1) Nearly one in five Des Moines high school students were chronically absent in 2012-13, missing at least 18 days of school. High rates of chronic absenteeism were also seen in Council Bluffs and Waterloo. 2) Students who miss more than 10% of kindergarten are less likely to be proficient readers by 3rd grade, and chronic high school skippers are less likely to graduate or pursue post-secondary education. 3) Getting students to regularly attend school is important for their academic success and can boost test scores, but combating chronic absenteeism requires efforts from schools, parents, and communities.

1. Des Moines Register
November 10, 2013 Sunday
SpecialReport: Iowa schools fightingchronic absenteeism
BYLINE: Mary Stegmeir, mstegmeir@dmreg.com
SECTION: EDUCATION
LENGTH: 1756 words
Des Moines teenager Alex Tully spent much of her freshman year "anywhere but school."
Tully, now a junior at East High School, skipped nearly 20 days as a ninth-grader. She continued a similar
pattern during the first semester of her sophomore year until a tough love talk with a teacher encouraged her
to make education a priority.
Frequent absenteeism isn't unusual in Iowa's schools. A review of student data by The Des Moines Register
found that nearly one in five Des Moines high school students in 2012-13 were chronically absent, meaning
they missed at least 18 days of instruction, equivalent to 10 percent of the school year.
The issue appears most prevalent in Iowa schools and districts with high poverty rates. High rates of chronic
absenteeism also were recorded in Council Bluffs and Waterloo.
National research shows that students who miss more than 18 days of school, regardless of whether the
absences are excused or unexcused, are more likely to struggle academically and face an increased risk of
dropping out.
A few students who are chronically absent can harm all students in a class by tying up time on remedial
lessons, researchers say. And it can undermine efforts to elevate achievement across the board, they say,
like the major education reforms passed by the Iowa Legislature last spring.
The federal government and most states, including Iowa, do not require school districts to report chronic
absence rates. Instead, educators keep average daily attendance figures. But a movement calling for closer
attention to chronic absenteeism is growing in Iowa as well as nationally.
East High School has earned accolades in recent years for its efforts to increase attendance. Less than 3
percent of students there missed more than 18 school days last year.
As Tully knows, the effects of skipping school are long-lasting. She recalls struggling with schoolwork during
her first years of high school. She now routinely sets aside extra time before school to study.
"I realized that I wanted to graduate; I want to go to college," said Tully, 16, who is interested in becoming an
anesthesiologist.
Chronic absenteeism at any grade level jeopardizes goals like those, said Robert Balfanz, a researcher at
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
"From kindergarten to high school, there are academic costs," he said.
Children who miss more than 10 percent of kindergarten are less likely to be proficient readers by the end of
third grade - a key predictor of future school success, according to a 2011 study by Applied Survey
Research, a California-based nonprofit social research firm.
Numerous national studies have found that chronic skippers in high school are less likely to graduate or
pursue post-secondary education.

2. The research prompted educators in Des Moines to take a closer look at attendance data, said Jamie Gilley,
the district's director of Learning Services. A computer program now alerts teachers when a student misses
multiple class periods, triggering a call or visit to the student's home by school officials.
Interactive map of absentee rates around Des Moines
But educators can only do so much, Gilley said. Getting youngsters to school also requires support from
parents and neighborhood leaders.
"Attendance is a community matter," Gilley said. "We know that when kids drop out, that costs the taxpayer
about $1 million in revenue a year, whether that be what we're paying for (in social services) or from what
we're losing in the tax base."
Group: Change how absences tracked
The national rate of chronic absenteeism is estimated at 10 percent to 15 percent.
In Des Moines, Iowa's largest district, close to one out of 10 kindergarten through 12th-grade students
missed 18 or more school days last year. The absences for the more than 2,900 youth included both
unexcused and excused absences, the Register review showed.
Still, the average masks much higher rates at some schools.
 At Hoover, Lincoln and North high schools, more than 20 percent of students were chronically absent
in 2012-13, the data shows.
 King Elementary School, Moulton Extended Learning Center, Hiatt Middle School and McCombs
Middle School recorded rates of more than 10 percent.
 In Waterloo, more than 17 percent of all students - including 37 percent of high school students -
missed 18 or more school days.
 Council Bluffs' K-12 chronic absentee rate was 16 percent.
A coalition of United Way chapters across Iowa plans to ask lawmakers in the coming session to require
districts to track chronic absences by school. Collecting the information will make it easier for communities to
work toward a solution, said Kate Bennett, who works for the Des Moines-based United Way of Central Iowa.
"Right now, the state is only looking at average daily attendance, and we'd like to see our chronic absence
numbers really elevated in that conversation," she said. "Until we know what the numbers are, it's hard to
change them. And we know from research that the kids who are chronically absent are also the kids that are
most likely to struggle academically."
The Council Bluffs school district has made regular attendance a community-wide goal. Since 2010, staffers
at each school have pored over student absence data at biweekly meetings.
"Our goal, honestly, is that none of our kids, unless they are medically fragile, should get to the point of being
chronically absent," said Kathy Hanafan, attendance supervisor.
The city of Council Bluffs is a member of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a national network
coordinated by the Baltimore-based Anne E. Casey Foundation. The group has supported efforts to improve
attendance, boost literacy and prevent summer learning loss in Council Bluffs, as well as in Ames, Des
Moines, Dubuque, Marshalltown and the Quad Cities.
"The data is clear: If children aren't in school, they don't do as well," said Becky Miles-Polka, the campaign's
lead consultant in Iowa. "And it's cumulative. It's hard to make it up."
Expert: Reforms won't work if students absent
Fewer than 10 states track or have issued past reports on chronic absenteeism.
The lack of data troubles researchers, who think improved attendance could be instrumental in boosting test
scores.

3. The academic progress of all children - including those who attend regularly - can be stunted at schools with
high rates of chronic absenteeism, research has shown. It also can undercut initiatives to improve
achievement.
"All across the country, there's a focus on improving schools," said Balfanz, who, in addition to his work at
Johns Hopkins, is co-director of the school's Everyone Graduates Center. "But there's something missing in
all that if we just ignore chronic absenteeism."
Even at schools where drastic changes have been made to encourage achievement, teachers often see only
modest gains among their students, he said. "That can lead people to throw up their hands and say, 'This
really can't be fixed,'" he said.
However, "a lot of the kids who might have been helped by this strategy or that initiative may have also been
the kids who didn't attend regularly," making it hard to gauge what works, Balfanz said.
In Iowa, lawmakers in May approved education reform legislation aimed at improving instruction.
The program will cost around $160 million annually by its full implementation in fiscal year 2018.
But the progress may falter if chronic absences continue unchecked, northeast Iowa parent Brandy Gray
said.
Unless they are ill, her three children attend the Dr. Walter Cunningham School for Excellence in Waterloo
every day. Regular attendance has helped them progress academically, she said.
Conversely, Gray knows that other children at the school have fallen behind because of attendance issues.
She was recently hired by the district as a teacher's aide.
"It's harder to get everyone where they need to be if they are not there to get the content," Gray said.
Des Moines' Findley Elementary School has reduced absenteeism by enlisting the support of parents.
For the past three years teachers and staff have repeated the same message: For your child to do their best,
it's important they arrive at school every day, on time.
The majority of students at the school come from low-income homes - often a predictor of chronic
absenteeism.
But parent education has made the difference, Findley Principal Tara Owen said.
Last year, the school's chronic absenteeism rate was less than 4 percent.
Math and reading scores also improved.
"If we catch them early and establish positive attendance habits early on, it has such a positive effect in
middle school and high school," she said. "This is where it happens."
***
Keeping students in class is crucial
Nine states either track or have issued past reports on chronic absenteeism.
They are Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Nebraska, Maryland, Oregon, Rhode Island and Utah.
Researchers say the data help states and districts identify schools where academic performance may be
undermined by poor attendance.
Relying solely on average daily attendance figures can mask chronic absenteeism, said Robert Balfanz, a
researcher with Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

4. In a 2012 study, Balfanz reported that schools can have an average daily attendance rate of 90 percent, and
still have 40 percent of their students miss 18 or more days of instruction each year.
As part of Iowa's 2013 education reform legislation, districts were directed to examine the effect of chronic
absenteeism on third-grade reading proficiency.
Education advocates in the state, including the United Way, would like to see the issue studied at all grade
levels.
Some districts, including Council Bluffs and Des Moines, began paying closer attention to absenteeism in
recent years.
Educators in Des Moines now track the attendance, grades and behavior of all K-12 students in an attempt
to identify children who may be at risk of not graduating.
The district also hired nine attendance officers in 2012-13 to cut down on unexcused absences.
"A big part of our job is educating parents," said Ronda Cedillo, an attendance officer serving Harding Middle
School and North High School. "It helps, too, if the community steps up. Then we have eyes and ears
everywhere."
― Mary Stegmeir
National focus on attendance
Across the country, more school systems are focusing on attendance as a means to boost student test
scores.
 Child welfare workers in Baltimore have access to the district's absentee data and work with
teachers to make sure the students they serve attend regularly.
 New York students who have a history of missing class check in daily with an assigned community
mentor, who tracks their attendance and offers encouragement.
 An elementary school in Providence, R.I., launched a before-school child care and breakfast
program in 2006 to accommodate parents who worked overnight. Teachers had learned that many
students were missing school because their parents would come home in the early morning hours
and fall asleep before they could get their children ready for the day.
"Any effort to improve attendance has to start with the school district, because they're the ones that have the
(student absentee) data," said Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, a San Francisco-based
organization that aims to boost student achievement nationwide by reducing chronic absenteeism. "But
schools can't do it alone."
Family health issues, transportation needs and neighborhood safety are common barriers to regular school
attendance, she said.
"The first step is to look at which schools, which neighborhoods have challenges," Chang said. "Doing
whatever it takes to get kids to school early on costs a lot less than doing expensive (academic) remediation
later on."
Steve Johns, principal of Des Moines' East High School, agreed. The school has cut down on chronic
absences in recent years, and student scores have improved.
"If we could correct one thing in schools, it should be to get kids to come to school," he said. "It takes care of
so many other problems if they are here in class."
― Mary Stegmeir