Leon County Schools launch effort to combat rising absenteeism rates

The Leon County school district plans to work with county, city and community leaders to make sure kids are in classrooms.

The announcement was made by Assistant Superintendent Michelle Gayle and the LCS Attendance Director Jessica Lowe during a school board workshop meeting Monday.

"We need kids in school and so you will find that the superintendent will be reaching out to clergy (members), the sheriff, TPD, the fire department," Gayle told the Tallahassee Democrat. "We're getting ready to go hard because we need kids in school on a consistent basis."

Over 13,000 students in Leon County schools have missed over 10% of their classroom time for the 2023 school year, according to the Florida Department of Education's annual report on public school absences shared with the Tallahassee Democrat.

The district says chronic absenteeism is not only for the schools and the district to solve, but also the community. According to Lowe, the community became used to seeing kids outside of school following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when many schools initially closed their doors.

"We need our principals, we need our community leaders, we need our city and county and all our leaders to help us because this is a community issue," Lowe told board members. "Our community got accustomed to seeing younger children or teenagers out and about in the community, and they didn't think, 'why aren't these kids in school?' Well, now we need to kind of change that mindset."

LCS has 180 school days per school year, and for a student to be chronically absent, which is missing 10% or more days of school, they would have to miss two days of school every month.

The state's report also shows records of students that miss over 21 days of school, which is higher than the standard of chronic absenteeism. The district reportedly has 24.1% of students that missed 21 or more days. For a student to be labeled chronically absent, they only have to miss 18 days.

"Two days a month doesn't sound like a lot, but if it adds up, that's 18 days a year of instruction that a child has missed," Lowe said. "So, it is directly impacting their academics, their social, their extracurricular, their peer development, all of that."

Lowe and Gayle plan to meet with each school individually to discuss strategies and initiatives to combat chronic absenteeism. The campaign will also include a Truancy Task Force which will be composed of city and county leaders, the Tallahassee Police Department, the Leon County Sheriff's Office and clergy members and women.

The district has four community liaisons and social workers who keep track of attendance at a designated set of schools and they meet with families when there may be an issue with attendance.

"We get the enrollment pattern for those kids that go from one school to the next school," Gayle said of the purpose for the community liaisons.

A comparison of the absenteeism rate for the first nine weeks of this year and the 2022-23 school year, shows a 3.67% increase. The highest rates of absences during this school year's first semester involved high school seniors at 37.45%; last year it was students in grade 11 at 32.11%.

"Last year, we were doing better, we were at 23.64%, which is below national average, but that's still nearly 23% of kids not going to school chronically. That's not a good thing," Lowe said. "Now this year, we're at 27.31%. So, we've gone up."

The DOE report shows middle and high school students have the most absenteeism rates for the district. In fact, three local high schools and three middle schools have seen more than 50 percent of students labeled "chronically absent."

They are James Rickards High School with 62.8%, Amos P. Godby High School with 60%, Leon High School with 58.9%, R. Frank Nims Middle School with 58.5%, Griffin Middle School with 57.4%, and William J. Montford III Middle School with 53.4%.

Lowe also said the district will be working with Attendance Works, a national nonprofit organization that raises awareness of chronic absenteeism in public schools.

"I cannot say enough good things about that program, they're very helpful," Lowe said.

In comparison to data from the 2021-22 school year, the FDOE report released for the 2022-23 school year shows a drop in absenteeism for the state, but an increase for Leon County.

The report shows 13,029 Leon County students were declared chronic absentees in the 2022-23 school year, with Second Chance at Ghazvini Learning Center and Success Academy at Ghazvini Learning Center recording the most absences. This compares to 2021-22 when 12,426 students were declared chronic absentees.

More: 'Disturbing': Chronic absenteeism in Leon Schools on the rise as district seeks solutions

2024 Legislative Session: Florida legislators look at issue of students who miss too much school

Alaijah Brown is with the Tallahassee Democrat and can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee schools taking action against high absenteeism rate