to walk) have changed her son’s behavior around attendance. He does not see the bus as reliable, and that influences his decision to attend school on some days. Motivation may play some role in missing school for this student, but it is not clear whether incentives would increase his attendance, absent other interventions that changed his relationship with the bus.”

Chronic absenteeism is a national problem for the nation’s public schools. The pandemic, with the quarantine policies that kept students out of school for days and the long stints of at-home learning, worsened the problem. Like in Detroit, rates have begun to improve. But there are some lingering effects from the pandemic.

“There is some sense that kids and families don’t necessarily, especially post pandemic, recognize why showing up to school in person every day matters,” said Chang, of Attendance Works. “That’s connected to a number of challenges. One is that we put kids online for two years and said now you have to show up in person. That’s a little hard.”

She also wonders whether parents are receiving the message of the importance of daily attendance. The academic argument is strong. But parents also need to understand that the social development skills students develop when attending school daily is also crucial.

“I think sometimes people think that by saying there are consequences, or I’m going to incentivize, it helps to convey that showing up is important. I don’t know what the evidence is that that actually serves to convey that.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Detroit’s high childhood asthma rate contributes to chronic absenteeism

2025-01-10T11:00:00+00:00

This story was produced as part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat and Planet Detroit. Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy. Sign up for Planet Detroit’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with local environment and public health news.

In second grade, Joshua missed two to three days of school per month because of his asthma. He had to repeat the grade.

His mom, Mayra Hernandez, said Joshua was so embarrassed that he had been retained that he wore a hoodie “so that the other kids [wouldn’t] see that he was still in second grade.”

In Detroit, children have especially high rates of both asthma and absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism – when a student misses 10% or more of the school year – is a complex and pervasive problem nationwide, with a variety of causes.

More than 50% of the students who attend district and charter schools in Detroit are chronically absent. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District alone, the rate is nearly 66%. Asthma isn’t the only reason students miss school in the city, but its contribution to absenteeism fuels an attendance crisis that hurts students and their futures, disrupts school improvement efforts, and leaves a majority of students performing at extremely low levels and in a constant state of catch up.

“We know for sure that [asthma] can be one of the main reasons why kids miss school,” said Dr. Dee Poowuttikul, chief of the Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s allergy center in Detroit. “We can see it firsthand when school starts here in September, October — that’s usually the highest time when we have asthma hospitalizations.”

One in 10 Michigan students with asthma miss more than six days of school each year due to asthma, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Neither DPSCD nor any other government agency tracks how many school days students in Detroit miss because of asthma, however, making it difficult to understand the pervasiveness of the problem.

Rates of asthma are worse in Detroit, though, than they are elsewhere in Michigan. A 2021 state report showed 14.6% of Detroit children had asthma, compared to 8.4% statewide. This report also showed differences between Black and white adult residents of Detroit: The rate of asthma hospitalizations for Black residents was more than three times the rate for white residents.

Kids in Detroit also may face multiple barriers to getting the care they need to keep their asthma under control, including lack of access to health care, the cost of treatment and medication, and an inadequate understanding of the condition and how treatment should work.

Asthma gets in the way of school – and kids being kids

All three of Hernandez’s children have asthma and have missed school because of it, she said.

Five-year-old Gael loves to run around, but his asthma used to stop him. He would start coughing and need to sit down, and then his cough would linger, making it hard for him to sleep at night.

He missed half of his preschool year because he kept getting sick and his asthma would kick in. His asthma was more severe than that of his siblings. His 7-year-old sister, Dayami, didn’t miss much school because her asthma was easier to control. Now, thanks to health care providers who have pinpointed the appropriate treatment for all three kids, their asthma is under control, Hernandez said.

Now 10, Joshua is doing much better. But having to repeat second grade was difficult emotionally. “It was really hard because I had to support him and tell him, everything will be fine, you’ve gotta keep going,” Hernandez said. “And here he is now — he knows how to sing the happy birthday song in three languages ... I always tell him, ‘You’re gonna shine, regardless of if you’re behind a grade.’”

Many kids with asthma end up in the emergency room when the condition flares up. Such episodes can result in missed school and disruption for the entire family.

“The act of having to go to the emergency room is something that typically is at least a six-hour, eight-hour experience,” said Dr. Maureen Connolly, a pediatrician and the medical director of the Henry Ford Health School-Based and Community Health Program.

Hospitalizations may increase because kids get viruses that trigger their asthma, or because of ragweed allergies that are prominent in the fall, Poowuttikul said. Allergies often go hand in hand with asthma.

But the right treatment should prevent attacks, doctors say.

Two scenarios are common among Detroit kids with asthma: Child A has an asthma attack and goes to the ER. Child B starts to have asthma symptoms, like difficulty breathing, while at gym class, or playing sports. They stop their activity and their breathing later goes back to normal.

Neither scenario should be accepted as normal, doctors say. “You should actually be symptom-free if your asthma is well controlled,” Connolly said.

Many parents also think that if their kids have asthma, it’s normal for them to be wheezing, or to have an asthma attack, Poowuttikul said. But she explains to them: “I can get asthma to the point that they don’t have symptoms.”

Because of this gap in expectations, patient and parent education is key.

This involves helping people understand their disease process and how to mitigate their triggers, said Kathleen Slonager, a registered nurse and executive director of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) Michigan Chapter. Often, no one has sat down with the patient and said, “Here’s what it is. Here’s how it presents. And here’s what you can do,” she said.

Mayra Hernandez, center, poses for a photograph with her children, Joshua, back, Gael, left, and Dayami near their home in Warrendale, Michigan.

Hernandez’s three children were diagnosed with asthma when they were babies. But each needed different treatment.

“My kids are really active, so they couldn’t do much of activities like running, jumping, playing soccer — things they love to do — because their asthma was just attacking them,” she said.

Mi’Kah West is a senior at Cass Tech. When she joined the track and field team in middle school, she remembers needing to take more breaks than other kids, but she didn’t know why. At a doctor’s appointment when she was 13, her doctor diagnosed her with asthma. Now she plays lacrosse and, when she needs to, uses an inhaler.

“A lot of the girls on my team have asthma,” either sports-induced or set off by seasonal allergies, West said. “I wonder how many girls on my team when I did track and field in elementary and middle school had asthma, and I didn’t even know, because I didn’t know what that was, or I just felt like I was the only one that had that feeling.”

Sometimes, when patients go to the ER or urgent care for asthma, they’re sent home with what’s known as a “rescue” medicine.

But “rescue medicine is not a controller medicine — it doesn’t do anything for the inflammatory process of asthma,” Slonager said, adding that it’s important to help people “get the right medicine and take it the right way,” and understand what triggers their asthma.

Programs improve understanding of asthma, access to care

Both outdoor air quality and indoor air quality can exacerbate asthma — and many Detroit schools are located near highways, contain mold and mildew, or don’t have air conditioning, all of which can trigger the condition, Slonager said.

The Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America is working with partners to install air quality monitors in every zip code in Detroit, to “start tracking and trending what’s going on exactly, and how it impacts somebody with asthma,” she said.

Inside families’ homes, using air filters, replacing old carpets, cleaning up mold, and fixing leaks that can cause mold can help keep kids’ asthma from flaring up. AAFA’s HEAL (Health Equity Advancement & Leadership) Asthma program helps Southeast Michigan residents learn about their asthma, their disease process, and lifestyle changes that can help, Slonager said. HEAL provides some tools, such as air purifiers.

Having health care providers in schools can also make it easier for kids to get the asthma care they need. Every DPSCD school has a school nurse. About 90% of kids who go to the nurse can then go back to class, said Alycia Meriweather, DPSCD’s deputy superintendent of external partnerships and innovation. “The 10% of kids that don’t get sent back to class either go to the emergency room or they go home,” so more kids would miss school if they couldn’t see the nurse at school, she said.

Some Detroit schools house their own medical clinics. Henry Ford’s School Based and Community Health Program is a network of school-based and community clinics, including nine inside Detroit schools. These clinics provide integrated care, including primary and behavioral health care, to students and other young people from the community, ages 3-21, at no out-of-pocket cost, regardless of insurance.

Students may go to the clinic because they’re not feeling well, or because they need a physical or vaccines, for example. The clinics aim to “increase wellness in communities and also decrease absenteeism,” Connolly said.

The program sees 100-200 kids with asthma per year, Connolly said. If a student with asthma is having trouble breathing, they can get an albuterol breathing treatment at the clinic and avoid an ER visit. “Having those resources there can be really helpful, and it’s sometimes life saving,” she said.

The clinics collaborate with Henry Ford’s pharmacy. “We can order the medications and have them delivered to the school on the day of the visit,” and at no charge, Connolly said.

At some schools with these clinics and other school-based health centers, DPSCD has begun opening Health Hubs that expand the services offered. This includes a family resource distribution center to help meet basic needs, such as shelf-stable food, and a full-time navigator who helps families address their challenges. “The overall goal of the Health Hubs is to create a tangible, visible response to helping families address barriers that they face,” including asthma, Meriweather said.

Last year, Heath Hubs opened at five schools, and three more will open this year, she said.

Poowuttikul said she’d like to see stock inhalers in schools. Students often have their own inhalers at school, but many schools don’t have inhalers on hand in case someone has an asthma attack and doesn’t have theirs.

It’s similar to having automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, available places like airports, in case someone has a heart attack, she said. “There has been some discussion in medical societies for schools to have this kind of stock albuterol inhaler.”

Twenty-four states have laws or state administrative guidelines that allow schools to stock quick-relief medications for students with asthma. Michigan is not one of them.

Some kids with asthma are getting some treatment but not what they need to keep it under control. “People with asthma should see a specialist at least twice a year,” Slonager said. Asthma specialists, usually called allergists, can provide a baseline management plan and share it with the primary care doctor, she said.

Pediatricians sometimes refer children with asthma to Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s allergy center, where they can get more specialized care. Many families are seeking “medication that they might not be able to access, or getting allergy testing to identify triggers for asthma,” Poowuttikul said. Some newer medications for asthma, like biologics, usually require a specialist’s care, she said.

“The important thing to treat asthma is to prevent asthma,” Poowuttikul said, adding that identifying triggers and learning how to avoid them and use medication properly can control symptoms, so that patients get to what she calls an “asthma remission.”

“It is possible to be in remission for asthma [through] allergy shots and allergen avoidance, and at some point, certain patients might not need to be on daily medication,” she said.

Joshua’s asthma often flares up when the weather changes. So when it does, Hernandez said, “I know I have to be ready with the albuterol and the nebulizer. And in case he’s still having trouble, then I will contact his doctor.”

Hernandez relies on Children’s Hospital to keep her children’s asthma at bay, and that includes medication for seasonal allergies. “Sometimes having great medical support, it’s good because then they’ll be able to tell, OK, that treatment didn’t work, and we have a plan B where we can try an alternative medication. . . . If that helps, then we stick to that plan,” she said.

Michigan’s vulnerable students continue to miss school at higher rates than their peers

2024-09-27T17:32:20+00:00

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Michigan students are facing challenges rebounding from the COVID pandemic, and those hurdles are more pronounced among certain groups of vulnerable children who are missing more school than their peers.

Students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students were chronically absent at a rate notably higher than the statewide average.

For the 2023-24 school year, 29.5% of students were chronically absent — meaning they missed at least 10% of school days — according to data from the Michigan Department of Education. In comparison, the rate was 37.6% for students with disabilities, and it was 40.1% for economically disadvantaged students, more than double the rate for students who are not economically disadvantaged.

The release of these numbers comes amid a federal investigation that found during the pandemic, many Michigan students with disabilities did not receive the services and instruction required under federal law. The investigation found that these children still have not received those mandated services or the compensatory measures that their families are entitled to.

Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University, described the findings from the investigation as “an all too common scenario.”

She noted several lawsuits across the country where parents of disabled students and other groups facing discrimination have sued state governments or school districts alleging that their kids have been neglected or mistreated.

Lake worked on the new annual report “The State of the American Student,” which has been tracking pandemic recovery for the last three years.

“We talked to parents this year, and we’ve talked to experts in special education and multilingual education, and all of them pointed out that things were very bad before the pandemic,” she told Chalkbeat.

“So [test] scores were low already, they couldn’t get too much lower. Mental health needs were higher. All of that has been the case,” Lake said. “While this report really has been focused on pandemic impacts, the theme that we’re seeing coming through when we look at this student population in particular is a system that really wasn’t working before the pandemic.”

Jeremy Singer, assistant research professor at Wayne State University and associate director of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research, agreed that the disparities are nothing new.

“We’ve known for a long time that these groups face barriers to attendance that are more significant than their less vulnerable, less disadvantaged peers,” Singer said.

He pointed out that despite some improvement in recent years, the overall chronic absenteeism rate last year ran nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2018-19, the last full school year before the pandemic. The increase from that year was 11.2 points for students who are economically disadvantaged, and 6.7 points higher for students who aren’t.

There are many factors at play that broadly apply to students who are chronically absent. For one, Singer said mental health issues have been exacerbated for young people whose formative years were colored by the pandemic.

“So we know that levels of stress and anxiety are a little higher, and it’s also possible that the way families are treating those issues might be a little bit different,” Singer said.

In other words, some families could be more inclined to keep kids at home when they are feeling unwell, either physically or mentally.

Still, the numbers are a reminder that certain kids continue to have a much tougher time getting to class regularly, Singer added. He said his research has unraveled many of the factors that contribute to chronic absenteeism and how they hit Detroit’s vulnerable and low-income families hardest.

Kids in these households, particularly in Detroit, are up against multiple barriers to attending class regularly, from unreliable transportation and a lack of public transit to the dearth of quality affordable housing options in the city.

Singer said some solutions to chronic absenteeism include strengthening neighborhood schools — so families have an easier time accessing the schools closest to them — and making them places where people want to spend time. That means nurturing “the quality of the school and the school’s capacity to maintain strong relationships, to maintain a strong, inviting culture.”

State policy appears to be supporting some of these efforts with lawmakers approving more investments to help schools and educators.

But looking at just education funding or what schools can do to reduce chronic absenteeism misses the bigger picture, Singer said.

Local leaders must acknowledge the many systemic factors contributing to chronic absenteeism: “transportation, housing, health, employment — these things play a really big role in students’ attendance,” Singer said.

Researchers have enough information on why students are chronically absent and now it is time to shift the focus to what schools and communities are doing about it — and whether those strategies are working, he said.

Robyn Vincent is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit, covering Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. You can reach her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org

Nearly 30% of Michigan students are missing too much school

2024-09-13T21:18:40+00:00

Nearly 1 in 3 K-12 students in Michigan missed 10% or more school days this past academic year, a tiny decrease from last year but still considerably higher than before the pandemic.

The troublesome trend comes as state test scores show students have still not fully recovered from the pandemic. Educators blame a host of factors, from poverty and health to transportation and accessibility of online course materials.

“It’s disappointing that we didn’t see the progress for this past school year that we saw the year before,” said Jeremy Singer, an assistant research professor at Wayne State University who studies student attendance.

“We know the fundamental reasons that kids miss school, so the question obviously is: What is the extra thing since the pandemic?”

Michigan defines chronic absenteeism as missing 10% or more of school days, or 18 days or more during a 180-day school year.

During the 2023-2024 school year, 29.5% of students were chronically absent, down from 30.8% the previous year.

That’s still significantly higher than during the last pre-pandemic school year, when 19.7% of K-12 students were chronically absent.

Poverty is a big factor, affecting parents’ ability to navigate illness, work, and get children to school. Districts with the greatest percentage of economically disadvantaged students have the highest rates of chronic absenteeism, and those with the fewest poor students have the lowest rates.

But almost every district in Michigan, wealthy or poor, urban, suburban or rural, absentee rates rose during the pandemic.

Chronic absenteeism rates vary among districts:

Detroit Public Schools Community District: 65.8% during the 2023-2024 school year, up from 62.1% pre-pandemic.
Grand Rapids Public Schools: 41.2%, up from 27.3%.
Ann Arbor Public Schools: 38.1%, up from 13.3%.
Bloomfield Hills Schools: 17.7%, up from 9.5%.
Portage Public Schools: 16.5%, up from 10.2%.

Bridge’s analysis shows 40.1% of economically disadvantaged students are chronically absent compared to 16.1% of non-economically disadvantaged students.

Proficiency scores track both poverty and absenteeism, the data shows: For the 50 districts with the highest overall proficiency rates (over 60%) in English language arts for grades 3-8, an average of 16% students were chronically absent. They were also among the wealthiest districts — Northville, Birmingham, Forest Hills, and East Grand Rapids.

Overall, the 50 lowest-scoring districts, including Pontiac, Flint, and Muskegon, had some of the highest absenteeism rates, with an average of 54.7%. And fewer than 12% of students in those districts in grades 3-8 were proficient in English language arts.

“Our students need to attend school regularly to maximize their school experiences,” said state Superintendent Michael Rice. “Despite our progress, far too many students are chronically absent. We need to work together to redouble our efforts and remove barriers to school attendance.”

Absenteeism is a national problem.

A Detroit News and Associated Press analysis of 2022-2023 data found that Michigan’s chronic absenteeism rate was the seventh highest across 45 states.

Chalkbeat reports 14 states are committing to cut their chronic absenteeism rate by half in five years.

Using federal COVID-19 relief funds, schools have invested in tutoring and other efforts to help students make up lost academic ground.

Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, a research center that explores education finance to inform policy, told Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan last month that investments don’t work if students aren’t in school to use the supports.

Generally, “attendance matters for achievement,” Singer said.

“What is the relationship between attendance and achievement post pandemic? Is missing school worse for students? Is missing school not as consequential as it used to be?”

In Northview Public Schools in Grand Rapids, about a quarter of students were chronically absent last school year. That’s down from 41.1% students the previous year but still higher than 13.3% pre-pandemic.

Angela Jefferson, deputy superintendent, said it is the district’s role to ensure there’s a culture of belonging, so students want to attend school.

She told Bridge students are able to stay up to date with coursework when they are absent more easily than before the pandemic because of programs like Canvas.

“I think prior to the pandemic, if you missed school, you missed a lot of instruction, and certainly students in the classroom is a great priority,” Jefferson said.

But with programs where students can see their coursework online, “it’s a blessing and a curse because students could miss school and still stay very well academically connected.”

Jefferson and others acknowledge that factors outside of a school’s control also factor in student attendance.

At Westwood Community School District in Dearborn Heights, Superintendent Stiles Simmons said his district has experienced an uptick in student homelessness and people are “becoming increasingly transient.”

The district is working with Concentric Educational Solutions, which sends people to visit student homes and aims to discuss with students’ families about what’s stopping students from regularly attending class.

Simmons said the district tries to be responsive to what they hear from families about barriers to attendance.

If a student is missing transportation, the school can set up temporary transportation. If a student needs clean clothes, the family may be able to use the school laundry machines. If the student needs food, the family can stock up on food from the school pantries.

Detroit Public Schools Community District plans to add laundry facilities to every school in an effort to combat absenteeism, Chalkbeat Detroit reported this month.

Both Simmons and Jefferson say school choice policy may also be playing a role in attendance numbers.

Students who are not zoned for a particular school district may attend a different district but rely on their parents to get to school. If a parent loses reliable transportation or there’s bad weather, that can affect a student’s attendance for several days

Statewide, 1 in 4 students now attend a charter school or a district other than the one in which they live, a Bridge Michigan analysis last year found.

Isabel Lohman is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Mike Wilkinson is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach him at mwilkinson@bridgemi.com.

Detroit public schools adds another tool to combat chronic absenteeism: laundry machines

2024-09-10T18:53:40+00:00

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When Janine Scott taught middle school, she had a student who often showed up smelling bad. She sent him to talk to a male teacher, thinking it was a hygiene issue.

It wasn’t.

“It’s not him, it’s his hoodie,” the teacher told Scott.

Scott, who now teaches mathematics at Davis Aerospace Technical High School and is a member of Chalkbeat’s reader advisory board, said she still sees at least a handful of students come to class in dirty clothes. But the problem is often more visible among younger kids, she said. That’s because older students know better how to conceal the problem, “or they just don’t come to school,” she said.

In Detroit public schools, where 84% of kids qualify for subsidized meals, district officials plan to put laundry facilities in all schools to help tackle one of the district’s most pressing issues: chronic absenteeism, defined as a student who misses at least 10% of the school year. Last year, two-thirds of Detroit students fell into that category, according to data from the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

More than half of the district’s 108 schools have washers and dryers so far. District officials hope all schools will be equipped with them next year. The initiative is funded through multiple philanthropic donations and an investment from GE Appliances.

“Through the GE investment, we can scale a strategy that helps address one of many causes of chronic absenteeism — students having access to clean uniforms or clothes due to concentrated poverty,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in an email to Chalkbeat.

Providing laundry facilities at schools is among dozens of strategies identified to address chronic absenteeism in the Attendance Playbook, a report issued by the independent think tank FutureEd at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Other strategies include greater engagement with families, strengthening student-teacher relationships, and investing in full-service community schools, where a school “becomes a hub for the community, providing access not just to education but to health care, social services, extended learning and other support for students and their families.”

Phyllis Jordan, an associate director of FutureEd and the report’s author, noted that adding laundry facilities at school “is a fairly new approach without much of a research base.”

However, she cites data from Whirlpool, a home appliance company that has donated washers and dryers to more than 100 schools, showing that “in the 2019-2020 school year, nearly 73% of the participating elementary students who were on track to be chronically absent improved their attendance after they began using the program.”

Whirlpool also found added social benefits. Both teachers and students “reported increased engagement in class and participation in extracurricular activities.”

Installing the appliances comes with some challenges, though, especially in the many older buildings where Detroit kids attend class.

“Most of the district’s schools were not built with washers and dryers in mind so additional new electrical infrastructure is needed and a room needs to be identified to provide the space,” Vitti said.

The district’s recent addition of “health hubs,” which are located at neighborhood high schools across the city, will also have laundry facilities. The hubs provide families with physical, behavioral, and mental health support and services.

DPSCD received $4.5 million in funding from multiple community organizations to launch the hubs over the next few years, with the first five opening last year.

Detroit’s “uniquely challenging” context for chronic absenteeism

Vitti has made addressing chronic absenteeism a central issue of his tenure leading the Detroit school district, where 66% of kids were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year. That marked a 10 percentage point improvement from the previous year – but it is still more than double the statewide number of 30.8%.

The problem can feel intractable in school districts like Detroit where students must overcome more hurdles than kids in wealthier districts, from concentrated poverty to a legacy of structural racism and inequitable funding.

Researchers at the Wayne State College of Education found that a variety of factors were “significantly correlated with city-wide rates of chronic absenteeism,” including population change, asthma rates, poverty and unemployment rates, violent crime rates, and racial segregation.

Detroit’s rates of poverty, asthma, violent crime, and unemployment were among the highest in the nation for cities with 500,000 residents or more, researchers found, giving it a “uniquely challenging context for student attendance.”

Jeremy Singer, assistant research professor at Wayne State University and associate director of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research, co-authored the report and said many families could benefit from laundry facilities at schools – and it encourages families to engage with their kids’ schools “beyond the types of communication that families might be used to.”

“It’s a great way to lead with a foot forward, saying, ‘We have something to offer you,’” he said.

Installing washers and dryers in schools also acknowledges the families who struggle to keep stable housing in Detroit, he said.

Singer worked with researchers from several local universities to survey Detroit families about their living situations. They found that up to 16% of the K-12 students in Detroit’s public and charter schools were housing insecure or experiencing homelessness during the 2021-22 school year.

But schools tend to undercount these numbers, which means students miss out on vital support services and funding provided under federal law.

Singer said the addition of washers and dryers in schools could be crucial for these students.

Chad Audi, president of the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, which operates multiple homeless shelters and food banks across the city and serves nearly three-quarters of Detroit’s chronically homeless families, told Chalkbeat the number of homeless families seeking help has spiked dramatically.

“In just the last two weeks, I personally received at least seven requests from single women with children who needed a place to go,” he said. “They called everywhere and were told every place was full.”

Audi said he fields calls on his cell phone at all hours of the day and night from city officials to police officers asking for his help in providing people with shelter.

He said he hasn’t seen this level of need since the 2008 recession.

“We’re seeing people who are exactly like you and me, who have just been one or two paychecks away from losing their homes or not being able to afford their mortgages or their rent,” he said. “Now they’re coming to the shelter.”

Every day, his receptionists answer phone calls from families living in their cars. They call in tears saying they have nowhere to go, that they have called multiple shelters, and no one has the space. (DRMM does not turn anyone away, but people must first call a helpline operated by the city called CAM Detroit at 313-305-0311. It connects people to shelters and resources, but it also can present another hurdle if no one answers, Audi said.)

He remembered one family who had been living in their car for a month.

“A lot of those kids, unfortunately, have had their clothes on them for a long time,” he said.

Meeting students’ essential needs in different ways

At Davis Aerospace Technical High School, Scott, the mathematics teacher, has taken over a project this year that goes hand in hand with the addition of laundry facilities and aims to meet the essential needs of her students.

When she takes them into “The Clean Closet,” an idea one of her former colleagues spearheaded several years ago, they stop in their tracks. Some cry when they survey the simple supplies stacked on the wooden shelves — deodorant, laundry detergent, toothbrushes.

Over the years, a few different teachers have overseen the closet and it has been located in several areas, from a spot near the washer and dryer to inside a teacher’s classroom.

“It was amazing to me that every single time I took a young lady in for a pad, she would ask, ‘Oh, can I get a toothbrush? Can I get a bar of soap?’” Scott said.

The closet also has things like socks and washcloths. Scott said both are in-demand items.

She buys a lot of the supplies herself and is building a patchwork network of donors, too.

“I’m very, very careful as an educator to not ask my teacher friends for anything, because all teachers give to their kids till the cows come home, till they’re dry. So my non-teacher friends are the ones that I’m like, ‘Hey, can I get $20 because I want to go buy some pads? Or, ‘Next time you see some detergent on sale, would you buy some more?’

Those donations get a lot of use — every day, kids use the closet, Scott said.

Sometimes they use the closet because they forgot to put on deodorant — they’re just being kids after all, Scott said.

“But a lot of times, in my head, in my heart, I know it’s because they don’t have it.”

Robyn Vincent is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit, covering Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. You can reach her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org

Michigan officials deny claims state failed students with disabilities during COVID

2024-07-19T19:04:50+00:00

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Michigan education officials this month asked the U.S. Department of Education to dismiss all claims that the state violated the federal rights of students with disabilities during COVID-era school shutdowns.

The state’s legal filing comes after an investigation by the federal department’s Office of Civil Rights found many students with disabilities did not receive the services and instruction they were entitled to under federal anti-discrimination laws.

The OCR found that children in Michigan’s public schools went prolonged periods without appropriate instruction or services, such as speech and language pathology, and still have not received mandated compensatory services, or additional assistance to help students catch up.

“I watched children with, in some cases, multiple severe cognitive impairments with no access to computers or instruction,” said Marcie Lipsitt, a Michigan special education advocate who filed the complaint with the OCR in March 2021.

The Michigan Department of Education, however, denied any wrongdoing alleged in the investigation, including that the agency “exacerbated and contributed to the harm to students with disabilities” by giving school districts incorrect information about the steps they were legally required to make when school buildings were closed.

The complaint seeks compensatory services for all 215,000 students in the state with individualized education programs, or IEPs, as well as all students with 504 plans, Lipsitt said. An IEP outlines services students with disabilities are entitled to, while 504 plans spell out accommodations for students who do not require special education services. (The number of students statewide with 504 plans wasn’t available, she said.)

Many districts in Michigan and across the nation struggled to provide services to students with disabilities during the pandemic, including physical therapy, speech therapy, and counseling. And districts all over the country faltered in identifying children with disabilities due to backlogs of evaluations.

Many parents said they were effectively on their own at home when it came to trying to meet their children’s educational needs.

When students returned in person, Michigan schools also had a difficult time filling roles that were essential to kids in special education and students with disabilities, like paraprofessionals, nurses, and social workers.

Even before COVID, Michigan has struggled to improve the quality of special education programs in public schools. The Department of Education previously found during the 2016-17 school year that Michigan needed intervention in meeting IDEA requirements.

The MDE was required to respond to all allegations within 20 days of the OCR’s filing of a 25-page “Notice of Opportunity for Hearing.” The state agency declined to answer further questions about the OCR’s findings.

“Due to the ongoing proceeding, the Michigan Department of Education has nothing more to add to the detailed documents we filed,” said Bob Wheaton, director of the office of public and governmental affairs for the department, in an email. “The department is strongly committed to providing equal access to educational opportunities to all students in Michigan – including students with disabilities.”

The MDE got a letter from the OCR in October, asking it to take corrective actions. It has been aware of the investigation since June, according to the OCR.

“To date, MDE has refused to enter into a resolution agreement and has failed to achieve compliance by voluntary means,” the OCR document reads, adding that the agency has determined it “cannot be achieved by voluntary means.”

In the investigation, federal education officials said they found:

The MDE knew districts were failing to provide services to students with IEPs and 504 plans. Parents told the state agency their children were being denied needed services during shutdowns, and they asked for help.
Staff at the MDE were notified about calls from parents about their children’s IEPs not being met. The supervisor of the agency’s Office of Special Education said in an email the issue was “trickling down into larger needs” and that it needed to be addressed.
The state agency also “repeatedly” gave incorrect information in materials and during virtual sessions with parents, the OCR found, including falsely stating that compensatory services could only be attained through due process, a lengthy and often expensive legal proceeding for parents to resolve disputes with school districts.
The OCR also found fault with the guidance the MDE gave to districts, which failed to explain that students can receive compensatory education without district error or neglect, and that it can be given during regular school hours.
The state agency gave incorrect information about legal obligations to provide services when schools and districts reached out for guidance.
The Michigan School for the Deaf, which is operated by the MDE, reduced its instructional time during the 2020-21 school year by 43%, according to the OCR, and that time has not been made up. It also didn’t provide speech language pathology, social work, or visual impairment consultation services to students for prolonged periods in violation of students’ IEPs, according to the OCR, and did not provide adequate compensatory services.
The MDE did not designate a 504 coordinator or did not notify stakeholders of who the coordinator is and still has not done so.

In their response, state education officials denied most of the OCR’s allegations. The MDE’s response did admit to wording in the emails referenced in the report and some of the language used in its guidance for parents.

Some of the responses in the MDE filing appeared to be confusing or potentially contradictory.

For example, state officials admitted to using language about the process for receiving compensatory services that the OCR said was incorrect. However, the MDE denied the allegation that the agency gave out false information about compensatory services.

In another instance, the MDE acknowledged that the School for the Deaf didn’t employ a speech language pathologist from January 2021 until May 2022 and that students were owed more than 520 hours of compensatory services. But state officials denied the allegation that the hours were never made up for.

A spokesperson declined to answer further questions about the response.

Top state education official disagreed with OCR findings

During a meeting in June, two state Board of Education members asked State Superintendent Michael Rice why the MDE had refused to comply with the corrective actions the OCR had asked the agency to make.

Rice responded that it was a “pending legal matter.”

“We will be responding to the allegations of the OCR,” said Rice. “We do not agree with them.”

Tom McMillin, a Republican member of the at-large board who pressed Rice to talk about the complaint publicly, said the state “dropped the ball.”

“A lot of these kids have aged out and graduated,” he said. “That’s a travesty.”

Lipsitt, the advocate who filed the complaint, said she doesn’t think there is any way to really make up for what Michigan kids with IEPs and 504 plans missed out on during COVID shutdowns.

“But, I think the state can … give them the opportunity to build and learn the skills they didn’t have the opportunity to build and learn because of school closures,” she said.

An OCR response to MDE’s filing is expected in the coming weeks.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan tiene un problema de ausentismo crónico. Esto es lo que los padres necesitan saber.

2024-05-23T13:41:00+00:00

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Entra en algunas aulas estos días y el problema del ausentismo crónico es evidente. Algunos estudiantes están continuamente ausentes. Los maestros están dedicando tiempo extra para poner al día a los estudiantes que han faltado demasiados días.

Las escuelas en todo el país están lidiando con una crisis de ausentismo crónico, y ha sido particularmente aguda en Michigan. Durante el año escolar 2021-22, el estado tuvo una de las peores tasas de ausencia crónica en el país. Las tasas mejoraron el siguiente año escolar, pero aún así, el 30% de los estudiantes en todo el estado están faltando demasiado a la escuela.

Chalkbeat Detroit ha priorizado la cobertura del ausentismo crónico durante casi dos años porque las consecuencias son altas no solo para las escuelas, sino también para los estudiantes cuyas ausencias les privan de una educación adecuada.

A lo largo de nuestra cobertura, hemos hablado con padres que están luchando contra una serie de obstáculos —salud, transporte, horarios de trabajo— para llevar a sus hijos a la escuela. Escuchamos a una madre que temía perder su asistencia pública porque su hija tenía demasiadas ausencias. También escuchamos a estudiantes y padres que dicen que los problemas de transporte a menudo hacen que los niños falten a la escuela.

En los próximos meses, trabajaremos con 482Forward, una organización de defensa comunitaria, para involucrar aún más a los habitantes de Detroit en este tema crítico.

Las escuelas de Michigan están batallando académicamente. Y aunque hay muchos esfuerzos en curso para mejorar el rendimiento, fracasarán si no se aborda el problema del ausentismo crónico, tanto en las escuelas como en la comunidad.

Esta guía ayuda a los padres a comprender la importancia de la asistencia, las formas en que pueden obtener ayuda y las consecuencias si sus hijos faltan a la escuela.

¿Cuántos niños están faltando demasiado a la escuela en Michigan?

434,241.

Así es como muchos estudiantes en todo el estado fueron considerados crónicamente ausentes durante el año escolar 2022-23. El número equivale a casi un tercio de los estudiantes de K-12 de la escuela pública del estado.

¿Qué significa ‘crónicamente ausente’?

Los estudiantes son considerados crónicamente ausentes cuando faltan al menos el 10% de los días en que la escuela está en sesión. En un año escolar de 180 días, eso son 18 días o más de ausencia.

Los funcionarios escolares monitorean la asistencia diariamente, y si su hijo ha faltado más de unos pocos días en un semestre, es posible que reciba noticias de un maestro, un oficial de asistencia o incluso el director. Su objetivo es corregir los patrones de asistencia antes de que los estudiantes se conviertan en crónicamente ausentes. Los educadores no esperan hasta que un estudiante acumule 18 ausencias para intervenir.

¿Por qué el ausentismo crónico es un problema para los estudiantes?

Es simple. Cada día que un niño no asiste a la escuela es un día de instrucción que se pierden. Attendance Works (Asistencia Funciona), una iniciativa nacional que tiene como objetivo reducir el ausentismo crónico, dice que los estudiantes pueden quedarse rezagados académicamente al faltar solo uno o dos días cada cuantas semanas.

El superintendente de Detroit, Nikolai Vitti, a menudo destaca las marcadas diferencias académicas entre los estudiantes que están crónicamente ausentes y aquellos que asisten regularmente a la escuela, siendo este último grupo el que tiene un desempeño mucho mejor en los exámenes estatales y locales.

El ausentismo crónico ha sido durante mucho tiempo un problema en los distritos de grandes ciudades. Pero la pandemia hizo que las tasas se dispararan en Estados Unidos, en parte debido a las reglas de cuarentena, pero también porque muchos estudiantes lucharon con el aprendizaje a distancia y problemas de salud mental. Las tasas han mejorado en la mayoría de los estados, pero las escuelas han tenido dificultades para recuperarse de los patrones que se desarrollaron durante la pandemia.

¿Qué pasa con las ausencias justificadas de la escuela?

Los estudiantes faltan a la escuela por diversas razones, incluyendo razones legítimas como mala salud o una emergencia familiar. Pero ya sea que una ausencia esté justificada o no, el resultado final es el mismo académicamente cuando un niño falta a la escuela. Por eso, Attendance Works (Asistencia Funciona) recomienda que los padres pidan a los maestros de sus hijos “recursos e ideas para continuar aprendiendo en casa”.

¿Qué dice la ley de Michigan sobre la asistencia escolar?

La ley de Michigan requiere, con algunas excepciones, que los padres envíen a sus hijos a la escuela durante todo el año escolar, desde los 6 hasta los 18 años. En Michigan, el jardín de infantes no es obligatorio (aunque recientemente se introdujo un proyecto de ley que lo haría obligatorio). Las excepciones a la ley de asistencia incluyen a los niños que asisten a escuelas privadas, los niños que son educados en el hogar y los niños que ya han cumplido con los requisitos para graduarse de la escuela secundaria.

¿Qué sanciones enfrentan los estudiantes por faltar a la escuela?

La ley estatal permite imponer cargos contra un estudiante que “se ausenta voluntaria y repetidamente de la escuela u otro programa de aprendizaje destinado a satisfacer las necesidades educativas del menor”. En algunos casos, los tribunales intentarán primero un programa de intervención para tratar de resolver el problema. Pero si las ausencias continúan, el estudiante y/o los padres se enfrentarán a un juez. Las sanciones van desde una advertencia hasta ser ingresado en un centro seguro, como un centro de justicia juvenil.

¿Y qué hay de las sanciones para los padres en Michigan?

Los padres o tutores pueden enfrentar un cargo por delito menor si no aseguran que su hijo asista a la escuela. Si son declarados culpables, podrían enfrentar hasta 90 días de cárcel y/o multas de entre $5 y $50.

Además, los padres que reciben asistencia financiera pública para sus hijos podrían ver esa ayuda retenida por el estado si sus hijos están crónicamente ausentes.

¿Por qué deberían los padres hacer un seguimiento de la asistencia de sus hijos?

¿Qué hacer si no estás seguro de si tu estudiante está yendo a la escuela todos los días? En la mayoría de los casos, las escuelas llamarán a los padres si sus hijos no están presentes. Pero eso no siempre sucede, y algunos padres pueden perder esas llamadas. Sin embargo, hay otras formas de hacer un seguimiento. En el distrito escolar de Detroit, por ejemplo, puedes acceder diariamente a un Portal para Padres para verificar la asistencia de tu hijo. La mayoría de los distritos escolares usan algo similar.

Además de la asistencia, estos portales también proporcionan información a los padres sobre cómo le va académicamente a su hijo. De esta manera, no hay sorpresas cuando se entregan las boletas de calificaciones, o cuando asistes a las conferencias de padres y maestros. Si no estás registrado en el portal de la escuela, consulta a la oficina de la escuela para obtener instrucciones sobre cómo acceder a él. Si vives en un lugar donde la escuela no tiene un portal en línea, puedes llamar a la oficina para verificar la asistencia.

¿Qué estudiantes faltan más días a la escuela?

Los estudiantes de familias de bajos ingresos tienen una tasa de ausentismo crónico del 41,8%. Eso es mucho más alto que la tasa para sus compañeros de familias más ricas, que fue del 17,2%. Pero subraya lo que la investigación y los expertos han estado diciendo durante años: la pobreza tiene un impacto desproporcionado en la asistencia.

Otros grupos demográficos con altas tasas de ausentismo crónico incluyen a los estudiantes negros, con un 53%; los estudiantes sin hogar, con un 60%; y los estudiantes con discapacidades, con un 39%.

¿Qué pasa si los padres creen que sus hijos necesitan un descanso para la salud mental?

Esa es una preocupación legítima. Hemos escuchado a muchos estudiantes que dicen haber luchado por recuperarse emocionalmente de la pandemia. Los legisladores de Michigan están escuchando. La legislación actual permitiría a los estudiantes tomar hasta cinco días de salud mental como ausencias justificadas.

Pero aquí está la preocupación: aún están faltando a la escuela. Entonces, al igual que con una ausencia justificada por problemas de salud física, los padres deben comunicarse con el maestro de su hijo para recibir materiales que ayudarán a su hijo a mantenerse al día con las tareas en clase.

¿Qué hacen los padres si un funcionario escolar, como un agente de asistencia, viene a su casa o deja un mensaje sobre ausencias?

En estas situaciones, es importante comunicarse con los funcionarios escolares para que comprendan las razones por las cuales su hijo falta a la escuela. Es posible que esté preocupado de que esto pueda llevar a medidas sancionatorias, pero la realidad es que los funcionarios escolares pueden conectarlo con recursos que podrían ayudar a abordar las causas de los problemas de asistencia. Ignorar sus intentos de comunicarse con usted empeorará la situación para usted y su hijo. Ignorar llamadas y visitas mientras su hijo continúa ausente hace más probable que usted o su hijo enfrenten medidas sancionatorias.

¿Dónde pueden ir las familias en busca de ayuda?

Independientemente de dónde se encuentre en Michigan, puede ser mejor comenzar con la escuela de su hijo para ver si pueden conectarlo con los recursos que necesita, ya sea ayuda con vivienda, transporte, alimentos o cualquier otra cosa que dificulte la asistencia regular.

Si vive en el sureste de Michigan, puede marcar el 2-1-1 para comunicarse con la línea de ayuda de United Way del Sureste de Michigan, que proporciona referencias para todo, desde alimentos y vivienda hasta asistencia financiera y de servicios públicos. La línea de ayuda sirve a los condados de Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Monroe y Lapeer.

El sitio web del Distrito Comunitario de las Escuelas Públicas de Detroit tiene varios recursos que conectan a las familias con alimentos, vivienda y refugio, atención médica y de salud mental, asistencia financiera o emergencias relacionadas con incidentes como la violencia doméstica y el abuso infantil.

También en el distrito de Detroit, las familias pueden buscar ayuda a través del Centro de Distribución de Recursos Familiares del distrito y a través de centros de salud que abrieron este año escolar.

Lori Higgins es la jefa de la oficina de Chalkbeat Detroit. Puedes comunicarte con ella en lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Cristian Aranda.

DPSCD summer school program will aim to keep students on track after the school year winds down

2024-04-23T20:12:25+00:00

Every K-8 student in the Detroit Public Schools Community District has access to summer school programming this year, school officials said this week.

During a school board committee meeting Monday, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said the district will offer five weeks of summer school for young students at 26 locations, paid for with help from community partners.

High school students also will be able to take classes at seven locations and online during the summer. That instruction is paid for by the district.

The goals and focus for students attending summer school through Detroit Public Schools Community District differs depending on the grade level.

At the high school level, the emphasis remains on course recovery for incoming sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Vitti said this option has become crucial for some 12th graders, who “are able to graduate because they take those final courses” during the summer.

The classes for K-8 students will provide an opportunity to continue their learning over the summer, so they can be “at or above their grade level for the fall, and … make up skills that they may have lost from the previous year,” Vitti said.

Summer learning is an important tool to keep students on track after the school year comes to a close. Last year Detroit students showed minor improvements in standardized test scores, a promising sign after a major disruption in learning during the COVID pandemic. But students in Detroit charter and traditional public schools continue to perform well below the state average.

A review of a handful of summer programs held in urban districts throughout the country suggests students reap multiple benefits from summer classes. The RAND Corporation analyzed five school districts’ summer programs and found they gave many children “short-term gains in mathematics.” The analysis also found “promising evidence that, after two consecutive summers, students with high attendance outperformed their peers in mathematics and English language arts.”

These students also showed “stronger social-emotional competencies.” The value of such programs is especially pronounced in urban school districts with higher numbers of students from low-income homes, who are at a greater risk of falling behind than their peers, the report said.

Here’s what you need to know about this year’s summer programming:

New funding makes summer school a reality

These programs are free to DPSCD students. Thousands have applied for previous summer programs through DPSCD but Vitti does not anticipate a completely full roster of summer students. This year, summer school instruction for K-8 students is funded through a new grant from the Ballmer Group and United Way for Southeastern Michigan providing up to $2,000 per student. The summer program marks an expansion of offerings in comparison to last summer, when the district offered just a few options for students.

The new funding does not cover summer instruction for high school students, Vitti said, and the district will continue to rely on district funds for high school summer classes.

DPSCD teachers and contractors will make up most of the summer school teaching staff.

Important dates and summer schedules

Enrollment for DPSCD summer school will begin May 1 and continue through May 24. Forms to enroll will be available online and at all schools in the district.

Classes start June 24 and last until July 26.

Morning sessions for K-8 students will focus on academics, such as math and language arts. In the afternoon, sessions will center on art and physical education.

Meanwhile, incoming 10th, 11th and 12th graders who need at least one credit for their graduation requirements in social studies, science, English language arts, and math will be able to take that class over the summer. They can access coursework online and at seven locations staffed with teachers from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The location is determined by the school students normally attend during the school year.

Internet access is also available at these sites and at recreation centers and local libraries through the Connect 313 program, which is focused on expanding internet access for Detroit residents.

Improving access and equity for students

The school locations offering summer programs for students all have air conditioning, part of an effort to keep the instruction “consistent,” Vitti said.

“In years past when we offered summer school in non-air conditioned buildings, because of obviously the heat in the summer, there are days that are well beyond 90 degrees in the building and individual classrooms,” he said. Those high temps have forced the district to cancel classes, which disrupts learning, eats into parents’ work schedules, and impacts child care, Vitti added.

The district is continuing other services that help students to thrive during the regular school year. Students who received free and reduced-price breakfasts and lunches will continue to receive those meals during summer school.

Summer school locations are determined by the school K-8 students normally attend during the school year. Students who live more than three-quarters of a mile from the summer school site are eligible for bus transportation.

Summer school sites for K-8 students

Summer school classes will be held at multiple sites across the district. Here are the sites and times of programming:

Barton Elementary School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Barton, Sampson-Webber
Bennett Elementary School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Bennett, Maybury
Carstens Elementary School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Carstens
Charles Wright Academy of Arts and Science, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Charles Wright, Bow, John R. King
Coleman A. Young Elementary School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Coleman A. Young, Bagley, Cooke STEM
Davison Elementary-Middle School, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Davison
Duke Ellington Elementary School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Duke Ellington, A.L. Holmes, Blackwell
Durfee Elementary School, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Durfee, Noble, Thirkell
Earhart Elementary School, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from AOA at Logan, AOA High School
Edmonson Elementary School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Edmonson, Edison, Palmer Park (Montessori)
Emerson Elementary-Middle School, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Emerson, Edison
Fisher Magnet Lower Academy, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Fisher Magnet, Brewer, Pulaski
FLICS School, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from FLICS, Bates, PRMX, Marygrove
Golightly Education Center, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Golightly, Burton, Virtual School, Spain
Gompers Elementary-Middle School, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Gompers, Ann Arbor Trail, Burns, Dixon, Dossin, Mann
Greenfield Union Elementary-Middle School, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Greenfield Union, Nolan
Hutchinson Elementary-Middle School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students at Hutchinson, Bunche, Chrysler, Garvey, Nichols
Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students at Mackenzie, Carver STEM, Gardner, Henderson
Marion Law Academy, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Marion Law, Brenda Scott, DIA, Mason
Mark Twain School for Scholars, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Mark Twain
Marquette Elementary-Middle School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Marquette, Carleton, Wayne
Munger Elementary-Middle School, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Munger, Clippert, Neinas
Priest Elementary-Middle School, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Priest
Roberto Clemente Learning Academy, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Roberto Clemente, Harms
Ronald Brown Academy, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., for students from Ronald Brown, Hamilton, J.E. Clark
Schulze Academy for Technology and Arts, 8:45 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., for students from Schulze, Bethune, Palmer Park (Gen Ed), Pasteur, Thurgood Marshall, Vernor

Summer school sites for high school students

All schedules run 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Cass Technical High School, for students from Cass Tech, Crockett Midtown, DIA, DSA, Douglass
Detroit Lions Academy, for students from Detroit Lions
East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney, for students from EEVPA, Denby, Osborn, Pershing
Mumford High School, for students from Mumford, Central, Cody, Henry Ford, Northwestern
Renaissance High School, for students from Renaissance, CMA, Marygrove, Virtual HS
Southeastern High School, for students from Southeastern, Davis Aerospace, King
Western International High School, for students from Western, Academy of the Americas

Robyn Vincent is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit, covering Detroit schools and Michigan education policy. Contact her at rvincent@chalkbeat.org.

Legislation that would require children who are 5 years old on Sept. 1 to attend kindergarten advances to the Michigan House.

2024-04-16T19:01:29+00:00

The Michigan Senate has approved legislation that mandates kindergarten attendance in Michigan.

The bill, which supporters say will improve early education, passed with a vote of 21-15, with Republicans in the Democratic-controlled Senate largely opposed. It must now go to the Michigan House for consideration.

Beginning with the 2025-26 school year, a child who is five years old on Sept. 1 would be required to enroll in kindergarten, whether in a traditional public school, charter school, private school, or if their parents are homeschooling them.

Michigan is one of more than a dozen states that do not require kindergarten. Despite this, the state estimates that about most students enroll in the grade.

“If we’re serious about setting kids up for a lifetime of success, early education is where it’s at,” Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia, said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

Polehanki, the bill sponsor, said as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic lawmakers push to provide Michigan’s preschool program free for all, regardless of income, that “it doesn’t make sense that kindergarten continue to be optional.”

She said the goal of the legislation “is to create a culture in which early education is valued and viewed as the indispensable building blocks that it is.”

Parents who believe their children aren’t ready for kindergarten would be able to opt out.

But Sen. Thomas Albert, a Republican from Lowell, raised concerns about the process. In order to opt out, a parent would need to notify their local school in writing that they intend to delay enrollment in kindergarten for a year.

“The process itself raises potential concerns about unwarranted monitoring of a family’s personal education decisions,” Albert said. “Why collect information from families who are choosing to wait a year before enrolling their kids in kindergarten? What is the good that is going to be accomplished by making homeschooling and private school parents report to their local public schools?”

Albert also questioned what local school districts are supposed to do with the information.

“Is this a step toward the tracking of some families who might homeschool or send their kids to private school? That’s none of the state’s business.”

Some homeschooling families have opposed the kindergarten legislation because they believe it will pave the way for a required registry.

Albert said the change in the law is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and he suggested the legislature’s time would be better spent addressing key issues such as chronic absenteeism.

In Michigan, 30% of students were chronically absent at the end of the 2023-24 school year, a big increase from nearly 20% just before the pandemic. Chronic absenteeism rates are particularly high in some of the state’s highest poverty districts, not surprising given poverty is one of the biggest causes of students not attending school on a regular basis. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the chronic absenteeism rate was 66% last school year and is trending toward 63% this school year.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told senators during a committee meeting last month that he believes requiring kindergarten would help lower chronic absenteeism in the early grades.

Vitti said then that more than 70% of the kindergarten students in the district last year were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more days in the school year. The rates, he said, were lower for first, second, and third grades.

“We want to start as early as possible, creating a culture and an expectation that school is important every day,” Vitti said.

Albert, during his comments on the Senate floor, said the state’s “attendance problem is far and away more pressing” than requiring kindergarten.

“Forcing someone to enroll in school does not mean they’re going to actually show up and learn anything,” Albert said. “Schools being shut down by the government for extended periods of time has changed behavior. And I do not believe the provisions of this bill are strong enough to change that.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan has a chronic absenteeism problem. Here’s what parents need to know.

2024-04-05T17:23:35+00:00

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Walk into some classrooms these days, and the chronic absenteeism problem is clear. Some students are continually absent. Teachers are spending extra time catching up students who missed too many days.

Schools across the nation are dealing with a chronic absenteeism crisis, and it’s been particularly acute in Michigan. During the 2021-22 school year, the state had one of the worst rates of chronic absence in the nation. The rates improved the next school year, but still, 30% of students statewide are missing too much school.

Chalkbeat Detroit has prioritized reporting on chronic absenteeism for nearly two years because the stakes are high not just for schools but also for the students whose absences deprive them of an adequate education.

A Detroit school agent’s fight against student absenteeism

Over the course of our reporting, we have talked to parents who are struggling with a host of obstacles — health, transportation, work schedules — in getting their children to school. We heard from a mom who was afraid she would lose her public assistance because her daughter had too many absences. We also heard from students and parents who say transportation problems often lead children to miss school.

In the coming months, we’ll be working with 482Forward, a community advocacy organization, to further engage Detroiters on this critical issue.

Michigan schools are struggling academically. And while there are many ongoing efforts to improve achievement, they will falter if the chronic absenteeism problem isn’t addressed, both in schools and the community.

This guide helps parents understand the importance of attendance, ways they can get help, and the consequences if their children miss school.

How many kids are missing too much school in Michigan?

434,241.

That’s how many students across the state were considered chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year. The number amounts to nearly a third of the state’s public K-12 students.

What does ‘chronically absent’ mean?

Students are considered chronically absent when they miss at least 10% of the days school is in session. In a school year of 180 days, that is 18 or more missed days.

School officials monitor attendance on a daily basis, and if your child has missed more than a few days in a semester, you may hear from a teacher, an attendance officer, or even the principal. Their goal is to correct attendance patterns before students become chronically absent. Educators don’t wait until a student gets to 18 absences to intervene.

Why is chronic absenteeism a problem for students?

It’s simple. Every day a child doesn’t attend school is a day of instruction they are missing. Attendance Works, a national initiative that aims to reduce chronic absenteeism, says students can fall behind academically by missing just one to two days every few weeks.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti often highlights the stark academic differences between students who are chronically absent and those who come to school regularly, with the latter group performing far better on state and local exams.

Chronic absenteeism has long been an issue in big-city districts. But the pandemic caused rates to soar in the U.S., in part because of quarantining rules but also because many students struggled with remote learning and mental health issues. Rates have improved in most states, but schools have had a difficult time recovering from the patterns that developed during the pandemic.

What about excused absences from school?

Students miss school for a number of reasons, including legitimate ones such as poor health or a family emergency. But whether an absence is excused or not, the end result is the same academically when a child misses school. That is why Attendance Works recommends that parents ask their child’s teachers “for resources and ideas to continue learning at home.”

What does Michigan law say about school attendance?

Michigan law requires, with a few exceptions, that parents send their child to school during the entire school year, from age 6 to 18. In Michigan, kindergarten is not required (though a bill was recently introduced that would make it mandatory). Exceptions to the attendance law include children attending private school, children being home-schooled, and children who have already fulfilled requirements for high school graduation.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District employs attendance agents such as Effie Harris, who routinely checks in on students who are struggling with attendance at Gompers Elementary-Middle School.

What penalties do students face for missing school?

State law allows for charges against a student who “willfully and repeatedly absents himself or herself from school or other learning program intended to meet the juvenile’s educational needs.” In some cases, courts will try an intervention program first to try to resolve the issue. But if the absences continue, the student and/or parent will face a judge. Penalties range from a warning all the way up to being placed in a secure facility, such as a juvenile justice center.

What about penalties for Michigan parents?

Parents or guardians can face a misdemeanor charge if they fail to ensure their child is attending school. If convicted, they face up to 90 days in jail and/or fines of between $5 and $50.

Also, parents who receive public financial assistance for their children could have that aid withheld by the state if their children are chronically absent.

Why should parents keep track of their children’s attendance?

What do you do if you’re not sure your student is making it to school every day? In most cases, schools will call parents if their children are not present. But that doesn’t always happen, and some parents may miss those calls. But there are other ways to keep track. In the Detroit school district, for instance, you can access a Parent Portal daily to check your child’s attendance. Most school districts use something similar.

In addition to attendance, these portals also provide information to parents about how your child is doing academically. This way, there are no surprises when report cards come out, or when you attend parent-teacher conferences. If you are not registered with your school’s portal, check with the school office to get instructions on how to access it. If you live somewhere where the school doesn’t have an online portal, you can call the office to check on attendance.

Which students miss school the most days?

Students from low-income families have a chronic absenteeism rate of 41.8%. That’s far higher than the rate for their peers from wealthier families, which was 17.2%. But it underscores what research and experts have been saying for years: Poverty has an outsize impact on attendance.

Other demographic groups with high rates of chronic absenteeism include Black students, 53%; homeless students, 60%; and students with disabilities, 39%.

What if parents think their kids need a mental health break?

That’s a legitimate concern. We’ve heard from many students who say they’ve struggled to recover emotionally from the pandemic. Michigan lawmakers are listening. Proposed legislation would allow students to take up to five mental health days as excused absences.

But here’s the concern: They’re still missing school. So just as with an excused absence for physical health issues, parents should communicate with their child’s teacher to receive materials that will help their child stay on track on class assignments.

What do parents do if a school official, such as an attendance agent, comes to your house or leaves a message about absences?

In these situations, it is important to communicate with school officials so that they understand the reasons your child is missing school. You may be concerned that this could lead to punitive measures, but the reality is that school officials can connect you with resources that might help address the causes of attendance problems. Ignoring their attempts to contact you will make the situation worse for you and your child. Ignoring calls and visits while your child continues to be absent makes it more likely you or your child will face some punitive measures.

Where can families go for help?

Wherever you are in Michigan, it may be best to start with your child’s school to see if they can connect you with resources you need, whether it’s help with housing, transportation, food, or whatever else is making regular attendance difficult.

If you live in southeast Michigan, you can dial 211 to connect with the United Way of Southeastern Michigan’s helpline, which provides referrals for everything from food and housing to financial and utility assistance. The helpline services Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Monroe and Lapeer counties.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District website has a number of resources that connect families with food, housing and shelter, medical and mental health, financial assistance, or emergencies related to incidents such as domestic violence and child abuse.

Also in the Detroit district, families can seek help through the district’s Family Resource Distribution Center and through health hubs that opened this school year.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Bill would make kindergarten mandatory for Michigan children

2024-03-12T22:22:12+00:00

Lawmakers want to make kindergarten attendance mandatory in Michigan to improve academic achievement — and the head of the state’s largest district says such a requirement could also help address chronic absenteeism.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia who introduced a bill to make kindergarten mandatory, said it’s necessary “if we’re serious about improving academics.”

Students in the state currently don’t have to attend school until first grade, though many do attend kindergarten and most districts offer it.

Detroit school Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, who supports the legislation, said Tuesday during a legislative hearing that requiring kindergarten will improve attendance and student academic outcomes.

Vitti said more than 70% of the kindergarten students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District last year were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more days in the school year. The rates, he said, were lower for first, second, and third grades.

“We want to start as early as possible, creating a culture and an expectation that school is important every day,” Vitti said.

The district has long struggled with chronic absenteeism. During the 2021-22 school year, 77% of the students were chronically absent, in part because of quarantining rules during the pandemic. That rate improved to 66% during the 2022-23 school year.

Vitti pointed out that at the beginning of the school year, about 6% of kindergarten students typically perform at or above grade level on district tests. That number soars to 58% by the end of the year.

“We actually believe that the 58% number would be higher if kindergarten was mandatory. It just sets the stage and the expectations the right way.”

Polehanki, who chairs the education committee, said the impetus of her bill had been to create a continuum from preschool through postsecondary education. She said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s push to provide free preschool for all, regardless of income, is an important initiative. But she said in order to do that, kindergarten must not be optional.

After hearing from Vitti, she said the bill would address academic achievement, but also “do quite a bit to remedy” chronic absenteeism in kindergarten. She said she wants lawmakers to have a broader discussion about addressing chronic absenteeism. Nearly a third of the students in the state were considered chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year.

Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat from Bay City, said the kindergarten chronic absenteeism rate in Detroit “is the most compelling case to say this is the right thing to do.”

Sheryl Kennedy, legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Education, said the MDE supports making kindergarten mandatory. But she said the department would like to see some changes, such as funding to help districts that might see increased costs from the requirement. She said 17 states and the District of Columbia already have mandatory kindergarten laws.

There was also a back-and-forth between Kennedy and Sen. John Damoose, a Republican from Harbor Springs over language in a slide that accompanied her presentation that said “Demonstrated enrollment in private, parochial, charter, or home school meets the requirements of this bill.”

Damoose questioned the home school language, asking “Can you describe what demonstrated enrollment looks like especially if we’re talking about home schools?”

In Michigan, home-schooled children aren’t required to register with the state, so officials have no idea how many kids are being educated at home. There has been considerable debate recently because State Superintendent Michael Rice and some lawmakers have called on changing the law to require parents who home-school their children to register with the state.

Polehanki said the intent of the legislation is not to demonstrate enrollment among home-schoolers.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

In their words: The students, teachers, and advocates we heard from in 2023

2023-12-19T21:22:56+00:00

At Chalkbeat Detroit, we take seriously our mission to inform readers about efforts to improve public education in Michigan and explain how inequities create barriers to learning.

Crucial to our work is ensuring that the voices of the people who have the most at stake — students, parents, advocates, teachers, and other school staff — are front and center.

That’s part of our regular reporting. But we also elevate these voices with special features, such as first-person essays, How I Teach features, interview Q&As, and other formats.

As we wrap up 2023, we’re looking back at some of the voices we showcased over the last 12 months. Below, you’ll see highlights of those pieces.

And as always, if you have a story you’d like to share, or know of a voice that deserves to be heard, please reach out to us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Confronting racial violence with tenderness

I am required to teach Abraham Lincoln and how he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but not about the felony disenfranchisement that keeps many of my students’ families from experiencing true freedom.
N’Kengé Robertson

Detroit teacher N’Kengé Robertson tackled issues of racial violence and identity in this first-person piece. She explains that learning materials often leave out “critical conversations of race, gender, religion, language, and sexuality,” and fail to capture the lived experiences of students they’re supposed to reach. To address that, she said, she worked with her high school students to “improve the situation by compiling new resources, reshaping our lessons, and moving away from Eurocentric narratives in our classroom.”

Detroit students shed light on the need for self-love, inner peace

The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me.
TaMyra Smith

Detroit teen TaMyra Smith wrote about mental health and depression as part of Local Circles, a nonprofit that works with youth to research issues that are important to them.

In February, we published excerpts of student-written pieces about mental health that shed light on some of the post-pandemic struggles students are facing. The writing was part of a project of an organization called Local Circles. The participants included one student who said she struggled with depression, and another who urged students to seek help when they need it. For the most part, they agreed that self-love and inner peace are important for their healing. There is still widespread concern about the mental health challenges of students who are grappling with the after-effects of the pandemic. Adults trying to address this must listen to what young people are saying they need.

A Detroit man’s passion for getting kids to school every day

It was heartbreaking to me to see these children squandering an opportunity that later in life they’ll have to pay to get.
Larry Simmons

Chronic absenteeism has been a major storyline for Chalkbeat Detroit for more than a year. We’ve given readers a close-up view of one Detroit school’s efforts to get students to school regularly, the role community agencies have played, and barriers to improving attendance, such as spotty transportation and a state policy that punishes the parents of chronically absent students. In this interview Q&A, retired pastor Larry Simmons talked about what drove his years-long effort to help get kids in school regularly, and what it felt like to see children walking around his neighborhood when they should have been in school.

Looking at the world through a similar lens at Michigan camp

Detroit teen Torrance Johnson wrote a first-person essay about attending a Michigan camp for children with muscular dystrophy.

I rejoice in thoughts that my lost friends are running around happy and alive in the afterlife; at the same time, my heart aches, because they are no longer by my side.
Torrance Johnson

Detroit teen Torrance Johnson wrote a first-person piece, a version of which was initially published by the Detroit Writing Room, about how a camp in Lexington, Michigan, for children with muscular dystrophy changed his life. Going to this camp each year gave him an opportunity to be around other children like him who have muscular dystrophy. He wrote of the joys that brought, but also the sadness of losing friends.

Adults failed her when she was a kid. Now she is a watchdog for children.

No adults ever took the time to ask what was behind my surface-level behavioral issues … despite best practices and what research tells us about kids who “act up.”
Hannah Dellinger

Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Hannah Dellinger wrote a first-person essay about overcoming childhood trauma.

Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Hannah Dellinger, who joined our team in June, wrote an intensely personal essay about her experiences overcoming trauma. The sexual abuse she suffered as a young child led to behavior problems in school — signs of the trauma that adults ignored. Hannah’s piece illustrates not only the importance of having school staff trained to meet the needs of students struggling with trauma, but also how important it is for adults to be able to act on telltale signs that a student isn’t just acting out, but perhaps exhibiting the effects of trauma.

This Detroit teacher’s mission: Bring back school libraries

I really need to impress and stress how important going to school is and the work that students do there, not only because they’re young and they’re learning, but also because it has long-term ramifications for their life. The absence of libraries is an atrocity.
Josie Silver

Josie Silver teaches early elementary grades in the Detroit school district, and one thing she’s passionate about is equipping her children with books that will fuel their love of learning. Chalkbeat highlighted Silver as part of its regular How I Teach column, in part because the educator had been named a Michigan Collaborative Teacher Leader. Silver talked about the need for school libraries, and the challenges she has faced teaching students who are still struggling to rebound academically from the pandemic.

Detroit student who fought for ‘right to literacy’ is still in the fight

We obligate children to go to schools, but we don’t obligate schools to teach.
Jamarria Hall

Jamarria Hall was the lead plaintiff in the historic lawsuit that claimed state officials had deprived Detroit students of a right to literacy.

Jamarria Hall was the face of the historic 2016 “right to read” lawsuit that argued state officials failed to provide a basic reading education when they oversaw the Detroit school district between 2009 and 2016 under emergency management. Hall was a high school student when that lawsuit was filed, and became the lead plaintiff. Now 23, he told Chalkbeat in this interview that he sees the $94 million the state allocated this year to the district — part of a 2021 settlement of the case — as a way for young people to have a say in their future.

Michigan’s History Teacher of the Year helps educators combat racist myths

The world is such a fascinating place. Each student has passion and curiosity inside them, and I am so honored whenever I can play a small part in igniting these things.
Matt Vriesman

Teacher Matt Vriesman was named Michigan History Teacher of the Year.

In 2020, as the nation was undergoing a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd, an administrator asked social studies teacher Matt Vriesman to share resources with other teachers. Vriesman had already adapted his own classroom lessons after realizing that state standards don’t always provide an accurate view of race, slavery, and injustice. That request turned into something bigger than his East Kentwood High School building. Vriesman, whom Chalkbeat featured in a How I Teach piece after he was named Michigan History Teacher of the Year, created a website that provides antiracism resources for Advanced Placement teachers across the nation. This work is important to Vriesman, who teaches at one of the most diverse schools in the state. “We are always looking for new ways to bring in the knowledge and experience of our students into the classroom,” he said. “It makes world history so much more ‘real’ for students.”

Michigan’s top teacher wants more focus on mental health, learning recovery

Many children are dealing with mental health issues themselves or dealing with the mental health issue of a parent or caregiver. In Michigan, we need to put as much time, resources, and funding into meeting the students’ mental needs as we do their physical and educational needs.
Candice Jackson

Detroit educator Candice Jackson was named Michigan Teacher of the Year.

Soon after being named Michigan’s Teacher of the Year, Candice Jackson used her new platform to push for schools to address the academic and mental health needs that have lingered as schools attempt to help students recover from the pandemic. Williams, the first Detroit district teacher to be recognized as the state’s top teacher since the 2006-07 school year, told Chalkbeat that students need counseling services and social-emotional learning programs to get back on track. That will pay off academically, she said, because stronger mental health “enhances academic performance, supports overall well-being, enables early interventions, and has short-term and long-term positive outcomes for students.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

How Detroit community groups are helping schools chip away at chronic absenteeism

2023-11-29T00:44:26+00:00

Sixth grader Ke’Von Thomas and a group of classmates at Detroit’s Durfee Elementary-Middle School sat around a cafeteria table one day last month, running through a list of 10 back-to-school tips and vying to see who had completed the most.

“Early to bed, early to rise,” was the first tip. Others included “establish a routine,” “organize your backpack,” and “limit screen time.”

Ke’Von, 11, said he had accomplished three tips since the school year started, and surveyed the others. “I did No. 1. You did No. 2,” he told one of the other boys. “Who else did No. 2?”

Across from him, seventh grader Miguel Perkins said he had followed five of the tips.

The list and the exercise came from The Konnection, a community group that’s working with Detroit schools to help motivate students to show up for school and “move the needle” on chronic absenteeism. Founder Sharnese Marshall uses the lesson early in the school year to reinforce positive attendance and academic habits with 20 middle school students who participate in a biweekly after-school program at Durfee.

In a city with sky-high rates of chronic absenteeism — meaning students who miss 18 school days a year or more — community groups like The Konnection have taken on some of the work of trying to improve student attendance. Churches, after-school programs, health centers, and other groups have provided services such as driving students to and from school, conducting home visits and phone calls, and building connections with families.

These groups don’t necessarily have the resources to attack what experts agree is the root cause of chronic absenteeism: Detroit’s widespread poverty, whose ripple effects include health problems, housing instability, and job barriers. So it’s hard to determine what impact they’re having on the broader problem.

Nonetheless, they have become an essential complement to the efforts by school officials and education advocates to improve attendance. With initiatives targeted at specific schools, neighborhoods, or family needs, they’re chipping away at a problem that has long undermined efforts to improve student achievement. And school leaders and district officials are embracing some of their efforts and strategies as part of their approach to reducing chronic absenteeism citywide.

Sarah Lenhoff, a Wayne State University education professor whose research includes studies of student attendance, says there’s room for still more community groups and local agencies to get involved at the root-cause level.

“Poverty alleviation, employment, job training, housing stability — these are major factors in whether kids can get to school,” Lenhoff said. “Outside organizations that are working on those issues, even if it’s not connected to the school system, could also make a difference.”

Ke’Von Thomas, 11, center, raises his hand during a wrap-up session during Konnection Klub at Detroit's Durfee Elementary-Middle School on Oct. 19.

DPSCD attendance plan evolves

Community groups have been working with Detroit school communities on absenteeism for more than a decade. But the Detroit Public Schools Community District formalized and standardized their role in attendance interventions beginning in 2018-19, a couple of years after the district emerged from state control.

Related: Detroit community groups have a long record of attendance work

That year, DPSCD outlined a plan that called for a holistic approach to improving attendance through wraparound services for students, hiring attendance agents, and partnerships with community organizations. The plan fell in line with growing consensus among advocates and national experts that districts should collaborate with local partners to support school-based attendance interventions.

Partly as a result of that plan, DPSCD reduced its chronic absenteeism rate to 62% at the end of 2018-19, from 70% the previous year.

The pandemic not only erased that progress, but raised the urgency of improving attendance: If students didn’t show up for class, they would struggle to recover what they lost academically during a year or more of online schooling.

And the effects of excessive absenteeism linger for years, research shows. Students who miss a lot of school are likely to struggle to stay on top of classwork, perform worse on standardized tests, and are more likely to drop out. Chronically absent students are also likely to miss out on high-dosage tutoring and other interventions school systems have prioritized in recent years to counter learning loss.

A 2022 study by the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research found that the district’s 2018-19 attendance plan, while showing early success, “only partially addressed chronic absenteeism as an ecological issue, implicitly downplaying structural and material barriers that families faced.”

It’s those systemic issues, Lenhoff said, that require better coordination between the district and city agencies and social services organizations, such as welfare and employment programs, and housing organizations.

She points to FosterEd Arizona, a child welfare program that coordinated with schools to improve attendance among foster youth, as well as a multiyear attendance effort in New York City that collaborated with city social service agencies. In both cases, school attendance data guided the implementation of interventions.

“There’s potential to really make a difference if we got more groups involved in the community development space who are working on housing, poverty, and unemployment, to be thinking about how might we track the attendance of the families that we’re working with and demonstrate that work like this could be beneficial,” Lenhoff said.

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said that because of federal education privacy laws, the district has to work within some limits on how much information it can share with outside social service groups. It does share attendance data with some community groups that provide programming for students, such as City Year and Communities in Schools, he said.

But that’s not possible for all groups without getting permission from individual families or through clearance. It is unclear how the Arizona and New York programs have been able to share attendance data with social service agencies.

“We could envision our district portal system providing access to partners so they can respond to negative attendance trends,” Vitti said. “However, this would take signoff from families and significant upgrades to the system we are building now. This would be impossible without a robust technology system. You cannot rely on spreadsheets to make this work.”

Middle school students make bracelets after completing their homework during Konnection Klub at Detroit's Durfee Elementary-Middle School.

Since the start of the pandemic, DPSCD officials have rapidly expanded their wraparound services for some of the most marginalized families, embracing the kinds of projects that community groups have been tackling in specific communities.

With the help of $4.5 million in philanthropic donations, DPSCD is launching 12 school-based health hubs across the city over the next several years to address the lack of student access to health care, a major barrier to consistent attendance.

At the health hubs, students, families, and community members can get physical, mental, and dental health services through current partnerships with Henry Ford Health and Ascension. They also have access to food pantry items and legal support.

One of the first few health hubs opening this year is at Durfee and Central High School, which share a building in the city’s Dexter-Linwood neighborhood. At the sites that are already open, families have been making health appointments and picking up health essentials like toilet paper, soap, and toothbrushes.

“We believe in whole child commitment,” Alycia Meriweather, DPSCD deputy superintendent of external partnerships and innovation, said at a recent community meeting on the new initiative.

The Konnection responds to lack of basic supplies

Durfee and Central have among the highest absenteeism rates within DPSCD: 82% at Durfee last year, and 91% at Central. It’s why Marshall and The Konnection began working there as far back as 2020.

Some students told Marshall they were not showing up to school because they didn’t have personal hygiene products or clean clothes. Others said school is boring, or they’re behind on work and don’t have the support to catch up.

On top of those challenges, in-school factors such as student-teacher relationships, bullying and safety concerns also create barriers to attendance.

Marshall responded to those needs by throwing quarterly attendance celebrations at Durfee, and setting up a school-based resource closet at Central, stocked with supplies students need to feel comfortable coming to school.

In the past year, the program’s closet served 275 high school students.

“Bullying is a real thing,” Marshall said. “Kids are bullied every single day because they don’t have the nicest clothes, or because they don’t smell the freshest.”

Enrichment programs help students stay motivated

They also launched the after-school Konnection Klub at Durfee, with enrichment programs that make coming to school more engaging. Several studies find that student participation in out-of-school programs can improve regular school attendance, encouraging students to show up to class.

This year, The Konnection is collaborating with local entrepreneurs and colleges to help students explore career opportunities in culinary arts, podcasting, fashion design, and transit services. Students in the after-school program also receive mentoring from community volunteers, practice social-emotional learning activities, and attend field trips to city sports and holiday events.

Mikaela Pugh, left, and The Konnection founder and CEO Sharnese Marshall work through a budget activity put on by Laurie Rivetto of Michigan State University Extension at Durfee.

“Schools may be supporting (students) academically,” Marshall said, “but enrichment programs can help you mentally and emotionally. They can help you in other ways that other partners can’t.”

Marshall worked with Durfee’s attendance agent and teachers to select participants who could most benefit from the program’s offering. They sought a mix of students who are chronically absent and those who are not.

“We want the students who are not there to feel supported by the leaders of the school who are showing up and who do understand the assignments,” she said. “We try to find a couple in each grade who are great students and do have support at home so that they’re able to pull the other kids up.”

Ke’Von (pronounced “kay-vaughn”), one of the students with strong grades and near-perfect attendance, had been eager to join the program since last year, when he was in fifth grade.

Leona Wright, an eighth grader at Durfee, was one of the students who needed the added support. She has routinely missed school on Mondays and Fridays this year, days her mother, Shavonne Jones, has to work late.

Jones works as a cook in a nursing home in Bloomfield Hills, about a 30-minute drive from Durfee. She says that between her and her fiancé's work schedules, it has been difficult to consistently get Leona to school on days they are both working.

“On Mondays, I have to be at work at 6 in the morning,” she said. “Then on Fridays, I go to work at 10:30, so I can take her to school but I won’t be able to pick her back up from school.”

Jones added: “There’s just a lot of difficulties with that. My job is understanding sometimes, but most jobs don’t want you to leave like that during the day.”

The family lives outside of the school’s boundary for yellow bus transportation as well, and Jones isn’t comfortable with her daughter riding the city bus.

One week in November, Leona was sick with the flu, prompting Jones to stay home from work to take care of her.

Marshall has sought out different solutions to some students’ transportation barriers, offering families Uber gift cards, asking volunteers to offer rides, or directing families to resources already available via the district, such as free bus passes.

Running the after-school program until 5:30, she added, provides some flexibility to families who can’t make the regular afternoon pickup time.

Eight grader Leona Wright, 13, works on a computer program during Konnection Klub at Durfee.

“It definitely helps the parents who are working, because a lot of times the kids are going home by themselves or they’re just hanging out in school,” Marshall said.

Leona says she’d rather be at school than at home. Prior to this year, she was homeschooled for four years and missed connecting with other students in person. Back at Durfee, she’s excited about trying out for the school’s cheer team and studying math, science, and social studies.

And she was eager to join The Konnection. “I wanted to make friends and experience my life and go on field trips,” she said.

The Konnection hopes to extend its reach

With a small team, Marshall has leaned on the support of roughly 150 volunteers in the past year to operate the resource closet, mentor students, and host attendance celebrations. She’s hoping The Konnection’s efforts can make more of a difference at Durfee. Last year’s chronic absenteeism rate was down 12 percentage points from the previous year, mirroring a decline across the district as quarantine restrictions eased.

“It’s still very high, but we’re making strides to be able to get that down,” she said.

She wants to see the program reengage younger students who may already feel disenchanted with school, or who might have lacked access to the resources, instruction, and extracurriculars the program provides.

In addition to attendance rates, The Konnection also tracks grade improvements, personal confidence, and “students’ desire to want to come to school.”

In a survey at the end of 2022-23, she added, 95% of club participants said they felt more motivated to attend school after being in the program.

This year, Marshall’s team is looking to reach at least 1,000 students across all its programs. They’re in the process of setting up a second resource closet at Durfee, and strengthening their relationships with community members outside the school.

The ultimate goal is still the same, she said: that “100% of our students will be on track in terms of attendance.”

“We’re trying to just bridge the gap where we can,” she said. “Until the policies are changed in order to ensure that our kids and our families are really taken care of and they’re not left out, the same issues will continue to perpetuate.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit community groups have a long record of attendance work

2023-11-28T23:30:00+00:00

Community groups have been working with Detroit school communities on absenteeism for more than a decade. Despite their limited staff and budgets, they help fill gaps in the strategies schools and the district use to improve student attendance, focusing on specific barriers, such as inconsistent transportation, food insecurity, and lack of clean clothes.

Every School Day Counts, a coalition of community organizations and schools across the city, has been at it since 2012. Early on, Rev. Larry Simmons and other church leaders involved in the group volunteered to drive students to and from school.

Lawrence Hood partnered with the group on transportation services when he was principal at Detroit Innovation Academy, a charter school on the city’s west side.

“We had scholars that were missing 10 days before the second quarter even began,” Hood recalled. Later on, he added, the school recruited workers from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to provide medical and dental services to families who regularly missed school for appointments.

From 2012 to 2014, when Hood ran Detroit Innovation Academy, the chronic absenteeism rate declined by about five percentage points, to 51.5%.

Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, a nonprofit based in Southwest Detroit, partnered with area schools to offer a range of after-school programs, including gymnastics, cooking, gardening, and art classes, said Alejandra Gomez, an education director at UNI. The group is now part of Every School Day Counts.

UNI spent years tracking attendance data across its after-school and youth employment programs and now has a team of 10 AmeriCorps members mentoring chronically absent students and assisting families in finding resources.

“Many of the parents have shared that it’s really difficult for them to pick up their kids right after school since they’re working, and so being able to have the opportunity to be able to pick them up a little bit later has been good for them,” Gomez said.

John Broad, founder of Helping Kids Go To School, sought out volunteers from Detroit-area churches to work as “attendance coaches,” mentoring families struggling to get their kids to school. The strategy, he said, drew inspiration from a similar concept in Hawaii.

From 2019 to 2021, the mentoring program helped Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School reduce its chronic absenteeism rate from 70% to 47.7%.

The following year, though, the rate surged to 84%, amid strict quarantine requirements. Broad said the group is eager to dig deeper into its work at Mackenzie and other schools, but has struggled recently to scale its volunteer staff.

“We may end up having to pay coaches a small stipend to help and maybe shorten hours to eight hours a week,” he said.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Chronic absenteeism in Michigan schools drops, but still exceeds pre-pandemic levels

2023-10-10T20:01:34+00:00

Chronic absenteeism in Michigan schools is declining, but new data released Tuesday show nearly a third of students in public schools are missing too much school, and the rate is still higher than it was before the pandemic.

During the 2022-23 school year, 30.8% of Michigan students were chronically absent, down from 38.5% the previous year.

Before the pandemic, the rate was 19.7%.

“We’re moving in the right direction, but we’re not where we need to be,” Judy Pritchett, a member of the State Board of Education, said during a presentation on the data at a meeting Tuesday. “I’m not sure we were where we needed to be prior to the pandemic.”

Michigan had one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in 2021-22.

Pamela Pugh, the board president, said Michigan’s rank is tied to many systemic issues.

“We can’t look at that statistic without looking at our statistics around Michigan being at the bottom of the 50 states in how our schools are funded equitably in the state, but also our building infrastructure,” she said. “Would you want to go to a home where roofs are leaking, where there are rodents in the schools, where they don’t have heat in the winter and air in the summer?”

The Detroit Public Schools Community District, which has long struggled with high rates of chronic absenteeism, saw its percentage improve to 66.11%, from 76.73%. The improvement was better than what the district reported in July. In the 2018-19 school year, the rate was 62.1%.

In Michigan, a student is chronically absent if they miss 18 days during the 180-day school year.

Chronic absenteeism rates among certain demographic groups were significantly higher than the statewide average of 30.8%, including students experiencing homelessness, at 60.1%; students from families considered to be “economically disadvantaged,” at 41.8%; students with disabilities, at 39.5%; and Black students at 53.1%.

State Superintendent Michael Rice pointed out during the presentation that for most of these vulnerable student groups, the disparities narrowed during the 2022-23 school year from the previous year.

The chronic absenteeism rate among students experiencing homelessness, for example, was down from 66.8% in 2021-22, a nearly 7-point drop. Similarly, the rate among students from economically disadvantaged families decreased by 8.6 points. Rates for students with disabilities and Black students also significantly decreased.

Chronic absence rarely boils down to a student’s choice to skip school, experts say. Far more often, it reflects economic challenges such as a lack of access to health care, employment opportunities, affordable housing, reliable transportation, or child care. The problem is especially acute in Detroit and other cities with high child poverty rates.

Many districts saw a surge in chronic absenteeism during the pandemic, in part because quarantine rules required students who had COVID or contact with someone with COVID to miss multiple days of school.

“As the pandemic waned, attendance rates improved, and chronic absenteeism declined significantly,” Rice said in a statement. “That said, we have a great deal of work still to do in our local schools on this important, multi-faceted issue.”

Republican board member Nikki Snyder agreed that the progress hasn’t been enough, and pointed to the high cost of absenteeism. “The most important factor in dropping out is absenteeism,” she said. “So, it’s not even just GPA. We lose these kids altogether.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

How chronic absenteeism became part of this Detroit pastor’s mission

2023-09-22T19:17:32+00:00

Larry Simmons was troubled by what he saw outside the Detroit church where he was a pastor: School-age children were strolling the streets of the city’s Brightmoor neighborhood at times when they should have been in school.

That was over a decade ago, and it opened Simmons’ eyes to a problem that was already massive in Detroit: the epidemic of student absenteeism. In the 2012-13 school year, 68% of students in the Detroit school district were flagged as chronically absent, which at the time meant that they missed 10 or more days in a year.

The sight of youth skipping school was “heartbreaking” for the longtime pastor and community advocate, who saw the pattern of absences as a barrier to greater social and economic mobility for Black Detroiters.

Simmons had already been a familiar figure in Brightmoor and Detroit, having served as a political director for Detroit’s first Black mayor, Coleman A. Young, and a pastor of Baber Memorial A.M.E. Church.

But in the next decade, Simmons made encouraging school attendance one of his biggest priorities. He became a founding member of Every School Day Counts Detroit, a coalition of community organizations and schools across the city focused on chronic absenteeism. His work has allowed him to become heavily involved in the attendance efforts at Gompers Elementary-Middle School and other schools in the Brightmoor and Cody Rouge areas.

Larry Simmons has long been a familiar figure in Brightmoor and Detroit as a pastor and former political director for the city’s first Black mayor, Coleman A. Young.

He retired from Baber last fall but still leads Brightmoor Alliance, a nonprofit that focuses on revitalization efforts in the neighborhood.

Years after the initial encounter outside his church, student absenteeism remains at crisis levels, and not just in Detroit. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, chronic absenteeism — which is now nationally defined as missing 10% of school days or more — has skyrocketed in numerous states, with high-poverty school districts seeing higher rates.

In 2021-22, Michigan had one of the highest absenteeism rates in the nation: nearly 39%, compared with 19% in 2018-19, the last full school year before the pandemic struck.

The pandemic also derailed the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s progress in reducing absenteeism. After easing to 54% in 2019-20, chronic absenteeism rocketed to 77% in 2021-22. The rate was down to 68% last year, as the district stepped up its attendance efforts, but that still means more than two-thirds of DPSCD students missed 18 or more days of school.

“The schools alone cannot solve chronic absence,” Simmons said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

“It is measured in school. It is counted in school,” he said, but “it does not start and will not be solved alone in school.”

Simmons talked about the challenges and successes of his early grassroots efforts to address chronic absenteeism, the systemic issues that impede student attendance, and where he wants more help to solve the issue.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When did you first recognize student absenteeism as a problem in Detroit?

I didn’t become aware of attendance really as a challenge until I was a pastor at Baber, and we would see kids during the day who’d be out of school. They would just be walking around in the neighborhood. And I remember at community meetings, folks would talk about “Why are there kids all out on the street like this?” That’s what led us to pay attention to school attendance.

We eventually learned about chronic absenteeism through our research with (Detroit education advocacy group) 482Forward. We learned about this from Hedy Chang at Attendance Works and Robert Balfanz from Johns Hopkins University.

And we began to organize around this. And ultimately, Every School Days Counts emerged as a coalition out of that work with 482Forward. This would have been like 2012. And over the course of this time, we got a partnership with Wayne State University and we just began learning. We tried different things.

What was it about seeing kids skipping school that made you want to do something?

It was heartbreaking to me to see these children squandering an opportunity that later in life they’ll have to pay to get. I’ve basically spent my life working for the proper treatment of African Americans, and while it is absolutely essential that we get others to recognize our intrinsic value, it’s also true that we’ve got to do our part.

Why are young people standing in front of my church two blocks away in the middle of the afternoon? They’re passing up one of the biggest free investments available to help them achieve the life that I know they want for themselves. I know they want it, because when I talk to these young people, they have all these high aspirations. They want to live in these great houses, drive these great cars.

Well, if they happen to be 7 feet tall, and can play, and don’t get hurt, maybe they don’t need to go to school. If they can run as fast as Deion Sanders, maybe they don’t. But the truth of the matter is this landscape is littered with great talented people who didn’t get the training to manage their gifts.

The entrance to Baber Memorial A.M.E. Church in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood. Larry Simmons recalls standing outside the church and seeing school-age children walking around the neighborhood when they should have been in school.

From there, how did you get involved in grassroots efforts around chronic absenteeism? What were some of the early strategies you employed to address student absence?

We mounted this campaign called “‘Present’ in Brightmoor: Our School Attendance Movement” and began to organize around getting parents and churches engaged in this work. And we formed what we call the “Principal’s Table,” made up of principals of all the schools that were in Brightmoor at the time and in Cody Rouge.

When we first got started, we had about seven or eight churches that organized with us. And so we said, we’re going to each adopt a school. And we’re going to take the kids who are absent that the principals tell us about and we’re going to pick them up from home, and we’re going to take them to school, and pick them up and take them home in the afternoon.

We blew out two church buses and my car transmission carrying kids back and forth from school every day. So we realized it was just an unsustainable model. First of all, how many kids are going to fit in your car?

Then when we started to get the numbers back and realized just how many students were absent, it was clear between our burnt-out vans and my burnt-out transmission that we were not going to get anywhere.

So how did things evolve after that point?

Well one of the first things we realized is the data the Detroit Public Schools was passing out didn’t make sense. Back in those days, the statistic being used was average daily attendance.

“All of us were stunned when we first learned that just missing two days a month can make a child chronically absent.” — Larry Simmons

Average daily attendance tells me out of a group of students on any given day, what percentage of them are going to be present in the classroom or in the school. The problem with that is, different students may make up that percentage at any given time. So what you get is this patchwork of attendance. So in seeking to get accurate data, we got online and discovered Attendance Works.

We brought in Hedy Chang to Detroit for a conference of students, parents, and teachers. And over the course of about three weeks is when we learned about chronic absence.

All of us were stunned when we first learned that just missing two days a month can make a child chronically absent, and being chronically absent can lead to them not graduating on time, be more likely to get in trouble, and get excluded from school.

It changed our language and changed our way of thinking. And it turned out that nationally, the U.S. Department of Education had just issued a report on the problem of chronic absenteeism. And so we began to advocate and agitate to have this statistic used in Detroit and Michigan.

We evolved our strategies to try and focus on schools and messaging about chronic absence. We discovered that people didn’t even know what chronic absence was, and some would change their attendance behavior by learning that two times a month would be too often.

When the community first got started promoting this idea, the school system resisted. They didn’t like it, because the chronic absenteeism numbers were so appalling, they just wanted to count average daily attendance, and many of them still do.

It took probably about four or five years for us to win that fight, but ultimately, the state and the city began to use chronic absence as a statistic to evaluate student attendance.

What were some of the lessons you took away from that campaign?

We learned over time that this problem was way bigger than just having people pay attention to the statistics. People may not have known what chronic absence was, but they did know their children are supposed to be in school. There are other things that are operating in the ecosystem.

And we clearly understand that we have to have an all-hands-on-deck approach to solving this problem. The schools alone cannot solve chronic absence.

How do you feel about the recent rise in absenteeism rates?

The disappointing thing is before COVID, all of our work together had started bringing chronic absence rates down. Not transformatively, but significantly, and they were real drops. Not just blips.

COVID has blown all of that work up. We’re actually starting below where we started before. We’re worse off now than we were before. It’s not like we’re back to zero. We’re minus five.

How do you contrast the role of the school versus the role of community partners in addressing chronic absenteeism?

Schools have to be willing to acknowledge that the solution to this problem is beyond their scope of control, and therefore they need other partners to come to the table and bring resources and policy.

I would contend that a school-based challenge is to create the kind of school culture that makes school attractive. Part of our work at Every School Day Counts Detroit is to encourage schools to engage in these kinds of experiences. We had a big event with the Detroit Pistons this past school year where they brought Cade Cunningham and the other athletes to Gompers (Elementary-Middle School). Everybody got a new coat, everybody got a basketball, everybody got a backpack with the Detroit Pistons swag in it.

It creates a connectedness and creates a sense of belonging, and it creates an inviting atmosphere. It doesn’t substitute for rigorous academics, but it does help students want to put up with rigorous academics, because of all the other goodies, benefits, and joys of being present in school.

What sort of discussions or partnerships would you like to see with other organizations in the city?

We have a great partnership with the Detroit Pistons, who have devoted enormous resources and help to address this problem at several schools. DTE Energy also has been a great partner of late. They don’t have anything to do directly with education, but we certainly want somebody like that to be at the table.

We would want labor unions. We would want teachers. We would want the (United Auto Workers). We would want the companies that employ them at the table.

You often hear parents complain that their work schedules don’t permit them to be as attentive to their children’s attendance as they want to be. Changing work schedules or creating flexible work hours is beyond what the school can effect. But maybe the community could effect it.

Maybe labor unions could be brought to the table to say, ‘While you’re negotiating for everything, we need you to ask the companies, be they auto or other, how can we give parents more flexibility in their work schedules? And how can the school create more flexibility in its schedule so students can in fact get to school on time?’ I think it will take both.

We’ve got to come up with some serious structural, systemic solutions that really face the problem that we are confronting. It’s got to take all of us working together to do this — private sector, public sector, philanthropic, clergy sector. It is our responsibility and power to address some of the issues and challenges that cause chronic absence.

What role do you think the city of Detroit can and should play in addressing chronic absenteeism?

We’ve analytically gotten to a place where we really understand chronic absence in Detroit far, far better than we did. It comes from a lot of external drivers that result in children being chronically absent, and the clearest one is poverty.

“One of the things the city could do is to actually plan bus routes around school opening and closing. That’s completely within the city’s scope of power to be able to do now.” — Larry Simmons

Poverty creates certain life conditions. People who are very poor have less stable access to reliable transportation. They have less stable networks to compensate for things like sudden illness or any of the little disruptions that happen in everybody’s life every day when you don’t have as much as folks in higher income categories.

In the case of Detroit, most of its citizens are low-income. So the city should take that into account and either implement or advocate for policies that can address that poverty.

One of the things the city could do is to actually plan bus routes around school opening and closing. That’s completely within the city’s scope of power to be able to do now. That will cause some dislocation, it will cause some struggle, but there’s no solution we’re going to find that doesn’t do that.

Larry Simmons said his organization’s efforts made meaningful progress in reducing chronic absenteeism in Detroit, but “COVID has blown all of that work up.”

You’ve worn many hats over the years: from being a pastor over the past two decades to working under Mayor Coleman Young as a political director. How do you see all those roles intersecting into the work you do now?

We’re always talking about the same people. The person who comes to my church is the same person whose child should be in school down the street, is the same person who should go to vote for the leadership of our country.

We’re just pretending like we can deal with them separately, like I can abstract you as an object of education, and pretend that’s not connected to your spiritual life, your emotional well being, your political sense, or your economic aspirations. All these things are integrated, they’re interrelated, and so my focus most of my life has been on policy change, the policies that affect our community.

But as I grew older, I understood I couldn’t just talk about the policies that other people make. I’ve got to talk about the policies that we create inside our own houses. If my child gets up and tells me she’s not feeling good, the policy in our house may be that she doesn’t have to go to school. That’s a policy. It doesn’t affect anybody outside the four walls of our house, but nonetheless, it’s a policy.

What keeps you going in this movement?

Even though I now understand that the fight is more complex than I recognized when I first saw this, it’s still just as important.

And unfortunately, as a community, understanding where we are and what it is going to take to get to where we want to be is something we still don’t fully grasp. … We have to break that. And one of the essential ways to break it is to acquire the skill sets to compete in the 21st century economy. And you can get that for free down the street until you’re 18. After that, you have to pay.

So it’s just this fire in my belly that I have for the freedom of my people.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

How this Detroit attendance agent connects with families to get kids in school

2023-09-01T12:00:00+00:00

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Effie Harris can’t walk down a hallway at Gompers Elementary-Middle School without having to stop several times for a hug, a high five, or a promise of a crayon drawing.

Her pauses have to be quick, though. She has places to go and students to see.

By 8:04 on a cold February morning, she had already been at school for an hour, greeting students at a side entrance for middle school latecomers. After a quick stop in her office to drop off her coat and sanitize her hands, she began her morning rounds.

First stop: Room A115.

“I was just checking to see if she was here,” Harris called out. The teacher inside knew who Harris was talking about: a struggling second-grader who was absent as often as present. On that day, the child was present.

The spot checks only begin to explain the expansive role Harris plays as Gompers’ attendance agent. Unlike the stereotypical truant officers of yore, who might round up troubled youth and drag them back to school, Harris must often serve as investigator to find out why children aren’t coming to school, visiting homes and keeping track of data on barriers to attendance. She is a counselor who listens to families and helps them find resources they need to get their kids to school.

She is the school’s spirit leader for good attendance, showing up in classrooms with prizes — pencil cases, Hot Wheels cars, bubbles — for students who make it two weeks without missing a day. She plans pizza parties for classes with the best attendance, and helps teachers plan fun activities that children won’t want to miss.

And sometimes, she must play bad cop, warning parents of children who are severely chronically absent that they could face legal or financial consequences.

Effie Harris, the attendance agent at Gompers Elementary-Middle School in Detroit, talks to students during her morning rounds when she visits classes.

After the stop in A115, Harris moved on toward another classroom, greeting everyone in the halls as she breezed past — by name if she knew it, or if she didn’t, with a “Mornin’, sunshine!” or a “Good morning, sweetie!” One elementary school child wrapped her arms around Harris’s legs, and soon she was surrounded by others who wanted her attention, too.

Harris’s goals that day were to check in with nearly two dozen middle school students who were approaching 18 absences, attend a school leadership meeting, call a few parents of chronically absent children, fill in for an absent teacher as a lunchroom monitor, and make a banner reminding kids to show up on Feb. 8 — one of two “count days” during the year when attendance is used to determine how much state funding a school gets.

She walked around the school with a large binder that she uses to track absences and excuses, and interactions with families. Every month, she must provide a report to the district.

“I’ve never been able to get through the volume of work that I’ve wanted to,” she said.

Why aren’t Brightmoor students getting to school?

When a parent shows up, Harris drops everything to listen.

A day earlier, she said, an exasperated mother showed up in her office to tearfully explain why her three children had each missed about 20 days.

“I said, ‘I’m going to get you a tissue, and I’m going to get me a box, because I might be crying, too, today.’”

Harris had reached out to the mother before and even tried to make home visits, but no one ever answered the door. This time was different.

“When she came in, she was at a breaking point,” Harris said. “It was a different conversation. It didn’t seem like she was on the defense. It seemed like she was open” to explaining her struggles and working on a plan.

“We want to find out the whys to offer solutions, to find out how can we help,” Harris said. “That’s the big thing. It’s not doing anybody any good just to stir things up and not to have a solution.”

A portrait of attendance agent Effie Harris at Samuel Gompers Elementary-Middle School in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., on Friday, February 3, 2023. Emily Elconin for Chalkbeat

Gompers serves some of the neediest children in Detroit, a city challenged by high levels of poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and crime. Most live in Brightmoor, a 4-square-mile area that’s impoverished even by Detroit standards. It’s the kind of neighborhood where 1 out of 5 homes is abandoned, and a local diner has 3-inch bulletproof glass separating the serving counter from the dining room.

Some parents keep their children home from school for fear of what they may encounter on the way, especially in winter when it’s still dark out. School starts at 7:30 a.m.

“I can’t blame them,” Harris said. “Parents don’t want to walk them to bus stops in dangerous areas. … I tell the parents, you guys have to get them to the bus stop. This is just your reality. You’ve got to do that.”

About a third of Gompers’ 838 students come from other neighborhoods. Those students have their own attendance challenges. When the family car breaks down, they stop showing up.

Other students don’t come to school because they have to babysit younger siblings while parents work, or they live part-time with another parent in a different area. One mother last year kept her three children home because they were in hiding from her abusive partner.

Harris listens with an empathetic ear as parents explain the barriers standing between their child and the classroom — whether it’s homelessness, lack of clothing or transportation, bullying at school, inability to get up on time, or child care challenges.

Then she steps in. Sometimes she calls parents who’ve overslept to wake them up. Other times, she picks up children from their homes and drives them to school herself.

“We want to make sure we actually have practical solutions, and the other side of that is that parents have to be willing to follow those recommendations,” Harris said in an interview in her office.

A few minutes later she was on the phone with a parent whose three children hadn’t shown up to school.

The oldest child had a sore throat. She had a 9:15 a.m. doctors appointment, the mom said. But it was already 9:07, and they were still home. Harris began to wonder.

“Bring in documentation after she has her doctor visit, OK?” Harris asked.

The mother didn’t answer. She hung up on Harris.

It didn’t seem to bother her.

“Something more is going on,” Harris said, noting that she’d talk to the oldest child when she returned to school. “Elementary kids, I say, ‘OK, where were you?’ and then they’ll start to tell me.”

“It takes time to investigate, to find out what’s going on,” Harris told Chalkbeat in a later interview. “Sometimes it takes time for them to even warm up to you to talk about what’s going on.”

For now, there were other children to check up on.

Personal outreach to students: ‘I’m glad you’re here’

Harris headed upstairs and asked the teacher in Room A230 if she could have a word with a student. A few moments later, a boy emerged from the room.

“Good morning,” she said to him. “I’m glad you’re here. You doing OK?”

After a moment, she sent him back to class.

Next she headed to the classroom next door to check on his brother, who spoke quietly and rubbed his face on the sleeve of his hoodie.

Hours later, she was still thinking about him.

“He really looked tired,” she said, and the last time she saw the brothers they also looked exhausted. “But lately they have been here. They have been here, so that’s good.”

Before the start of last school year, Gompers Principal Akeya Murphy moved the attendance agent’s office into the main office, as a way to highlight the importance of student attendance to families as they walked into the building.

A sign that reads attendance matter behind the curtain in the lunchroom at Samuel Gompers Elementary-Middle School in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., on Friday, February 3, 2023. Emily Elconin for Chalkbeat

Once the school day begins, though, Harris doesn’t spend much time in her office.

“I like moving around in the building, going to the kids,” she said. “I like seeing them. I like interacting with them.”

Her next stop took her to the other end of the building. On the way she ran into a middle school student and greeted her by name.

“How many times am I going to see you next week?” Harris asks.

“I really don’t know,” the girl says.

“What do you mean you don’t know? What’s wrong?” she asks. “I want to see you every day.”

“OK. All right,” the girl responded, as if she meant it.

Help is on the way from the district

Being an attendance officer is a tough job in a district where year after year, more than half the students are chronically absent.

Harris’ role got even more challenging during the pandemic, when Gompers and many schools nationwide experienced a surge in chronic absenteeism. There have been days over the years when the sheer number of students who needed to be reached has been overwhelming.

“I had to get past that,” Harris said. “So many need to be helped. You can’t do everything. You can’t make it to everybody.”

Attendance agent Effie Harris holds a binder with protocols for attendance intervention plans at Samuel Gompers Elementary-Middle School in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., on Friday, February 3, 2023. Emily Elconin for Chalkbeat

Harris is getting more help this school year. A new district strategy involves assigning a second attendance agent to schools like Gompers with high rates of chronic absenteeism.

Harris empathizes with the families who are struggling. But she wants them to understand the consequences of their children not attending school.

“At the end of the day, this is who’s being hurt, and it’s your child. At the end of the day, this is who’s not being given the opportunity they deserve.”

Getting that message across successfully is one of the rewards of a tough job, she said. Take Gloria Vanhoosier, whose three children are “smart as a whip” but were absent for nearly half of the 2021-22 school year. After repeated calls home, Harris convinced Vanhoosier to come in for a talk about her struggles at home, and the importance of bringing the kids to school.

By the end of 2022-23, the children were doing much better with attendance. They still missed days, but not nearly as much as they had the year before. More importantly, they were doing better at school.

“Gloria is a fighter. And now we’re seeing the results. We’re seeing the benefits. She’s the one who sat in my office one time and said, ‘I tell my kids … it’s OK to struggle, but it’s not OK to give up.’ You are absolutely right. Because we all have struggles. We just don’t want to give up.”

Vanhoosier told Chalkbeat that talking to Harris was like talking to a therapist. Hearing that, Harris was full of emotion.

“Oh, I love it!” she said.

Tracie Mauriello covered state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. Reach the team at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

One Detroit school’s multilayered effort to get absent students back to school

2023-08-31T13:06:56+00:00

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After missing four days of classes last fall at Gompers Elementary-Middle School, Jay’Sean Hull was called into the cafeteria with 100 other students with similar attendance records.

The group was introduced to attendance agent Effie Harris, a key figure in the school’s efforts to improve on a dismal statistic. The previous school year, a staggering 82% of students in the northwest Detroit school were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more days.

Harris explained that the students had been selected for a relatively new program pairing students at risk of becoming chronically absent with 20 adult mentors in the building.

Jay’Sean’s mentor: Harris herself. Over the next few weeks, she would greet the sixth-grader at a side entrance designated for middle schoolers, visit him in his classrooms on days that he arrived late, and regularly check in with his family.

This high-touch, relationship-based investment was part of a multipronged approach at Gompers last school year to tackle a problem with tragic consequences: Chronically absent students are more likely to become disengaged from school and more likely to drop out, research shows. Frequent absences also make it harder to get students on track academically, a pressing need coming off pandemic-fueled declines in academic achievement.

Gompers Principal Akeya Murphy, a veteran educator, tapped just about every staff member to help with the effort. Along with the mentorship program, the school dispatched staff to students’ homes to help families solve problems contributing to absenteeism, used data to track attendance patterns, and offered incentives ranging from field trips to the local movie theater for students to grocery store gift cards for parents.

Students eat lunch at Gompers Elementary-Middle School in Detroit. In 2021-22, a staggering 82% of the school’s students were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more school days.

Murphy, Harris, and other leaders at Gompers set an ambitious goal for last school year: to shave 20 percentage points off the school’s chronic absenteeism rate.

To get there, they would need to reach students like 13-year-old Jay’Sean, and dozens of other students whose absences put them at risk of missing out on their education.

“By the time they’re 16, they’re already thinking about going to work or exiting out of the educational system, because it is rigorous,” Murphy said. “We know the curriculum is rigorous, and so we want to prepare them, and the way we do that is by them being at school every single day, so that they’re not missing anything.”

Attendance struggles reflect Brightmoor’s economic challenges

Across the Detroit Public Schools Community District, 77% of students were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year, when COVID-19 cases in Michigan reached their peak. But even before the pandemic caused a spike in absenteeism in school districts across the country, students in Detroit district and charter schools were missing school at crisis numbers.

The reasons for that vary, but they’re largely rooted in the economic challenges that accompany Detroit’s high poverty rates — transportation hurdles, health problems, family and housing instability.

Brightmoor, where Gompers is located, is one of the most economically challenged areas in the city, with a high concentration of housing instability, poverty, and transportation challenges. They contribute to a high level of transiency among the school’s student population, school officials say.

At Gompers, 91% of students come from low-income homes. The list of reasons for missed school days ranges widely at Gompers, from inflexible parent work schedules to student illnesses and bullying.

By January 2023, Haydin Griggs had missed about 50 days of the school year, primarily because her mother, Shetaya Griggs, had health problems that often prevented her from walking her daughter to school, and she didn’t want the sixth-grader walking to school on her own in their rough neighborhood.

Many parents “don’t have a bunch of money, they don’t have a whole bunch of resources,” said Harris, the attendance agent. “They’re thinking about just surviving.”

The Detroit school district’s strategies to reduce absenteeism have increasingly focused on these economic challenges. The district’s Family Resource Distribution Center regularly offers toiletries, dry goods, school supplies and winter coats.

The district is also set to launch 12 school-based health hubs in the next three years to provide medical resources and services that families would need to keep students attending school regularly.

Students wait in line in the main hallway at Gompers Elementary-Middle School in Detroit. The reasons for missed school days range widely at Gompers, from inflexible parent work schedules to student illnesses and bullying.

One issue that came up at Gompers ahead of the school year was how many parents were holding their children back from school because they did not have a uniform or clean clothes. Murphy said she sent out a back-to-school letter encouraging parents to send their kids to school regardless of what they had to wear.

“We would prefer them to be at school and just have them wear their regular clothes versus feeling like they can’t come to school because of a uniform,” she said.

When Murphy became principal at Gompers at the start of 2022-23, she made sure to move the attendance agent’s office into the main office, a decision she hoped would amplify the importance of student attendance to families as they walked into the building.

Harris spends a portion of her days reaching out by phone and in person to parents and caregivers, trying to help them make plans to get their kids to class. It can be difficult, she said, stressing to families how two absences a month can quickly add up to a student being chronically absent. Some are unaware of how significant the absences are, and many are weary of the pandemic’s impact on their health, jobs, and households.

“The dust is still settling,” Harris said in February, during a spike in absenteeism. “Families have been affected, loved ones have been lost. There have been readjustments, people have had to adapt to whatever their new normals are and a lot of shuffling.”

A student’s absence, whether excused or unexcused, still counts toward the total number of missed school days they accumulate in a given year.

Gloria Vanhoosier’s three elementary school-age children each accumulated over 80 absences (out of 180 days) during the 2021-22 school year.

In Vanhoosier’s case, a bedbug infestation that lasted more than a year was a contributing factor. She was often too exhausted to take her children to school after spending so much time trying to rid her home of the critters, while also doing her children’s laundry nightly so they didn’t bring the bugs to school. They also missed school because of multiple of COVID infections, because of car problems, and because the children sometimes overslept.

Alarmed by the absences, Harris reached out multiple times asking Vanhoosier to meet with her at the school.

“‘I’m not superwoman,’” Vanhoosier remembers telling Harris when they finally met. “‘I got too much on my plate. I’m trying to take care of my kids and trying to take care of my family.’”

“Once I opened up to her, it’s like her whole face changed,” Vanhoosier recalled. “Now I feel that she sees my struggle and is concerned for me.”

The conversation with Harris motivated Vanhoosier to rethink her attitude about her children’s absences and its impact on their grades. Seeing her daughters happy and thriving after they began attending school more regularly has also helped. The girls participated in volleyball step dance, and after-school tutoring programs.

“I’ve gotten a lot better,” Vanhoosier said in the spring. “We still miss days, but I’m open with her now.”

Absenteeism has ripple effects on students in the classroom

Brittany Parker, who has been teaching for 10 years, wrestles with what to do when her kindergartners don’t show up for class. Absences can create lasting turmoil in a child’s education — children who are chronically absent in early grades are less likely to read at grade level by the third grade.

They can also hamper the rest of the class. “The question for me is: Do I push ahead to the next lesson or do I wait for them to come back?” Parker said.

“As a district, they want us to keep going,” she said. “If it’s four kids out, I’m going to push ahead. Sometimes if it’s a larger number I’ll hold back. I’m also looking at: Are these kids who can catch up?”

An instructor works with students at Gompers Elementary-Middle School in Detroit. Children who are chronically absent in early grades are less likely to read at grade level by third grade.

By May, more than half of the 50 third-graders La’Dawn Peterson taught between her morning and afternoon math classes were chronically absent. An additional nine were severely chronically absent, meaning they had missed more than 36 days of school.

One of them missed more than 60 days during the year.

“He would be so good if he came to school,” Peterson said of the boy. When he did show up, he was able to grasp the material, but she worried whether he’d retain the information.

Despite her many attempts to communicate with his family, she said she’s not entirely clear why he was absent so much.

Peterson said she’s tried exhaustively to impress upon her students and their families the importance of daily attendance, and the harmful impact of missing school. It shows up in their academic performance, she said, and explains why some students can become classroom distractions.

One day in June, when extreme heat prompted the district to shorten the school day, just nine students showed up — about half as many as usual. One of them was the boy who had missed 60 days.

On that day, while other students quickly got to work on their online multiplication and fraction exercises, he was slow to get started. He rubbed his eyes with the sleeves of his black and white Adidas tracksuit, and rested his head on one hand as he clicked through the exercises.

About 10 minutes later, he raised his hand, and a classroom tutor walked over to his desk in the back corner of the room. With a little bit of support, he seemed to grasp the lesson and began to work through the exercises.

Teachers like Peterson are cramming in four to five lessons a week, and they depend on weekly small-group lessons to catch up absent or struggling students. But if kids miss those opportunities, the challenges multiply.

“They’re missing out on so much and then, most of the ones that are absent all the time … there’s no motivation at home,” Peterson said. “So they come to school, and they’re not motivated to do anything.”

Over 18 absences: ‘You can’t bounce back from that’

Eighteen days. Thirty-six days. Fifty days. Sixty days. Eighty days of missed school. How does a student’s attendance record ever get so bad?

That’s the question that haunted Murphy and her team at Gompers, and motivated them to work on curbing absenteeism long before it becomes chronic.

Third grade teacher DeAnna Weeden, far right, instructs a group of students during an English lesson at Gompers Elementary-Middle School. Teachers depend on weekly small-group lessons to catch up absent or struggling students.

“You want to, for lack of a better word, stop the bleeding,” with students just below chronic absenteeism, Murphy said in January. “We need (families) to know that they’re on their way to being over the 18 absences … you can’t bounce back from that.”

In Jay’Sean’s case, it was four missed days of school by the end of October, too many so early in the school year. Jay’Sean blamed inconsistent school bus service that prompted him to start walking to school.

That was enough to warrant an intervention from the new mentorship program for him and the other students at risk of becoming chronically absent. The school’s mentoring program is an offshoot of a national initiative launched by the U.S. Department of Education.

The program’s premise sounded easy enough to Jay’Sean. “I just had to keep coming to school,” he recalled.

In reality, it took more effort than that from Harris and others on the team to ensure that Jay’Sean stayed on track. But it worked.

“By the beginning of the new year … he was always coming,” Harris told Chalkbeat this summer. If Jay’Sean came in late some days, she’d stop by his classroom to check in.

“He always wants to go to school,” said Shamika Hull, Jay’Sean’s mom. “He’ll go stand outside, and it’ll be raining, and he’s out there waiting for the bus.”

Hull also has an 11-year-old son at Gompers who got the message on attendance.

“The only times they have been absent from school since (the program began) has been either they were having a doctor’s appointment, or I wasn’t able to wash their clothes.”

For those whose absences are already beyond the “chronic” threshold, Murphy said she and her staff “continue to work with the family. We continue to make those calls. We continue to try to remove barriers.”

Those efforts won’t help the school improve its chronic absenteeism rate, Harris said, “but it’s still going to help the kid.”

“I tell them, ‘OK, let’s just take it a week at a time. Just five days. Four more days. Just three more days,’” she said, adding: “It’s going to make a difference for the kids and their scores.”

Attendance incentives are a ‘means to an end’

The conference room at Gompers is testament to the school leaders’ determination to make a dent in absenteeism. On all four walls are dozens of easel paper sheets, with handwriting in bright pink, green and orange marker. Each sheet details strategies Gompers staff have employed to try to make kids come to school every day.

Posters hanging in the conference room at Gompers Elementary-Middle School highlight some of the school’s strategies to combat student absenteeism.

Field trips to the local movie theater and bowling alley. Gas and grocery store gift cards for parents. Arts and crafts activities in the gymnasium. A mobile video game truck. “Gator Bucks,” named after the school’s mascot, for students who complete classroom assignments and exhibit positive behavior.

“These are the kinds of things that we’re discussing, constantly thinking and trying to be innovative about,” Murphy said. “How can we entice kids and make sure that families are consistently bringing their children to school?”

“It’s a means to an end … initially to draw them in and then to get them into the habit” of going to school, said Harris, the attendance agent.

A line of plastic trophies sit on a shelf behind Harris’ desk. Every two weeks, the awards go to the classrooms that have the most students with perfect attendance.

Gompers deploys some of these incentive programs when students are more likely to be absent, such as before and after holiday breaks or crucial days such as Count Day or state testing periods.

But while incentives are a significant part of Murphy’s vision to encourage student attendance, relationship building remains the core tenet of the school’s efforts.

“Children need to know that you care for them, that they’re in a safe space, that they have a trusted adult that they can communicate with and someone that is building a relationship with them, because that’s going to open the pathway for learning,” she said.

When absences go unexplained

For all their efforts — and progress — the sense of crisis is never far away.

On a Friday morning in early February, a handful of master teachers and administrators gathered in that same conference room for a weekly meeting to discuss academic performance, attendance, and behavior.

It had been close to a month since students and staff returned from winter break. And yet, teachers were still reporting near-empty classrooms.

“It’s that two-week break, where a lot of our students are moving,” said Shannon Harper, a fourth grade master teacher. “They may have been (evicted from) their homes. They may be living now with a relative, and there’s some friction there. And cars break down in the winter, especially here with all the potholes.”

“I just had a student that was out for 10 days,” Harper told the group. “We don’t know why, and he doesn’t either.”

Despite a barrage of robocalls going home when a child is absent, many parents don’t send their children back to the building immediately. And even when students do return, some may not have notes or reasons explaining why they missed school.

“If you never say this is your issue, we can’t help you,” said Adrian Harrell, Gompers’ parent outreach coordinator. “We can’t see what our next solution is to help you. All we know now is they are absent.”

Gompers Elementary-Middle School in the Brightmoor neighborhood is one of the Detroit district’s newer buildings. But Brightmoor is one of the most economically challenged areas in the city.

After a year of effort, Detroit students and leaders reap the rewards

On the last day of school, the grin on Jay’Sean’s face was hard to conceal, even behind the black hoodie that shrouded his head.

He was one of nine students who won a new bike in an end-of year-raffle to reward students who showed up every day over the last weeks of school.

As he took a seat on his red and black Mongoose bicycle, Jay’Sean welcomed the compliments and cheers from his friends.

The whole school had something to cheer about, too. By the end of the year, the chronic absenteeism rate declined to 64% — just shy of the 20-point decline school officials were aiming for, but down significantly.

The district experienced a similar decline, from the peak of 77% in 2021-22 to 68% last year. District officials attribute some of that to the end of quarantining requirements that forced many students to miss school.

Encouraged by the progress last year, Gompers school staff plan to continue their strategies in the new school year that began this week.

The mentoring program will remain in place, along with the range of incentives the school experimented with. But most significant for Gompers will be the addition of a second attendance agent to work alongside Harris.

Superintendent Vitti announced earlier this year that the district would shuffle its 80 attendance agents to schools in areas with the highest concentration of chronically absent students and poverty.

The added resources provide validation that attendance agents with a coordinated, hands-on approach can make a difference.

Harris said she is proud of seeing her mentees like Jay’Sean avoid chronic absenteeism. He finished the year with 13 absences, five days below the threshold.

Under Harris’ guidance, he found an accountability system that worked for him. By the end of the winter break, for all the attempts he made to get to school on time and every day, he and other students earned snacks and mini-parties every month.

With a challenging sixth grade year behind him, Jay’Sean is ready to get back to school.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covered state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. Reach the team at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit attendance proposal would kick students out of their chosen school for high absenteeism

2023-08-22T15:07:05+00:00

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Detroit students enrolled in schools outside their neighborhood could be sent back to their local school if they miss too many days, under a policy proposal from district officials aimed at tackling chronic absenteeism.

The policy would allow schools to seek district approval to transfer a student to their designated feeder pattern school — the one they would be assigned to based on where they live — but only after school officials took a series of steps to communicate with the student’s family about the absences.

“The transfer would only occur for the following year — not (during) the current school year,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat.

As of 2022, only about 55% of Detroit Public Schools Community District students attended their assigned neighborhood school, Vitti said.

The proposal was shared with board members at a school board policy/ad hoc committee meeting Monday. The committee agreed to advance the draft policy to the next school board meeting on Sept. 12 for a first reading by the full board. All district policies must be reviewed by the board twice before they can be voted on.

DPSCD follows a protocol to notify parents or caregivers of a student’s absences. The first contact is recommended to be completed by a teacher for the first two days a student is absent. After every third unexcused absence — the third, sixth, ninth, and so on — a school’s attendance agent can use any of several intervention strategies, including home visits, daily check-ins, parent conferences, and contact with the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.

Vitti said that with the proposed policy, schools would warn families about the possibility of a transfer if their student’s attendance does not improve, and could request a transfer for a student who ends the school year having been chronically absent, which typically means missing more than 18 days, or 10%, of the school year.

“We would ensure that there were not extenuating circumstances the student or family was dealing with,” such as an illness or death, Vitti wrote to Chalkbeat. “We would also consider the student’s previous attendance at the school, grades, and behavior record. All of this would be reviewed by the District before a transfer was implemented.”

The move is one of several steps DPSCD is taking to address its outsize rate of chronic absenteeism. During the 2022-23 school year, the district’s chronic absenteeism rate was 68% — down from 77% the previous year, but still above pre-pandemic levels.

Before the pandemic, DPSCD had committed to a multipronged reform effort to reduce absenteeism, including offering wraparound services for students, hiring attendance agents, and partnering with community organizations.

By the end of 2018-19, in part because of those efforts, chronic absenteeism fell to 62%, from 70% in 2017-18.

The policy proposal, Vitti said, could curb some of the transportation challenges that contribute to student absenteeism.

“On the one hand, principals of neighborhood schools have asked for greater accountability for student attendance,” he said. “They also notice families are placing additional burden on themselves by not attending the school closest to their residence. This creates a greater transportation burden than walking to school or using a District bus route.”

Vitti told board members in July that the district had planned to impose punitive measures several years ago, but held off because of the pandemic. Along with the transfer rule, Vitti said he would propose a policy that would require students to repeat a grade if they miss too much school.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit school district’s absenteeism rates declined after COVID quarantine rules ended

2023-07-12T12:00:00+00:00

The easing of COVID safety protocols helped the Detroit school district record a significant decrease in its chronic absenteeism rate this past school year, officials said, an encouraging sign for a district that has one of the highest rates in the nation.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District had seen its rate of chronic absenteeism jump to 77% in the previous year, when unvaccinated students who had possible COVID exposure were required to isolate for seven to 10 days. In October 2021, the district had more than 400 students a week in quarantine.

But this past school year, the percentage of students who were chronically absent — meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year, or 18 days — dropped to 68%, a decline DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti attributes to the end of districtwide quarantine and close-contact guidance. School administrators and educators were instead able to “focus on teaching and learning and intervention,” he said.

“Beyond anything, it was really getting back to the reform this year,” Vitti said at a school board academic committee meeting Monday. The district had projected a “two- to three-percentage point” improvement in its chronic absenteeism rate, he added.

“Our principals have become more comfortable being accountable to improving student attendance, and that meant more problem solving with families and with students, incentivizing improved attendance,” Vitti said.

Before the pandemic, DPSCD had committed to a multi-pronged reform effort to reduce absenteeism, including offering wraparound services for students, hiring attendance agents, and partnering with community organizations.

By the end of 2018-19, in part because of those efforts, chronic absenteeism fell to 62%, from 70% in 2017-18.

At Tuesday’s school board meeting, Board President Angelique Peterson-Mayberry said she has heard some school principals complain that they have limited strategies and staff to address absenteeism.

“When there are vacancies with staff, it depends (solely) on the attendance agent at that location,” Peterson-Mayberry said. “Sometimes the schools feel strapped, because they feel like they can’t make children come to school.”

Vitti said he’s heard similar concerns over the years.

“A lot of our teachers, attendance agents mainly, will say: ‘What is the recourse after I do a home visit? After I make a phone call?’” he said.

For the coming school year, Vitti said Tuesday, the district may consider adding punitive measures to address absenteeism. In a preview at a finance committee meeting last month, Vitti said he would propose new policies that would penalize students who missed more than 50% of the school year, either requiring them to repeat the grade or, in the case of students who attend schools outside their neighborhood, assigning them back to their neighborhood school.

Vitti said the district had planned to institute the penalties years ago, but held off because of the pandemic. “Now that we are back and functioning on a reform agenda, I think that it’s time to do some things that we planned on doing,” he said.

Meanwhile, DPSCD plans to retain its attendance agent positions, with 20 of those agents shifting to its central office to provide districtwide attendance outreach. The remaining attendance agents will be placed in schools with the highest concentrations of poverty and chronically absent students.

The district is also set to launch 12 school-based health hubs in the next three years to provide medical resources and services that families would need to keep students attending school regularly.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

How Michigan punishes its poorest families for their students’ low attendance

2023-05-24T12:00:00+00:00

Between August and December of this school year, Shetaya Griggs’ 11-year-old daughter missed more than 50 days of school, a rate of chronic absenteeism that troubled school officials.

It also left Griggs worried that she could lose the public assistance she relies on to feed her family.

Each year, under state law, Michigan yanks a cash benefit from hundreds of poor families because their children don’t attend school regularly enough. Thousands more families who apply for the benefit are rejected because of their attendance records.

The state has enforced this policy for at least a decade — even though family poverty is a leading contributor to student absenteeism, and some research has found that punitive approaches to chronic absenteeism don’t work.

Indeed, reducing income for poor families may actually worsen attendance, with serious consequences for students. Students who are considered chronically absent — meaning they miss at least 10% of school days — are more likely to struggle academically and drop out.

“If the goal is to improve a child’s likelihood of attendance, then withholding financial support from their struggling household is the perfect way to ensure you fail at it,” said Jayesh Patel, president of Street Democracy, a nonprofit legal services agency that works with families.

To parents like Griggs, such policies ignore the often complicated set of challenges that families like hers face, and they assume parents whose children are chronically absent don’t care about their children’s education or future.

“I don’t want to lose that, because my kids need it,” said Griggs, who is a single mother of two children and who has health issues that have been a significant barrier to getting her sixth-grader to school every day.

Griggs said most of the days her daughter Haydin has missed have been because her own chronic health problems made it difficult to walk her daughter to Gompers Elementary-Middle School, and because she feared letting Haydin walk to school on her own in their tough Brightmoor neighborhood. Griggs doesn’t have a car, is unable to work, and doesn’t have a strong support system to help. So when her asthma and painful eczema, which flares up frequently, are a problem, her daughter doesn’t go to school.

Griggs knows she must do better, and so far she has. The school’s parent coordinator convinced her to volunteer at the school daily. So on most days now, you will find Griggs in the parent room at the school, and Haydin in class. But she has a message for officials who want to punish parents like her.

“They don’t understand,” Griggs said. “They’re not in the homes with these families. They don’t get the challenges. I wish they would show up at some of our parent meetings so they can understand.”

Michigan strategy relies on penalties, courts and caseworkers

Hedy Chang, the executive director of Attendance Works, said her organization hasn’t studied whether other states have such a law. But she is concerned that punitive measures are increasingly being used as a way to crack down on absenteeism.

“There’s a really good study from South Carolina, where they looked at if you take kids and put them into probation, and you use legal strategies, do you get a better outcome? And they found that they got worse attendance,” Chang said.

What school and community officials need to focus on, Chang said, is strategies that address the reasons why students are missing school.

In Michigan, the penalty is one of the few state-level rules intended to reduce absenteeism, which has long been a challenge in Detroit and spiked to alarming new highs in the 2021-22 school year. Michigan law also allows for chronically absent children and their parents to face court charges. Most attendance initiatives, though, are left to school districts, which have hired attendance agents, visited students’ homes, and worked to connect families with resources to deal with homelessness, medical problems, and other issues that can drive absenteeism.

State officials contacted by Chalkbeat said they could not provide evidence that the penalty leads to improved attendance. They pointed to other measures they’re taking to help kids get to school.

“Because MDHHS believes access to public assistance is important to low-income families, the department works with families that have truancy issues to address them so that the young people can get a good education and the family can receive cash assistance to meet their basic needs,” said Bob Wheaton, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the benefit.

The department has placed 209 caseworkers in 277 schools to help families address barriers to attendance, such as transportation, child care, and health care. Last year, 546,000 students in Michigan were chronically absent across the state’s more than 3,000 public schools.

Law targets people with very low incomes

The school attendance requirement in the benefit program was written into state law by the Republican-led Legislature in 2015, though officials had been following the policy for years beforehand.

The law “preys on economically disadvantaged people by reducing access to financial assistance,” said Rep. Amos O’Neal, D-Saginaw. “The funds taken from these families could be used to help them. Education is important, but I just think that taking away the needed funds required by a family to get their kids to school isn’t the way to do it.”

The new Democratic majority hasn’t taken steps to reverse the law, but a spokesperson for House Speaker Joe Tate said his party has an interest in taking “a closer look at the impact of this statute.” A spokesperson for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did not respond to a request for comment.

The cash benefit in question, known as the Family Independence Program, maxes out at $492 per month for a family of three, and is accompanied by work and reporting requirements. The amount hasn’t increased since the late 1990s, despite inflation that has accelerated in recent years.

Only families with extremely low incomes — roughly $7,000 per year for a family of three — qualify for the benefit, and the benefit shrinks if their incomes rise.

Most of the families who lost benefits because of student truancy were in Wayne County. Wayne is both the state’s most populous county and home to Detroit, which researchers say is a “uniquely challenging” city for school attendance given its patchy transportation system, high poverty levels, widespread housing instability, and high rates of chronic illness.

State data show a steady stream of cash-strapped families missing out on a resource that might have helped with rent or car payments.

327 16- and 17-year-olds were kicked out of the program during the 2022 fiscal year, according to MDHHS.
141 entire families lost their benefit because younger children were attending irregularly.
2,585 families applied for the benefit but were denied because of their attendance records.
37 pregnant teens lost out on the benefit because of low attendance.

Those figures are slightly higher than the comparable numbers reported in 2013, when nonpartisan analysts looked at proposals to turn the policy into law.

The state doesn’t define how many missed days constitute truancy, so decisions about cutting benefits are left to the discretion of attendance agents and caseworkers.

People who are kicked out of the program or denied benefits can reapply if the student makes it to class every school day during a 21-day period. The state doesn’t know how many actually reapply.

Some officials stress the need for accountability

Most efforts to reduce absenteeism focus on eliminating barriers to attendance and drawing attention to the costs of absenteeism. Some education leaders believe that the strategies should include punitive measures for families whose students miss too much school.

In Detroit, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said he’s not sure withholding public assistance is the solution.

“That can certainly exacerbate the family’s difficult situation and the child’s future,” Vitti told Chalkbeat in an email.

However, he does believe stronger accountability and intervention are needed, something he expressed to school board members during an April 24 meeting.

“At the PreK-8 grade level, students can miss an unlimited amount of school and still move to the next grade level,” Vitti told Chalkbeat. “As a District, we need to address this. It’s not sending the right message to our teachers and principals; our families; the community; and most importantly, to our students. As a Superintendent and School Board team we need to consider what are the right consequences, after documented intervention and outreach, for missing a lot of school.”

Mark Larson, an attendance agent in Kent County, which contains Grand Rapids, said the threat of penalties is a valuable deterrent.

“When you’re counseling a family and trying to work toward family stability, I think it’s a useful tool, especially if it’s not used as a club but as a nudge,” he said.

But for the families who actually lose this benefit — and with it a substantial part of their already small incomes — the result may be destabilizing, said Christine Bell, executive director of Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, a nonprofit that works with families in southwest Detroit.

“Chronic absenteeism is a symptom of poverty, so it makes zero sense that it would take away that you would take away something that is so necessary to be able to even function,” she said.

In Detroit, Griggs is worried about the potential loss of benefits, but she’s even more worried about the possibility of jail time if her daughter isn’t in school. And there’s an even bigger concern: that the lost time in school may put her daughter behind academically.

“I want her to have a future,” Griggs said.

Koby Levin covered K-12 schools and early childhood education for Chalkbeat Detroit. Reach the team at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

How transportation problems fuel absenteeism in Detroit

2023-03-22T17:48:29+00:00

On a chilly October morning, 12th-grader Jay Johnson walked toward the bus stop in the Bagley neighborhood, where he boards a Detroit city bus each day for the 11-mile trip to Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School. At 6:18 a.m., he posted a photo on Instagram, letting his friends know that he was making his way to school.

As he waited on Seven Mile Road for the No. 7 bus, he stood under a streetlight to make sure he was visible to the bus driver. But the bus zoomed right past him. Johnson would have to wait for the next one, which, according to the Detroit transit app on his phone, wouldn’t arrive for 45 minutes.

Wait for 45 more minutes in the predawn gloom? No way, Johnson decided.

“It’s 6:30 in the morning, and it’s cold, and the bus passed me,” he recalled thinking. “I’m going home.”

He called his mom to let her know, and the school marked him absent for the day — a full day of instruction lost for a student who was up early, at the bus stop in time, and would have been at school, if only his ride had come through.

Thousands of students across Detroit are similarly vulnerable to being absent from school — and losing crucial instructional time — because of a transportation system that’s full of holes.

In the city that put America on wheels, basic transportation remains a pervasive challenge. One-third of residents don’t own cars. The Detroit Public Schools Community District provides only limited school bus service, and none at all to high school students, who instead get passes to ride city buses. Families in the city who choose charter schools, specialized “application” schools in the district, or other schools outside their neighborhoods often forgo their right to a school bus for their kids.

For large numbers of students, getting to school hinges on parents or family networks. Many more must rely on Detroit’s notoriously limited transit system, whose routes across the 143-square-mile city are designed to get people to job centers like hospitals and factories, not to school.

“Transportation is one of, if not the biggest barrier” to consistent student attendance in Detroit, said Sarah Lenhoff, a professor of education at Wayne State University and director of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research, which has published numerous studies of attendance barriers in Detroit. In interviews with Lenhoff’s team of researchers, Detroit parents reported that unreliable transportation prevented them from getting their children to school.

Pennia Anderson has spent years driving seven nephews, nieces and grandchildren to charter schools around Detroit.

“If something happens to the car, that kid’s not going to school,” she told Chalkbeat. “Who has money for an Uber?”

Lenhoff and other experts agree that transportation hurdles are not a root cause of chronic absenteeism. Rather, these hurdles amplify other drivers of absenteeism, such as housing instability, poverty, and chronic health problems, to make Detroit a “uniquely challenging context” for school attendance, Lenhoff’s group said in a 2019 report.

That cascade of factors helps explain why Detroit students miss school at a higher rate than their peers almost anywhere in the U.S., with grave consequences. Frequent absences interrupt classrooms, undercut school improvement efforts, and ultimately limit learning opportunities. Students who are chronically absent are more likely to struggle in school and drop out.

Families asked to fill transportation gaps

At least five states guarantee students transportation to school if they live farther than walking distance. And most K-12 students in Michigan can count on school bus service to school, although districts are not required to provide it. Even rural districts in some of the state’s poorest areas stretch their budgets to offer busing to all their students.

But in Detroit, funding shortages, closures of neighborhood schools, and expanded school choice have left fewer students with access to school buses, and shifted much of the burden of student transportation to families.

DPSCD provides school buses only to the 70% of K-8 students who live more than three-quarters of a mile from the neighborhood school they attend. Busing is not available to high schoolers, or to students who attend specialized application schools rather than their neighborhood schools.

All told, 24,000 students, more than half of students who attend district schools, are not eligible for a school bus, according to figures provided by Nikolai Vitti, DPSCD superintendent. That number doesn’t include thousands of students who are eligible for rides to their neighborhood school but who attend a different district school.

Citywide, another 47,000 students attend charter schools, which often offer little or no transportation.

Many Detroit parents go to extraordinary lengths to get their kids to class, driving long distances in some cases, spending for gasoline, and building their work schedules around dropoff and pickup times. But that may not be an option at all for families dealing with poverty or inflexible work schedules, or who don’t have a car.

For them, the options are limited. They can bike or walk, which may mean taking a dangerous route to school past abandoned homes or crossing major streets.

Or they can take the city bus, one of the nation’s least reliable and comprehensive big-city public transit systems, and hope it arrives on time.

High school students depend on limited city bus system

Brianna Davis, a 10th grader, depends on the city bus for the daily trip from her house in Garden Homes, at the northwestern edge of the city, to school at MLK, east of downtown.

And as Davis knows firsthand, the system is not designed with students’ schedules in mind.

To get to class in time for the first hour bell at 8:05 a.m., Davis leaves home by 5:55 a.m. Ideally, she catches the bus on Eight Mile Road around 6 a.m., then transfers to a second bus that’s scheduled to get her to school by 7:10 a.m. That gives her some wiggle room if a bus passes her or arrives late — both of which happen often, she says.

Driving the 12-mile trip to school would save at least a half hour each way, but her parents’ work schedules don’t allow for that.

What would she change about the bus system? “Start coming on time,” she said.

Detroit buses run late 44% of the time on weekdays, due in large part to driver shortages.

The city bus “is why my attendance is shot,” said Perriel Pace, an 11th grader at MLK. “I get up at 5 a.m., and I still get to school late.”

Southeastern High School students board a city bus after school in November 2022. The stop is located next to a liquor store parking lot a quarter mile from the school.

Even if the system did run on time, it still would pose challenges to students.

In interviews, high schoolers who use the bus said that the system does not appear to prioritize student riders through, for example, bus stop placements, route timing, and bus frequency around school release time.

At Southeastern High School, dozens of students walk a quarter mile to the bus stop, where many wait in a liquor store parking lot. Miss the bus, and students have to wait 30 minutes for the next one.

At another bus stop in Detroit, a group of students leaving an after-school tutoring program at University Preparatory Academy High School told a Chalkbeat reporter they had been waiting an hour before a bus appeared — and drove right past them.

Moreover, students say, they don’t feel safe riding a city bus with adults.

“People do drugs on the bus,” said Ashton Crist, a freshman at Cass Technical High School, as he waited for a bus in December. “It’s not a good place for kids to be.”

Mikel Oglesby, the city’s executive director of transit, said in a statement that improving service to schools is “one of the important guiding principles” of the Detroit Department of Transportation’s plan to rethink bus service across the city. “Bus stops are located in close proximity to schools where feasible and where safe paths to schools are present,” he said.

While the plan hasn’t been released yet, a recent outline of its priorities does not mention students or schools. Oglesby noted that the department will be taking feedback on its proposals in public meetings, though none will be specifically dedicated to the needs of families.

Relying on the transit system poses challenges for student attendance, but there’s no question that it saves the Detroit district money. In a typical year, the district spends about $200 on average for each high school student who uses a bus pass, including summer school students. The district’s spending for yellow buses — which includes daily transportation for K-8 students, as well as field trips, sporting events, and shuttles to vocational education centers — amounts to about $1,900 per student.

That helps explain why many other big-city districts — including New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia — shift older students to public transit and give them passes, or do away with school busing entirely.

But those cities have much more comprehensive and better-funded public transit systems than Detroit, with longer operating hours, interconnected rail and bus networks, and more frequent runs.

More school choice, less access to school buses

The Detroit Public Schools Community District offers most K-8 students transportation to their neighborhood public schools, noting that if it failed to do so, “absenteeism rates would increase and enrollment would decline.”

But in Detroit, only a fraction of students attend their neighborhood public school.

Over the last 30 years, the state has moved aggressively to give families educational choices besides their neighborhood school, including charter schools and traditional public schools outside their home district. As Michigan encouraged competition between districts, choices proliferated primarily in Detroit and other majority-Black cities, where declining enrollment, instability, and widespread school closures alienated many families.

Asked why they chose schools that required long, complex commutes, numerous students gave Chalkbeat different versions of the same answer: When the alternative is a school in their neighborhood with high teacher turnover and low academic performance, there’s not much choice at all.

In Detroit, where parents have a huge number of schools to choose from, roughly half of students attend charter schools or other districts bordering Detroit, most of which provide little or no transportation. Even within the main city district, about one-third of students go to a school outside their neighborhood, forgoing their right to transportation.

Davis is one example. When she got into MLK, her parents decided that it was worth the commute because they viewed it as a better academic option than the alternative closer to home.

Tara Fields, whose first-grader attends University Preparatory Academy Elementary School, a charter in Detroit, said fitting the 20-minute school commute around a work schedule is “a little hectic sometimes.” She says she is luckier than many parents because she has a car.

“It’s a good school, so that’s worth it,” she added.

Solutions go beyond transportation

Closing Detroit’s transit gaps wouldn’t cure its student absenteeism problem.

“It’s inaccurate to think transportation is the root cause of absenteeism or that by expanding transportation alone absenteeism will dramatically improve,” Vitti wrote in an email.

He says the root cause of absenteeism is poverty and its symptoms — housing instability, car trouble, medical problems, and a lack of support networks that help people manage small problems like medical appointments, changing work schedules, and car trouble.

Lenhoff agrees that transportation should be viewed in the context of the various factors that drive absenteeism, including parents’ work schedules.

Consider that K-8 classes in the city typically start around 8:30 a.m., and end around 3:30 p.m.

“We’ve interviewed many parents whose children miss school because they have to be at work before school starts, and they don’t have transportation for them after they leave for work,” Lenhoff wrote in an email.

A bus might help if the child could stay home alone, she said, but “another solution could be to create a before-care program at the school, so parents could drop their children off early before they go to work. It’s a transportation problem solved by child care.”

The district is piloting expanded before- and after-care programs with this kind of situation in mind. And the GOAL Line, a popular but small after-school program with a transportation component, is aiming to expand again.

Many families already fill child care gaps using private programs for school-age children, which can be costly.

Still, several Detroiters told Chalkbeat that just a school bus would go a long way.

Fields, the charter school parent, said sending her child to school by bus “would be a wonderful thing. That’s one less step” to keep track of every day.

Providing adequate busing to every student in the state would likely cost $400 million, according to a plan presented by school finance experts last year. While that package is designed to help rural schools manage their disproportionately high transportation costs, it could also help DPSCD expand its bus service.

Vitti cautioned, however, the district is also struggling with bus driver shortages, which could slow any effort to expand bus service.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: March 22, 2023: The story was updated to more clearly define who is eligible for school bus service in the Detroit district.

A guide to finding school transportation for your child in Detroit

2023-03-22T17:48:24+00:00

Getting students to school in Detroit can be tough. Transportation options are limited, and they vary depending on where your family lives and which school your child attends.

The lack of transportation resources helps explain why so many Detroit students frequently miss class and lose out on learning opportunities.

Here are answers to some of the common questions parents ask about school transportation in Detroit, and resources to help families get their students to school.

Why don’t most Detroit schools provide buses?

Part of the reason is that they don’t have to. Most students in Michigan don’t have a legal right to transportation to and from school. Only children with certain disabilities or some who are experiencing homelessness have a right to school transportation.

Buses, drivers and fuel are costly, so Detroit and other districts that have financial constraints limit the amount of busing they provide.

Citywide, around 20% of students this year get to school on a yellow bus.

What transportation options are available to Detroit families?

Walking or biking may be an option, though some families report safety concerns. Some kids living in Detroit do have access to free yellow buses (more on that below). DPSCD pays for transit passes for students who want or need to use city buses. The passes can be picked up at each school’s office. Some families rely on commercial ride share companies, such as Uber and Lyft, though students technically must be 18 to use those services.

Which options are available to my child?

The answer depends on where your child attends school.

Charter schools

Nearly half of Detroit charter schools offer some form of transportation, though options may be limited. For instance, the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences runs buses from a handful of stops across the city, but stops may not be within walking distance of each student’s home.

The Detroit Schools Guide provides a list of charters that offer some transportation, but the guide hasn’t been updated since 2020.

Before enrolling, call the school or visit its website to learn more about transportation options.

Detroit Public Schools Community District

DPSCD recommends that parents and guardians use PowerSchool, the district’s online information center, to find transportation options. Once you verify your address and contact information, you should be able to see your child’s scheduled transportation route. Parents can also call their child’s school directly, or the district’s Transportation Call Center at 313-945-8600.

DPSCD parents can access bus route information through Powerschool using the student reports tab, as this screenshot shows.

No matter where your child attends school, they are eligible for yellow bus service if it’s guaranteed through their individualized education program or the McKinney Vento Act for kids who are experiencing homelessness.

K-8 neighborhood public school: You qualify for yellow bus service if you attend your neighborhood school and live at least three-quarters of a mile from the school. Find your neighborhood school by entering your address on this district webpage.

If you move into a new neighborhood and the neighborhood school is full, DPSCD provides transportation to the next closest school.

High school: High schoolers are guaranteed a free pass to ride the city bus. They can pick up the passes at their school office. High schools in areas with limited DDOT service provide door-to-door buses or shuttles to school.
Application school: Children who go to these schools do not qualify for yellow bus service.

Schools of choice (districts outside the city)

Many of these districts do not provide transportation to Detroit students. Here are transportation policies for the handful of districts outside the city that enroll the largest numbers of Detroiters.

Oak Park Public Schools offers busing to Detroit students, though they must re-register each year. Parents should fill out a transportation request form or call 248-336-7601.
River Rouge School District operates bus routes across Detroit. See this map for bus stops. For more information or to select a stop, call 313-203-1497 or email transportation@rrsd.me.
Hazel Park Schools does not offer any transportation to general education students.
Ferndale Public Schools and Redford Union Schools do not offer transportation to students who enroll from outside the district.

Preschool

Some centers in the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan’s state-funded preschool, are eligible for free transportation, but there are strict rules about parents signing children in and out of preschool. Some schools allow an older sibling attending the school to accompany the preschooler. See this list of preschool programs in Wayne County that offer transportation.

What if my child has a disability?

If your child’s individualized education program specifies that they need transportation, they are entitled to that transportation no matter what public school they attend. A little more than 2,000 kids attending DPSCD schools get this curb-to-curb service.

What if my family is homeless?

If your family doesn’t have stable housing and you want your child to continue at the school they attended before you lost your housing, they can have access to transportation under a federal law called the McKinney-Vento Act. Families who are staying in a shelter, temporarily staying in someone else’s home, or otherwise lacking stable housing should call their district (DPSCD: 313-748-6383).

High schoolers covered under this law get DDOT bus passes, unless they wouldn’t be able to get to and from school this way. In these cases the district may also offer shuttles or gas cards.

I’m having a school transportation problem. Whom can I call?

The DPSCD transportation help hotline is 313-945-8600.

DPSCD bus service for general education students is provided by the following contractors:

ABC Transportation: 313-835-2700
Trinity Transportation: 313-228-4522
DHT Transportation: 313 895-1300

DPSCD bus service for students with disabilities and homeless students is provided by the following contractors:

City Cab Company: 313-576-6344
New Detroit Cab Company: 313-633-5646
Checker Cab: 313-963-5000
Trinity Transportation: 313-228-4522
Regency Transportation: 313-615-0504

The Detroit Department of Transportation customer service phone number is 313-933-1300.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Sarah Alvarez is the editor-in-chief of Outlier Media.

Tell us: What attendance barriers does your family face in Detroit?

2022-11-07T21:23:53+00:00

Families in Detroit and across Michigan are having trouble getting their students to school.

If you know why, we want to hear your story.

Some parents have told us they’re dealing with housing insecurity, such as evictions, and moves to other parts of the city.

Other parents say the issue is transportation — inadequate bus service or car troubles.

“Right now, I have a lot on me, but it’s going to get better,” said Jennifer Garrison, who has two children attending K-12 schools in the Detroit district. She asks people for rides or borrows cars to take them to school. “I will have a car soon, and they’ll be transported the way they’re supposed to be.”

Families typically try their best to get kids to school, interviews with parents and researchers show. They know that low attendance has disastrous effects for student learning. Research shows that students who are frequently absent tend to score lower on reading and math exams and are more likely to drop out of high school.

Yet chronic absenteeism is widespread. Last year, two-thirds of students in the city of Detroit missed school at least 10% of the time. Half a million students across the state missed that much school.

What’s going on here? How can we help students get to school?

Share your story with the community as part of Chalkbeat Detroit’s reporting on the causes and solutions to absenteeism.

By explaining your barriers to attendance, you can increase public awareness of this crucial issue and get in touch with journalists who can answer your questions about available resources.

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Not ‘present,’ and paying a steep cost

2022-11-07T21:23:41+00:00

Two-thirds of Detroit students missed at least one of every 10 school days last year.

That’s one day every two weeks, or more than three weeks between the first day of school and the start of summer vacation.

That’s at least half a year of learning over five years — half a grade of instruction lost for roughly 60,000 students in Detroit’s charter schools and city district.

High levels of absenteeism are a disaster for students and schools. Low attendance sabotages pandemic recovery efforts, tanks school reforms, and disrupts entire classrooms, research shows.

As absences pile up, masses of individual students — especially students experiencing poverty — are consigned to a demoralizing cycle of academic catch-up, asked to keep up with other students while receiving fewer lessons.

“School is hard enough, but then when you have to catch up, it’s overwhelming, and they just give up,” said Janine Scott, a math teacher in the Detroit Public Schools Community District who serves on Chalkbeat’s reader advisory board.

Absenteeism across Michigan has risen to alarming new heights, driven in part by quarantine policies. Half a million students were chronically absent statewide last year. The problem is especially acute in Detroit and other cities statewide, where child poverty, unaffordable housing, and patchy transportation fuel some of the nation’s highest rates of chronic absence.

Across Detroit and the state, schools have tried to solve the problem. They’ve hired attendance agents, set up alerts for students at risk of becoming chronically absent, and created messaging campaigns about the cost of missing school. But many of these efforts are small-scale, or built on the notion that absences mostly reflect families’ motivation to attend school, rather than social barriers that research shows are the drivers of absenteeism.

At the same time, schools have gotten little help addressing a problem that is far bigger than them, experts say, one whose roots lie in society-wide failures of housing, employment, and public health.

“We can’t see it just as a schools issue,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a national initiative that aims to reduce chronic absenteeism. “Some of what chronic absence reflects is economic inequities in our societies, lack of access to healthcare, flexibility in work, lack of access to decent transportation.”

The scope of missed school days

For the most part, no one was able to escape the rise in missed school days. As the pandemic closed Michigan schools and sent millions of children to learn at home, the rates of chronic absenteeism, when students miss 10% of the school year, shot up across all demographics.

But even before the pandemic, Michigan struggled to get students to come to school. Cities, in particular, had high rates of absenteeism, with Detroit’s rate topping the list of all large cities in the U.S.

The spike in absenteeism during the pandemic prompted state officials to sound alarms.

“I encourage parents and districts to work together to focus on student attendance so that they can make the best use of the time that is available to them for student instruction,” said state Superintendent Michael Rice in a statement this fall.

Before the pandemic, Detroit had committed to a multi-pronged effort to reduce absenteeism. The district’s 2018-19 attendance plan outlined a holistic approach to improving attendance through wraparound services for students, hiring attendance agents, and partnerships with community organizations. By the end of that school year, in part due to those efforts, the district reduced chronic absenteeism to 62%, down from 70% in the 2017-18 school year.

But the pandemic derailed those efforts. Last year, the rate rose to 79%.

That alarming trend held across the city and state.

Detroit charter schools had a chronic absenteeism rate of 58%. In the Lansing school district, it was 90%. In Flint, 80%. In Pontiac, 72%. In Eastpointe, 71%.

“Chronic absenteeism is now the big elephant in every room,” said Sonya Mays, a Detroit school board member, who was elected in 2016 as local control returned to the district. With staggering rates in front of school leaders across the state and country, Mays hopes it will contribute to more substantive discussions.

“I’m not super interested in a blame conversation,” she said. “I’m much more interested in unpacking the reasons that that number is so high and using data as much as we can. I do think that there still is a bit more anecdotal decision making than I would care for, not just in our district but broadly in all school districts.”

Misconceptions

Absenteeism, with its obvious consequences for learning, has troubled educators for as long as there have been schools in the United States.

Yet public understanding of the issue is rife with misconceptions that undermine solutions.

Take this seemingly simple question: Who is responsible for children’s attendance at school?

American popular culture, from Huckleberry Finn to Ferris Bueller, gives a simple answer: students and their parents. In turn, some efforts to improve school attendance in Michigan treat absenteeism as a choice that can be influenced with carrots or sticks.

But absences seldom boil down to a decision to skip school, experts say. Interviews with parents and researchers show that families generally understand the importance of regular attendance and do their best to get their children to class.

Instead, absences often result from painful but rational choices between a family’s basic well-being and attending school. Problems with housing, health, work, or transportation can quickly spiral into a crisis for a family that lacks money or a social support system. Even if attendance is a top priority, it does not trump the need for shelter, food, safety, and reliable child care.

“They go to school every day unless it’s impossible,” said Jasmine Person, whose three children attend Bow Elementary-Middle School in Detroit. Transportation is a challenge for Person, who lives far enough from Bow that her children aren’t eligible to be picked up by the school bus, and who sometimes struggles to cover the cost of fuel.

“If I don’t have gas money, it’s hard to get them to school and also get to work,” she said.

Parents who can’t bring their children to school because of car problems, an eviction, or a health crisis likely won’t change their behavior simply by changing their minds, said Larry Simmons, director of the Brightmoor Alliance.

“This level of chronic absence has a systemic root,” Simmons said. “It’s poverty and the consequences of poverty. When the car breaks down, that crisis isn’t easily accommodated because families’ resources are so thin.”

Simmons leads an attendance initiative called Every School Day Counts, which is backed by major philanthropies and nonprofits in Detroit.

In 2019, the group embarked on a messaging campaign designed to convince parents of the importance of attendance.

It didn’t work.

“Parents actually were resentful of the campaign because they felt like we were blaming them,” Simmons said.

The initiative has pivoted, Simmons said, to working directly with five Detroit schools. They are helping the schools pilot new programs to improve attendance with the goal of sharing their most promising findings with educators across the city.

Simmons is particularly optimistic about a plan to expand after-school programming, which encourages attendance for working families who can’t pick their children up from school until after 5 p.m.

Falling behind

For years, absenteeism got little attention from researchers and policymakers, perhaps because they assumed that regular school attendance — a legal requirement in every state — was the norm.

In fact, absenteeism is widespread. In Michigan, hundreds of thousands of students miss at least 18 school days every year.

All those absences have catastrophic results.

Students who are frequently absent tend to score lower on reading and math exams, get lower grades, and struggle more in college.

They are far more likely to drop out of high school.

One Baltimore-based study found that students who were otherwise similar — in the quality of their teacher, prior academic achievement, behavior, effort, and demographics — were less likely to close test score gaps in math if they were chronically absent.

A 2008 study in Chicago found that eighth graders’ absences predicted their success in the next school year eight times better than their test scores.

“We can’t educate children the way we want to and we can’t see the student achievement that we want to see if students aren’t consistently in school,” said Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District, Michigan’s largest school district.

In the Detroit district, Vitti said, students perform significantly better against grade-level standards when they miss fewer days.

Widespread absenteeism isn’t just a problem for the absent students, but also for their classmates, research shows.

In classrooms where students are frequently absent, teachers must make tough decisions about whether to slow their instruction down for students who missed class.

“We’ve got some kids who still come to school every day, we have some kids who are doing everything that we’ve asked them to do,” Scott said. “And it’s not fair (to them) to hold up our lessons.”

Why absenteeism is so difficult to solve

Reducing chronic absenteeism in Michigan can seem like a steep uphill climb.

Think of the powerful Detroiters — emergency managers, celebrities, superintendents, philanthropists — who set out over the last decade to get more kids to class but barely put a dent in the problem.

Think of the consensus among researchers that absenteeism is driven by social problems that have outlasted decades of reform efforts in Michigan.

“Chronic absenteeism is a complex problem with no one solution,” said Sarah Lenhoff, a professor of education at Wayne State University and director of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research, which has published numerous studies of attendance in Detroit.

PEER studies point out that Detroit is a “uniquely challenging context” for absenteeism because the conditions that researchers have linked statistically with absenteeism — things like asthma prevalence, poverty, and residential vacancies — are all present to an unusually high degree in the city.

“Reducing absenteeism in Detroit, with some of the most challenging structural conditions to attendance, requires more from schools, communities, the state, and other agencies,” Lenhoff said.

While she focuses on Detroit, many of the same headwinds show up in high-absenteeism communities across Michigan.

If nothing is done, half a million frequently absent students in Michigan will have “unequal opportunities to learn,” as one researcher put it. These students will struggle to make normal progress, much less make up for falling behind during the pandemic.

Chang, the Attendance Works leader who has worked extensively in Detroit, argues that responsibility for lackluster attendance needs to be as broad as the problem.

“It takes all of us,” she said.

Getting at the root of the problem

A long list of root causes underlies high rates of chronic absenteeism.

The list of potential solutions is long, too.

Some are already being put into practice as the Detroit district expands efforts to increase attendance. DPSCD has begun to work to strengthen relationships with families and help them navigate barriers to attendance. Officials are helping parents manage evictions and pay power bills, and a new district office distributes dry goods and school supplies.

The district has also begun to increase its focus on after-school programming, which has been shown to improve school day attendance over the past two decades.

But to some, the school district’s range of solutions can only do so much. Detroit Superintendent Vitti, while touting DPSCD’s recent efforts, believes chronic absenteeism warrants greater enforcement of truancy laws.

“Our role is to create an environment where students want to come,” he said. “But there is a point where there has to be more accountability and I think that is a city, really, a county function at the prosecutor’s level.”

A revamp of Detroit’s school transportation policies, too, could have great ramifications for student attendance. DPSCD currently provides yellow bus service to students who are attending their neighborhood school and live a certain distance away from the school.

The district also pays the city to provide free rides on DDOT buses to all high school students. While parents rely on that solution, DDOT’s bus routes and schedule are often misaligned with families’ transportation needs. Again, student ridership of city buses isn’t tracked. And bus routes don’t seem to account for families’ preferences or school locations.

Improving health services — both mental and physical — for students can also improve absenteeism, Lenhoff said. The same goes for reducing suspensions, which keep students out of school and are included in absenteeism statistics.

Child poverty, which is intertwined with absenteeism, is itself a solvable problem. During the pandemic, increased Child Tax Credit payments from the federal government sent hundreds of extra dollars a month to families, leading child poverty rates to decline even as much of the economy ground to a halt. In other words, giving people money helps, experts say. But the increased payments have stopped, and Congress hasn’t moved to renew them.

“I would argue that the best attendance policy that could possibly be passed would be for the federal government to reinstate the federal Child Tax Credit,” said Jennifer Erb-Downward, a researcher at Poverty Solutions, a University of Michigan think tank.

To better understand the problems driving absenteeism, experts say we need data that show why students are absent. For instance, we know that chronic absence was up in 2021-22, but not how much of that increase is due to illness or quarantines.

“We just need to, in my opinion, quantify as best as possible what those drivers (of chronic absenteeism) are, so we can really develop a plan to improve school attendance,” Mays said.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat

Detroit school district to hold parents accountable for too many unexcused early sign-outs

DPSCD’s new policy

More research is needed on solutions to partial-day absenteeism

Housing, groceries, and medical needs: Detroit’s Health Hubs helping to get kids to school

Addressing Detroit families’ needs beyond the school day

Detroit students to be able to ride city buses for free starting Wednesday

Could holding parents accountable improve chronic absenteeism in the Detroit school district?

Could yellow bus service improve high school attendance?

Fighting chronic absenteeism key issue as Sheffield and Kinloch gear up for November mayoral race

Can bikes help curb chronic absenteeism? Some Detroit students say yes.

Will bikes work as an incentive for better attendance?

Parents’ inflexible work schedules impact student attendance

Charter schools also struggle with chronic absenteeism

Some families struggle because they lack a support system

‘Why schools can’t solve it alone’: New book tackles chronic absenteeism

Your book makes the argument that an ecological approach to chronic absenteeism is needed. Why is there such a need to rethink the way communities approach this problem?

What will it take for school districts, Detroit in particular, or communities, to pull off what you’re recommending?

There’s no lack of advocacy around tackling these issues in Detroit. But what role should or can the City of Detroit mayor’s office play, and how pivotal that involvement would be?

Sarah, you mentioned that you know that there are some things that that schools have done that aren’t necessarily beneficial? What are some of those methods?

What do you say to those who feel very strongly that there needs to be some kind of punitive consequence for chronic absenteeism?

The Detroit district offered gift cards for perfect attendance. 4,936 students have earned it.

Detroit district’s new attendance incentive draws more students to class

Can financial incentives and holding students back improve attendance in Detroit?

Students appreciate the financial incentive

Studies show incentives have small effect on attendance

Detroit’s high childhood asthma rate contributes to chronic absenteeism

Asthma gets in the way of school – and kids being kids

Programs improve understanding of asthma, access to care

Michigan’s vulnerable students continue to miss school at higher rates than their peers

Nearly 30% of Michigan students are missing too much school

Detroit public schools adds another tool to combat chronic absenteeism: laundry machines

Detroit’s “uniquely challenging” context for chronic absenteeism

Meeting students’ essential needs in different ways

Michigan officials deny claims state failed students with disabilities during COVID

Top state education official disagreed with OCR findings

Michigan tiene un problema de ausentismo crónico. Esto es lo que los padres necesitan saber.

¿Cuántos niños están faltando demasiado a la escuela en Michigan?

¿Qué significa ‘crónicamente ausente’?

¿Por qué el ausentismo crónico es un problema para los estudiantes?

¿Qué pasa con las ausencias justificadas de la escuela?

¿Qué dice la ley de Michigan sobre la asistencia escolar?

¿Qué sanciones enfrentan los estudiantes por faltar a la escuela?

¿Y qué hay de las sanciones para los padres en Michigan?

¿Por qué deberían los padres hacer un seguimiento de la asistencia de sus hijos?

¿Qué estudiantes faltan más días a la escuela?

¿Qué pasa si los padres creen que sus hijos necesitan un descanso para la salud mental?

¿Qué hacen los padres si un funcionario escolar, como un agente de asistencia, viene a su casa o deja un mensaje sobre ausencias?

¿Dónde pueden ir las familias en busca de ayuda?

DPSCD summer school program will aim to keep students on track after the school year winds down

New funding makes summer school a reality

Important dates and summer schedules

Improving access and equity for students

Summer school sites for K-8 students

Summer school sites for high school students

All schedules run 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Legislation that would require children who are 5 years old on Sept. 1 to attend kindergarten advances to the Michigan House.

Michigan has a chronic absenteeism problem. Here’s what parents need to know.

How many kids are missing too much school in Michigan?

What does ‘chronically absent’ mean?

Why is chronic absenteeism a problem for students?

What about excused absences from school?

What does Michigan law say about school attendance?

What penalties do students face for missing school?

What about penalties for Michigan parents?

Why should parents keep track of their children’s attendance?

Which students miss school the most days?

What if parents think their kids need a mental health break?

What do parents do if a school official, such as an attendance agent, comes to your house or leaves a message about absences?

Where can families go for help?

Bill would make kindergarten mandatory for Michigan children

In their words: The students, teachers, and advocates we heard from in 2023

Confronting racial violence with tenderness

Detroit students shed light on the need for self-love, inner peace

A Detroit man’s passion for getting kids to school every day

Looking at the world through a similar lens at Michigan camp

Adults failed her when she was a kid. Now she is a watchdog for children.

This Detroit teacher’s mission: Bring back school libraries

Detroit student who fought for ‘right to literacy’ is still in the fight

Michigan’s History Teacher of the Year helps educators combat racist myths