Chronic absenteeism occurs when a student misses 10 percent of school or two or more days each month. The dashboard, at Attendance.ohio.gov, is seen as necessary to help fix the problem.
But participation is optional, and many districts and charter schools in Cuyahoga County and in other parts of the state are not uploading information to the dashboard. Among those are Ohio’s three largest public school districts.
Currently, 728 schools and districts are reporting information to the dashboard, which is updated weekly. The dashboard lets people drill down by individual school district building and grade level.
Last school year, Ohio’s chronic absenteeism rate was 25.1 percent, barely down from the previous year’s 25.6 percent rate. Ohio’s rate became persistently high after the pandemic.
During the pandemic, children stayed home from school when they felt slightly ill, especially before the vaccines were available. Public health officials at the time encouraged this to prevent the spread of the virus.
But six years later the chronic absenteeism rate remains too high, and this is affecting student performance, Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters at an event rolling out the dashboard.
The root causes of chronic absenteeism vary by community, experts have said. They range from a lack of transportation, health issues, family crises, homelessness, students having to work to supplement family income, and kids just ditching class.
The chronic absenteeism problem isn’t entirely a school’s fault. Parents and the larger community have a responsibility to ensure children are at their desks each day, DeWine said.
“Students with good attendance are three times more likely to be proficient readers, nearly four times more likely to be proficient in math, almost 12 times more likely to graduate on time,” he said.
Steve Dackin, director of the Ohio Department of Education Workforce, said that the key to looking at the data is to identify trends instead of only looking at a particular week. Maybe a district’s rate is improving with time. Maybe high school chronic absenteeism in a district is worse than an elementary school rate, which could mean students have to work or care for siblings or are just skipping.
“The key is to intervene right away when we see trends not going the right way,” Dackin said.
Before the dashboard, the public only saw absenteeism rates once a year — when the school report cards come out in mid-September. But the report cards show performance and attendance for the previous year, so it’s too late to intervene.
School districts — such as East Cleveland and Union Local School District in Belmont County — were able to decrease their chronic absenteeism rates by reaching out to students and families when a student was at risk of missing too much school. In East Cleveland, district officials even visited family homes, DeWine said.
“Their approach shows they care about what Is happening in a student’s life,” he said.
Cuyahoga County districts and charter schools missing from the dashboard, which will be updated weekly, are Cleveland Metropolitan, Berea, Chagrin Falls Exempted, Cleveland Heights-University Heights, Euclid, Orange, Parma, South Euclid - Lyndhurst, Constellation charter schools, Horizon Science Academy charter schools and other charter schools.
Other noteworthy districts missing from the dashboard are Columbus City, the state’s largest, and Cincinnati City, the second largest. CMSD is the state’s third largest.
Some districts have expressed interest in participating but are working through technology issues. They could begin sending the absenteeism information soon, DeWine said.
“But I think that every school will want to be on this,” DeWine said. “And if they don’t want to be on, I think their taxpayers will want it. You know, this is public information I think people should have.”
The dashboard will not be a silver bullet to improve chronic absenteeism rates throughout the state, said Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy for the center-right Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank.
The key is to use the data to develop a plan, he said.
“This is going to help districts know if they are struggling more than other districts in getting their kids to school,” he said. “It may even highlight the ones doing really well the lessons we can learn from them.”
Ohio Education Association President Jeff Winsing said the information on the dashboards will be helpful when communities are looking at reasons students may be missing too much school.
Solutions to chronic absenteeism, however, are costly. Schools haven’t been given any additional money to implement solutions, Winsing said.
“I think that’s a problem,” he said. “If you figure out a root cause or several root causes for why several students in your district are chronically absent but you don’t have the money, it doesn’t seem like the proper fix.”
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