They’re More than Absent Students: Managing Chronic Absences

Absent students create extra work for everyone, and usually, the one most inconvenienced is the student, which is why a lot of students (like a lot of teachers) would rather come to school sick than deal with the hassle of missing school. The student with chronic absences, though, that’s an entirely different situation altogether. This type of absent student is not the one who misses a week of class because of a particularly bad case of the flu, one with chronic absences tends to miss at least one, if not more, day every.single.week. It’s like they’re on a completely different calendar than the rest of us. These students often make little to no attempt to make up the work. But, if we think about it, the student with chronic absences is probably completely overwhelmed: one absence from school (especially high school, with its multiple periods and challenging content) can have surprisingly long-lasting consequences; not only is there work to make up, but the student may have missed background information or instructions that will carry forward through the rest of the unit. The student who is chronically absent is confronted with this nearly every time they do show up to school. These students don’t know where to start, so (as we all have a tendency to do when overwhelmed) they don’t start at all. As the end of the semester nears, these students pop up with increasing frequency on our absent student radar: it’s cold and flu season, so they’re gone even more often, and as we look at our gradebooks, we’re concerned about the long rows of zeroes or orange boxes. We start to think about our own deadlines and are, by necessity, confronted with theirs. It seems increasingly less likely that there’s any chance they’ll dig themselves out of the hole they’ve dug themselves into. What do we do about students with chronic absences?

When you realize a student has a consistent attendance problem, try to make contact with parents and counselor as soon as possible. Sometimes the parents don’t know their student has been absent, or they need to be reminded of the effect absences have on their child’s grades. It always helps to bring a counselor into the conversation, especially because they have access to more resources and often more information on the student’s circumstances than the classroom teacher. We try to get into the habit of checking a student’s attendance for the whole day when we record daily attendance in our student information system platform, Aeries. This is a quick and easy way to pick up on period, rather than whole day, truancies and address them before they spin out of control. One reason we like to keep paper copies of attendance in addition to digital is how easy it is to start noticing patterns. If you notice a student is missing one day (or more) a week over a period of a couple of weeks, bring it to the student’s attention and follow up with an email to both student and parent(s)/guardian(s) based on that conversation; it can also be helpful to cc your attendance clerk, especially if you have one who is exceptionally diligent. On a practical note, we like to approach these conversations from a place of helpful concern rather than accusation. You catch more flies with honey . . .

It’s also important to try to have a more in-depth, one-on-one conversation with the student that doesn’t take place in front of their peers. Maybe you ask the student to stay after class or after school, stop by at lunch, or if you have access to a program like GoGuardian that lets you privately chat with students, you send a message. Students with frequent absences often have quite a bit going on in their lives, and it’s worth letting them know you’ve noticed and you’re there to help. Sometimes students just need the reminder that you do notice when they’re not there, you are concerned about them, and the absences are having a significant impact on their grades. When there are real issues going on, this may create an opportunity for you to connect them with the help they need. As with the email, we suggest an approach of helpful concern rather than accusation.

Related to the previous point, it is important to address the problem chronic absences have on the student’s grades. As high school teachers, our tendency is to say these students are young adults and need to take responsibility for their own actions. This is not untrue. However, the students we’re talking about don’t tend to take that kind of initiative, especially as the problem gets worse. Maybe they’re embarrassed (or shy), maybe they have given up hope the problem can be fixed, maybe they don’t know where to start, or maybe they just don’t care. But part of our job as high school teachers is to help them learn how to navigate these situations effectively. They are young adults, but they are not adults, and these are some of our most vulnerable students who have the most to learn, academically and socially.

Work with the student to make a plan. Because so few teachers make time for these students, which is understandable since they do create a lot of extra work for us, you will often find yourself creating a plan that addresses not just your class, but most of their classes. In our experience, though, this is time well spent. Decide which assignments you are (or are not) willing to let a student make up. Help the student understand how to prioritize which assignments they complete and when (it never fails to amaze us how many students will complete fifteen participation assignments, worth 10% of their grade, while ignoring the essays that account for 40% of their grade). Ask the student which assignments they want or feel able to start with and when they can reasonably have them done (they may need help with this). Hold them accountable for these due dates and share them with their parent(s)/guardian(s). Something we noticed being particularly helpful as we transitioned to assigning work digitally was the value of getting the student out of the paralysis of overwhelm by unlocking only one assignment at a time. Not only does this help them focus on more attainable small goals, but it allows you to have more control over which assignments are completed and when. Ask the student how you can help them get caught up. Offer to contact a coach or parent if time is a problem, offer to check in on a certain day each week (or every day if the end of the semester is near), offer to let them come to your room for an hour after school (on a day you already plan to stay later) so they have a quiet place to work or can ask questions as needed. This is a situation that requires grace and compassion but also requires boundaries: for whatever reason, these students are struggling and need help, but they also need someone to help them put structures in place and hold them accountable in order to remedy it.

We’re going to be honest here and say that everything we’ve discussed above works about 50-70% of the time. Some students with chronic absences don’t want your help or are beyond the level of help you are in a position to offer. So, as hard as it is, at some point, it’s important to let go. If you’ve done the steps above and the student continues to be absent or fails to turn in makeup work, you just have to let their grade, or their progress in class, or whatever it is, be what it is. There is only so much you can do. What’s the old saying? You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t hold its head under the water and force it to swallow? (We may have paraphrased a bit.) Earlier we mentioned that these are young adults, and while they need our help, they aren’t small children: if they refuse to take advantage of the help we provide them, they do have to deal with the consequences. When dealing with tricky grade situations at the end of the semester, we like to ask ourselves, “Would this student benefit from taking the class again?” And when a student has chronic absences and hasn’t done even half the work, then the answer is yes, they would benefit from taking the class again.

It’s a lot of work to deal with these students, and it often feels unfair. They take up a lot of our energy, and it’s hard to feel compassion toward someone who rejects your attempts to help. But it’s worth it. When students do fail, we’ve done our due diligence and can show evidence of our attempts at intervention. But more importantly, when those who take advantage of the help we offer manage to turn things around, it often results in some of the most rewarding relationships we have with students.

How many chronic absences are you struggling with right now? How are you handling it? Do you handle a student with chronic absences differently than a run-of-the-mill absent student? Do you have a colleague who would benefit from these tips? Share this post! And reach out to us at hello@threeheads.works or DM us on Instagram @threeheads.works to continue the conversation. Your students may not be there, but we are!