Sacramento students are missing more school than ever. See how your school district fares

When Galt Joint Unified School District reopened its doors in the 2021-22 school year, students didn’t exactly come flooding back.

Nearly half of the district’s 3,423 students were chronically absent last year, missing more than 10% of school days. That’s more than four times as many chronically absent students compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to data analyzed by EdSource, a nonprofit newsroom that covers education in California, in partnership with the Associated Press.

About 1 million California students became chronically absent, missing more than 10% of school days, since schools reopened in 2021-22 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the analysis found.

More than 100,000 of those students were in the Sacramento area, with nearly every school district experiencing a jump in its chronic absenteeism rate. School administrators blame illness, morale and school perception, and they are using home visits, incentive programs and enhanced case management to attract students and families back to school.

Students across the country are skipping an unprecedented amount of school: an additional 6.5 million more public school students were chronically absent after the pandemic compared with before in 40 states and Washington, D.C., according to national data compiled and analyzed by Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee in partnership with the AP.

Every single state in the study saw an increase in the portion of students who were chronically absent in the 2021-22 school year compared to pre-pandemic levels.

California saw the fifth biggest leap in chronic absenteeism, jumping from 12.1% in the 2018-19 school year to 30% of students in the 2021-22 school year.

Though absences increased across demographics, they were most prevalent among Latino, Black and low-income students, according to Dee’s analysis. Broken down by age, kindergartners and high school students had the most absences.

“The achievement gap became an attendance gap, and it actually widened,” said Jennifer Kretschman, director of student attendance and engagement at Sacramento City Unified School District. Nearly 40% of the district’s 40,000 students were chronically absent last year.

Students who miss school risk cementing pandemic-induced learning loss. The pandemic caused test scores in math and reading to fall precipitously, especially at high-poverty schools. Absent students also can’t receive the meals, socialization or health and social services that schools provide.

“The crisis that we’re going to have in 10 years because we have all these kids who haven’t graduated and they dropped out is going to be much more insane than the pandemic,” Kretschman said.

Why are students missing so much school?

“The most obvious and glaring reason is Covid,” said Kretschman. Students were told to stay home whenever they showed symptoms of COVID-19. “We basically retaught poor patterns of attendance.”

But according to Dee’s analysis, COVID-19 illness or mask mandates do not entirely explain the increase. He compared schools with masking mandates and schools without, finding that both had similar rates of absenteeism.

“The evidence is pointing to other substantive and enduring factors,” said Dee.

What are those factors?

“I think when we closed schools for almost two years, it’s hard to get back into the routine of coming to school every day,” Galt Joint Union Elementary Superintendent Linda Yount said. “We’re still trying to get back the positive perception of schools and that you do need to come to school on a regular basis.”

A year and a half of distance learning left families and students less connected to schools, and therefore less likely to show up, Kretschman said. The

last year’s teacher strike and the superintendent’s resignation this summer further estranged some families, she added.

Sacramento City Teachers Association President Nikki Milevsky pointed to the district’s “chronic staff shortage.” The shortage was the center of the 2022 strike.

“No student wants to (be) warehoused in a school cafeteria with hundreds of others and without a regular teacher,” she said in an email to The Bee.

The association said that in 2021-22, 571 students did not have a permanent teacher and were sent to cafeterias and gymnasiums to be monitored by one or two teachers or substitutes.

Michelle Harder, the attendance clerk at Navigator Elementary in Rancho Cordova, saw more families take their kids out of school to go on trips or vacations.

“I think COVID made everyone remember that family is important,” she said. “There’s way more, ‘I’m just gonna take the vacation.’”

What are Sacramento-area schools doing about chronic absences?

Red carpets, home visits, popcorn parties, silly string, free backpacks — schools are pulling out all the stops to get kids back to school.

All summer long, Sacramento City Unified School District sent counselors to visit the homes of students who were chronically absent last year. The goal is to re-engage students and families on an interpersonal level, Kretschman said.

The district received a three-year state grant to reduce chronic absences, which it invested into its student engagement and attendance team. The team analyzes student data to identify the students who are most disconnected from school, then deploys counselors and resources to rebuild the relationship. The district is also considering alternative programs for kids who don’t like the traditional school schedule and partnering with a Harvard research group to study the impact of absences.

Navigator Elementary literally rolled out the red carpet to welcome students back to school this year, with hopes that they’ll keep showing up.

The school, part of Folsom Cordova Unified School District, is bookending Labor Day weekend with special events — a popcorn party and “Silly String the Principal” — to encourage families to not let their long weekend vacations eat into school time. Harder said they plan on having special events before and after every school break.

At Galt Joint Unified, which is 63% Hispanic, more bilingual community outreach consultants were added to the staff this year to reach Spanish-speaking families and help visit the homes of students missing the most school.

The district also used prizes, awards and school-wide celebrations to lure students back. Classrooms that achieved 80% attendance or better for a week got to raise a flag outside their door. Attendance improved last year, Yount said.

“We don’t just want kids to be (at school), but for kids to say that they like school and they like coming to school,” Kretschman said.