In a system designed to educate, it's ironic that so many students are learning how to disappear.
The pandemic didn’t create inequities in education; it revealed and, perhaps, exacerbated them. As schools shuttered and students transitioned to remote learning, a longstanding crisis reached a tipping point: the disappearance of students, particularly Black, Latinx, and economically less advantaged students, from the education system. For many of these students—already vulnerable before COVID-19—chronic absenteeism became a norm. They did not simply miss days of school; many vanished from enrollment rolls altogether.
The question that remains is not just “where have our students gone?” but also “why did they leave, and what can we do to bring them back?” Chronic absenteeism has emerged as a significant equity issue, one that reflects the failure of our systems to meet the needs of our most vulnerable populations. It’s a problem deeply rooted in our inability to respond to the complex lives of students and families.
What we know is that previous approaches haven’t worked, that blaming students and families in some kind of culture of poverty thesis misses the point: Students are not coming to school because of something they lack but precisely because of what our schools lack in relationship to them. The threshold question, then, isn’t what can we do to kids to make them stay, but what can we do to schools to keep kids from leaving?
The Surge in Chronic Absenteeism Post-COVID
Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days, is not new. Before the pandemic, it already disproportionately affected Black, Latinx, and low-income students. However, since the pandemic, absenteeism rates have soared to unprecedented levels. In New York City, for example, chronic absenteeism rose from 27 percent in 2019 to over 40 percent in 2022, with economically less advantaged students making up the majority of those missing school regularly (Decker, 2022). In Los Angeles, absenteeism among Black students climbed to a staggering 57 percent in 2022 (Blume, 2022). The trend is not limited to these cities; districts are reporting similar spikes across the country.
The graph above highlights the rise in absenteeism in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Kansas City. These alarming statistics reveal a deepening crisis in student engagement and attendance.
Disappearance of Vulnerable Students
What makes chronic absenteeism particularly alarming is that it disproportionately affects students already on the margins—those from economically less advantaged backgrounds, BIPOC students, and those with special needs. During the pandemic, many of these students “disappeared” from school rolls entirely. This disappearance is not just logistical; it’s also philosophical. It reflects a system that fails to see students as whole individuals with complex lives and needs.
Data shows that in Detroit, for instance, 62 percent of high school students were chronically absent during the 2021-2022 school year, a sharp increase from pre-pandemic levels (DeVlieger, 2023). The disappearance of students in these districts is more than just an administrative failure; it reflects a fundamental disconnect between students’ lived realities and the education system’s expectations.
As the graph above illustrates, cities like New York and Los Angeles saw significant drops in overall enrollment, with thousands of students missing from the system entirely. These enrollment declines signal deeper systemic issues, as many students became disengaged during remote learning and never returned to in-person schooling.
Absenteeism as a Social Equity Issue
Chronic absenteeism is not just a problem of attendance; it reflects broader societal inequities. Black, Latinx, and economically less advantaged students are not only more likely to be absent from school, but they are also more likely to face the kinds of challenges that make attending school difficult: housing instability, food insecurity, mental health struggles, and trauma. The Learning Policy Institute (2021) noted that many of these students live in households where parents were essential workers during the pandemic, which added additional caregiving burdens onto the children themselves.
A study by the Economic Policy Institute (García & Weiss, 2022) found that 68 percent of students who were chronically absent post-pandemic came from low-income families, and nearly half of them lived in communities where violence and instability were common. In districts like Kansas City Public Schools, attendance plummeted by as much as 10 percent and more after a wave of school shootings in neighboring states, as families feared for their children’s safety (Gonzalez, 2022).
This decline in attendance is not merely due to logistical barriers but also reflects students’ feeling unsafe, disconnected, and disengaged from the education system. The evidence is convincing that absenteeism spikes when students feel that school is not a place where they belong or where their needs are understood.
The pie chart above shows the disproportionate rates of absenteeism among Black, Latinx, and economically less advantaged students. These communities, which have historically faced systemic neglect, now bear the brunt of the absenteeism crisis.
Interrupting Chronic Absenteeism: Strategies for Change
To effectively address chronic absenteeism, we must develop solutions that go beyond surface-level interventions. The problem is not just about getting students back into classrooms but about rethinking how schools engage with students—particularly those who are most marginalized.
1. Ethnography of Students’ Lives at Atomic and Sub-Atomic Levels
The first strategy to interrupt chronic absenteeism is through data, but not just any data. Satellite data can only tell us so much and tends to point to sweeping conclusions that are, at best, drive unhelpful generalizations and, at worst, dangerous biases. We need “street data” to understand the lived realities of students through ethnographic research at both atomic and sub-atomic levels. Traditional data points—such as school attendance records or standardized test scores—only provide a partial view of the problem. To fully grasp the roots of absenteeism, we must dive deeper.
Atomic data takes us into students’ lives: their homes, their communities, and their socio-economic realities. Subatomic data goes even deeper, allowing us to enter students' emotional, psychological, and cultural lives. These data bring us into the homes, hearts, and heads of students and their families so that we can better assess the relationship between our systems and the people they serve. What unique barriers to attendance do we create for them and maintain? What to them, internally and externally, makes schools seem irrelevant or unsafe?
A report from Attendance Works (2022) emphasizes the need for qualitative data, such as family interviews and home visits, to understand why students disengage from school. My argument is that we must go further and explore the levels at which we collect qualitative data, moving from the “street” outside the person to the “soul” within. By collecting atomic and subatomic-level data, how might we position ourselves better to address the underlying causes of absenteeism?
2. Centering Belonging and Relationships
The second strategy is to center belonging and relationships as foundational to any attempt to improve attendance. Research consistently shows that students who feel a sense of belonging at school are more likely to attend regularly. A study by the American Institutes for Research (2021) found that Black and Latinx students with strong relationships with teachers were 35 percent more likely to attend school consistently, even in challenging circumstances.
Creating a culture of belonging requires schools to adopt restorative practices, focus on culturally responsive-sustaining education, and prioritize social and emotional safety. In Oakland Unified School District, for example, using restorative justice practices has led to a 20 percent reduction in absenteeism, particularly among BIPOC students (Winn, 2020). How might our schools improve at humanizing their climates to foster relationships that affirm students’ identities and experiences?
3. Flexible, Student-Centered Models of Schooling
The third strategy is to offer students more options for success through flexible, student-centered models of schooling. The pandemic taught us that one-size-fits-all education models do not work for every student. Hybrid learning models, virtual schools, and alternative day programs can offer students the flexibility they need to stay engaged.
In New York City, implementing hybrid learning models has reduced absenteeism among students with housing instability and unique responsibilities by offering flexible schedules that meet their unique needs (Rebell, 2022). Similarly, in Los Angeles, students in virtual learning programs achieved higher attendance rates than their in-person counterparts, particularly in economically less advantaged communities (Blume, 2022).
By creating more access points to education—whether through technology or alternative schooling models—how can we give students a reason to return to “school” (i.e., formal education as opposed to a fixed space) and stay engaged?
Conclusion: Reimagining the School Experience
Chronic absenteeism is not just a problem of logistics but a symptom of deeper systemic issues that prevent students from fully engaging with their education. To interrupt this crisis, we must rethink how our schools engage with our most vulnerable students. This means adopting strategies that center the realities of our students’ lives, foster a sense of belonging, and offer flexible models of education that meet their diverse needs. As we move forward, the question will be not simply how we can bring students back to school but how we can make school a place they want to return to—a place where they feel seen, valued, and supported—because chronic absenteeism is not just an education problem; it is a social equity issue that demands that we do things differently to get a different result.
References
Attendance Works. (2022). Using data to understand the root causes of chronic absenteeism. Retrieved from https://www.attendanceworks.org
Blume, H. (2022, August 17). LAUSD faces absenteeism crisis post-pandemic. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com
Decker, G. (2022, July 21). Chronic absenteeism rises sharply in NYC public schools. Chalkbeat New York. Retrieved from https://ny.chalkbeat.org
DeVlieger, A. (2023, January 14). Chronic absenteeism in Detroit schools: A pandemic aftermath. Detroit Free Press. Retrieved from https://www.freep.com
García, E., & Weiss, E. (2022). COVID-19 and student absenteeism: How the pandemic exacerbated inequalities in education. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://www.epi.org
Gonzalez, A. (2022, November 11). Chronic absenteeism in Kansas City Public Schools. The Kansas City Star. Retrieved from https://www.kansascity.com
Learning Policy Institute. (2021). Chronic absenteeism in the wake of COVID-19: Equity implications for school reengagement. Retrieved from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org
Rebell, M. A. (2022). The promise of virtual schools: Lessons from the pandemic. Columbia University Center for Education Equity. Retrieved from https://www.tc.columbia.edu
Winn, M. T. (2020). Justice on both sides: Transforming education through restorative justice. Harvard Educational Review.
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Suggested citation: Kirkland, D.E. (2024). Where Have Our Children Gone? Chronic Absenteeism and the Disappearance of Black, Latinx, and Economically Less Advantaged Students Post-COVID. forwardED Perspectives, https://www.forward-ed.com/post/where-have-our-children-gone-chronic-absenteeism-and-the-disappearance-of-black-latinx-and-econom.
David E. Kirkland, PhD, is the founder and CEO of forwardED. He is a nationally renowned scholar of education equity. He can be reached via email at: david@forward-ed.com.
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