Debunking 3 School Attendance Myths: Why excused absences, even in elementary school matter

Almost all of us have been there…your child tells you they don’t feel well enough to go to school, or it makes sense to leave for Spring Break a day or two before the rush, or that hockey tournament they are playing in happens to be on a Thursday and Friday. While it’s relatively easy to shrug off a day or two out of school, by 6th grade, your child’s attendance (excused or unexcused absences) is one of the strongest indicators of their likelihood of graduating high school.

When teachers, school administrators, and policymakers discuss absences, they often refer to the chronic absenteeism rate, which includes excused and unexcused absences. The Department of Education defines this as missing at least 15 days a year, and the Attendance Works organization defines it as missing 10% of the school year. Here are three myths about attendance and the truth about why missing school, even if it’s just a few days, even if you excuse it, and even if it’s in kindergarten, truly can impact your child’s education.

MYTH #1: Missing a day or two of school here and there isn’t a big deal.

Children in Colorado are in school about 160 days a year, equating to about 8 or 9 months. A student must only miss 16 days during the year to be considered chronically absent, meaning that if your child misses two or more days a month, they have reached this threshold, leading to serious impacts.

Numerous research studies show that being chronically absent negatively affects a student’s academic performance and ability to meet learning milestones, social-emotional learning, and engagement in school. Students who are chronically absent during early elementary grades are less likely to be proficient in reading by third grade, leading to more drastic achievement issues in future grades.

Even in the first month of school, your child must attend as much as possible. Students who miss 2 to 4 days of school in September will go on to miss nearly a month of school that year, according to a research study. The study also found that these students were five times more likely than those who missed fewer than two days of school to be chronically absent for the year.

The impact of these absences does not end with the school year. The Center for School and Student Progress found that regardless of a student’s race, gender, family income, and special education status, chronically absent students start the following year “significalnly behind their peers.” The same study also argues the negative impact of absences may begin before the 10% mark and that missing just 6% of school can negatively impact achievement.

So while letting your child stay home a day or two a month may not seem like much, the missed learning may impact them far into the future.

MYTH #2: Only unexcused absences are a problem.

While in decades past, many schools looked at excused absences differently than unexcused absences. This led to schools labeling those students with numerous unexcused absences as being truant and targeting discipline and intervention toward these students. Separating excused and unexcused absences created a situation where some students’ absences were always “excused” regardless of the reason by their parents. Other students’ absences were never “excused,” regardless of the cause. This leads to disproportionality in discipline for poor attendance and bias in the recording of absences. To combat this in the last few years, schools and districts across the country have begun to count all absences: excused and unexcused, when assessing a child’s attendance moving from the label of truancy to chronically absent.

A child’s total absentee rate is essential because the consequences can be detrimental regardless of why a child misses school. As we have seen over the last two years with the COVID-19 Pandemic, excessive absences for any reason (even sickness or quarantines) have hurt students academically. While schools and public health officials required these absences, the impact on learning has been drastic.

Expanding the attention given to excused absences also allows schools to address issues families might be experiencing, such as transportation troubles, lack of childcare, or chronic health concerns. According to Attendance Works, addressing chronic absenteeism becomes a community issue through which medical providers can help address health challenges; transportation can resolve poor bus routes, and community organizations can help with other barriers to attendance.

Myth #3: Attendance doesn’t really matter until high school.

The stakes of missing school in high school can seem monumental – summer school, not graduating, or even being kicked out of school. Yet the impact of chronic absenteeism can be seen much earlier. A National Center for Children in Poverty Report found that 11% of kindergartners and 9% of first graders were chronically absent, meaning these children are missing essential skills for reading and math that will keep them behind as they move forward. A research brief by Attendance Works also demonstrates that if a child misses school often, they are less likely to read proficiently by the end of third grade.

The impacts of chronic absenteeism in early grades are not limited to classroom achievement. A Great Schools article discusses a study that tracked students from kindergarten through high school and found that dropout patterns were linked to poor attendance, which often began in kindergarten. A study in Baltimore City Schools supports similar findings and found chronic absenteeism to be a strong indicator by sixth grade of a student’s likelihood to finish high school years before even attending (and missing) high school classes.

So this school year, when you start to think about pulling your child out of class for a last-minute vacation or letting them stay home because they need a “break form school,” remember that missing a day of learning may burden your child with much more than makeup work.

In future blog posts, I will address what could happen if your child does become “chronically truant,” ways to help get your kid to school if you’re struggling, and why looking at a school’s attendance rate says a lot about the school.

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