Oregon Senators Tackle Alarming School Attendance Crisis with New Legislation
A bipartisan group of Oregon senators is planning to introduce legislation to address chronic absenteeism at schools in the state.
Oregon School Absenteeism Legislation In The Pipeline
Oregon Senators Suzanne Weber, R-Tillamook, and Hoa Nguyen, D-Portland, Damascus, are seeking to address chronic school absenteeism- when a child misses over 10% of school days in a given academic year, through legislation.
In the 10 largest Oregon school districts, chronic absenteeism rates range between 33% and 48%, exceeding the national average of 26%. On average, around 38% of Oregon students are habitually absent from class.
The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) indicated that the state lost 37,573 students in public education between 2019 and the past fall.
Chronic absenteeism is a problem at all grade levels, with higher absenteeism rates in kindergarten and first grade, which level off and then rise again across all high school grades.
The ODE indicated that the reasons for the high rate of school absenteeism include:
- Factors increased by the Pandemic include family responsibilities like siblings and eldercare, financial obligations as more high school students get jobs to support themselves and family, as well as trauma and mental health.
- Ongoing factors such as chronic and acute illness, poor transportation, housing, food insecurity, lack of access to health care, eyeglasses, and dentistry, system involvement, community violence, and negative school experiences result in children avoiding school.
- Other factors such as social anxiety, peer challenges (for example, drama, teasing, or bullying), struggling academically and/or behaviorally, unwelcoming school climate, biased disciplinary and suspension practice, undiagnosed disabilities and/or lack of disability accommodations, negative educational experiences of caregivers transferred to children, and lack of engagement.
- Children also experience a lack of school connectedness, lack meaningful relationships with adults and peers, and cannot connect regular school attendance to important outcomes.
- Boredom, the lack of challenging, culturally responsive instruction and enrichment opportunities, poor grades in classes, and misconceptions also play a role.
The lawmakers are now looking outside Oregon to see what other states are doing right.
What about parents shirking their responsibility to make sure their kids go to school?
one reason for chronic absenteeism is teachers are counting students absenteeism when they aren’t. everyday I get absenteeism notices for both my girls in FLEX. I know they’re in school because they do it from home. Oregon needs to fix how students are counted present, not penalize them.