RUNNING HEADER: CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM AND PARENT INVOLVEMENT 1

Chronic Absenteeism and How Parents are Involved and Can Help

Jesus Espinoza

Arizona State University

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Abstract

The focus of this report is to discuss the current issue of chronic absenteeism, meaning

being absent fifteen days or more within one school year, and how having parents more involved

in the academic domain and establishing a stronger line of communication between the school

and home can be beneficial in improving truancy. The introduction to the problem establishes

what chronic absenteeism looks like in the United States and poses the question of whether

parental involvement can fix it, what some potential causes for poor attendance may be, which

includes bullying and a lack of resources, and who is involved in the problemThe environmental

analysis examines what schools and districts, particularly Phoenix Union High School District,

do well in encouraging or enforcing positive attendance behaviors and involving parents in that

process, as well as what they could improve. It then looks at what opportunities exist in the

school’s external community that could be taken into use to help alleviate absenteeism, as well as

the challenges that exist in trying to take advantage of those opportunities. The stakeholder

analysis looks at the main people involved within this issue, primarily the students, parents, and

teachers, and what roles they currently play and how the roles would be changed should

solutions to chronic absenteeism be put into place.

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Chronic Absenteeism and How Parents are Involved and Can Help

Introduction to the Problem

One of the factors most often associated in determining whether students are able to

succeed within their classes is their attendance. The higher amount of absences a student has in a

class, the more likely they are to fail it. It is also especially common for some teachers or

districts to have a limit on absences that once broken, results in an automatic failure of the course

or semester for the student. While teachers or counselors can attempt to intervene through one-

on-one conferences with the student or attendance contracts, those methods do not always

guarantee that the situation will be fixed, and students will attend classes on the normal basis. In

those circumstances, it is not unusual to ask where the parents (or guardians) are and if they are

involved in monitoring their child’s attendance or not. And, even if it is possible for school

officials to get in contact and directly speak with the parents, that is also not a guarantee of any

further action being set in motion. The question is, how necessary is parent involvement in these

situations, or in a student’s academic life at all? While it is highly preferable that parents show

active interest in their child’s life at school, does that involvement actually provide any benefits?

Background of the Problem

First, what is the current issue with attendance? Looking at recent data provided by the

U.S. Department of Education (DoE 2016), in 2013-2014, over 6 million students missed 15 or

more days of school, which is about one in seven students. Missing more than 15 days of school

– otherwise known as chronic absenteeism (CA) – pushes students into a higher possibility of

falling behind, if not completely failing within their grade. The DoE also points out that being

chronically absent affects students in their adulthood as well, with studies showing links between
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chronic absenteeism and poor health and a higher possibility of criminal behavior or involvement

(DoE 2016). Within our public education system, there is a concerning amount of students

missing far too many days of school, which poses detrimental effects to their success within the

class and in their future. What are some factors that cause chronic absenteeism and who can help

relieve those issues?

Stakeholders Involved

Going back to the question posed before, does parent involvement help improve student

attendance? In the simplest form, the answer is yes, and there is plenty of data to back that up,

which will be explored later. Teachers only have so much influence as to how much time

students choose to invest into their education, and the rest generally comes from factors outside

of school, particularly within the home. Parents also play a strong role in encouraging their

child(ren) to dedicate time to school and attend their classes. Involvement itself does not require

much, as a study done within Philadelphia schools showed. Todd Rogers and Avi Feller sent

attendance-based mail to more than 28,000 households in the city, and the mail itself simply

emphasized the importance of attendance, displayed a student’s amount of missed days, or

compared a student’s attendance to the average of their classmates. In doing so, Rogers and

Feller noticed that students in households that received the letters missed an average of 16 days,

compared to an average of 17 missed by a group that did not receive letters (Shafer 2017). Even

though one day does not seem like much, simply letting parents know how attendance matters

was able to provide students with at least one more day of education.

Existing Challenges and Potential Barriers

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There are many possible causes that may be behind student absences such as lack of

transportation to school, the need to have a job to help maintain their family, or not having the

resources available to attend school. Challenges or problems that cause chronic absenteeism can

also exist within the school. If students are being bullied or have bad grades, they may feel

demoralized or unsafe, resulting in them not wanting to attend school. Illnesses can also hinder a

student’s attendance, regardless if they want to go to school or not (NAESP 2016). In these

cases, parents should be made aware of the resources, accommodations, or policies in place

within the school that can either alleviate the problem entirely (bad grades resolved through

tutoring, bullying resolved through intervention), or at least provide easier access to attend

classes (a school-provided means of transportation, financial aid, etc.).

Summary

In recent years, an alarming amount of students have been absent more than 15 times

within a school year, also known as chronic absenteeism. Causes of these absences may be a lack

of resources needed in school, health issues, or poor grades that discourage the students from

attending. Chronic absenteeism can lead to a high probability of falling behind in school, which

can eventually translate to issues in a student’s adulthood. While teachers and counselors do

typically put in some effort to help resolve these issues, parents can also play a critical role in

ensuring that students attend school. Simply informing parents of the importance of attendance

can help bring down the average of missed days among a large group of students, as proved by a

study done in a Philadelphia school area.

Environmental Analysis

Internal Strengths
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Typically, most, if not all, U.S. middle and high schools have established guidelines and

routines to handle poor attendance, along with a (quantity-based) definition of “excessive

absences” that determines when intervention must occur. Looking specifically at Arizona’s

Phoenix Union High School District, they have a explicitly detailed process for dealing with

certain numbers of absences located in their Student Procedures Handbook. As the handbook is

given to every student on the first day of classes along with it being available online, students are

made aware of how their attendance is monitored and what steps are taken should they happen to

miss one or several days of class. Absences monitored on a gradual system also ensures that

students are not punished too harshly or leniently for being absent one time or nine times. The

first step, done for those who have missed one to three days, states that the “[s]chool [m]essenger

will notify parent/guardian by phone/email for period and/or all-day absences,” (PUHSD 2018,

p. 27). Therefore, parents are immediately notified of a student’s absence once it is reported

within the school system. Every step afterwards to deal with higher numbers of absences

continues to involve parents, each time to a higher degree. Keeping parents in the know with a

system such as that one helps them become aware what the actual problem is and how it is

evolving, what steps are being taken to resolve or mediate it, and it provides them with multiple

windows of opportunity to get involved. Whether they take those opportunities or not is fully

dependent on them. With absences related to health issues or accidents, students and parents are

made aware that those absences do not fall under the category of penalized absences.

Internal Weaknesses

Unlike the gradual-notification system that Phoenix Union uses, not all schools operate

under that same method. Some schools often wait until a student is nearing or has reached the

maximum number of absences permitted within a school year to finally establish contact with
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their parents. At that point, parents have little options available to them, usually boiling down to

making sure their student starts showing up on time or accepting failure. Sometimes, parents are

not even aware of the school’s attendance policy or that their child has been absent so much until

that moment, typically a result of minimal to no school-home communication, which is then only

reserved for the purpose of dire issues or academic emergencies. To inform parents of the

school’s policies and guidelines, the school handbook is given to students to take home, and in

some cases, that may be it. Sometimes, they may have parents sign a sheet that needs to be

turned in by the student, but then there is no real guarantee that the parent actually read what was

on or linked to the sheet. Not all students may be reliable when it comes to communicating

crucial information about the school to their parents, and a realistic and effective situation simply

involves inviting parents to the school directly to have direct conversations with faculty related

to the school’s guidelines and procedures. In doing so, parents are also afforded the opportunity

to make any concerns they may have known as well.

Focusing again on PUHSD’s schools, from personal experience in both attending as a

student and as a student intern, student populations at the schools are fairly large. With so many

students per campus, the staff, such as teachers, advisory teachers, and the attendance liason(s)

may not have time or resources to dedicate the proper resources to each student with more than

four unexcused absences. The district’s student handbook also states that faculty “will make a

reasonable effort to contact the parents of students having attendance issues,” or “will make a

reasonable effort to conference with students about their attendance and impact on academic

success,” (PUHSD 2018, p. 26). Particularly looking at the effort with parents, schools and staff

may be limited in how involved they can become when it comes to alleviating issues with

student attendance, and if parents choose to not involve themselves in improving attendance,
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research has shown that “lax parental supervision is a key risk factor for problematic

absenteeism,” (Kearney 2014, pg 8). The need to keep students and staff in a mostly uniform

schedule system may also hinder how well some students are able to attend classes. Some

students may not be able to always get to classes that start at 7:50 A.M., but many school

systems do not allow students to have their classes begin one hour later, and PUHSD generally

only allows that for senior students. Parents may be willing to take their children to school, but

because of scheduling issues related to careers or other occupations, they may not have the time

to do something like both drop their child off and get ready and go to work. Schools should be

more willing to communicate with parents and offer different class schedule options that allow

families to find a plan that works best with their own home schedules and provides a better

guarantee that the student will be able to attend all their classes. Schools could also consider

having specialized bus or rideshare/carpool services available to assist students and parents in

which a means of transportation is the general issue. Some homes may not have a car available to

them at all, or others may not have the money to pay for a bus pass or daily bus fare, so having

options like staff-operated carpools or reduced/free yearly city bus passes for students may

completely resolve transportation-based issues for some families.

External Opportunities

Looking specifically at getting parents involved to help improve student attendance and

combining a bit of the internal, teachers could perhaps include more assignments or tasks that

bring in elements outside of the classroom and call on parent involvement at any degree. If part

of one assignment includes having the parent assist their child to complete the work, the parent

may be more emotionally invested and make sure that their child attends their class to submit the

assignment. While of course, the parent is not the one going to school or being graded, having
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them directly involved in the work their children do may give them a stronger understanding of

what their child is learning and what is going on in the classroom. Some parents may feel as if

their only responsibility is to make sure that their child is enrolled in school, so getting them

even slightly involved in assignment completion may improve how they view their role in their

child’s education. In regard to encouraging class attendance in general, teachers could create

assignments that ask for students to bring in elements of their own interests outside of the

classroom. If students find that they are being asked to include their own interests in their work

and share them with the class, they may find more motivation to attend their classes.

External Challenges

Parent involvement is a multi-faceted topic, as some parents may just not have the time to

be completely invested in their child’s or children’s progress within school, even if they would

like to be. Jobs and other mandatory commitments may be obstacles to going to parent-teacher

conferences, attendance meetings, or even having time to participate possible parent-student

activities and assignments as I proposed in the previous section. If parents do not have time to be

involved in their child’s education, the student may not see a point in devoting time and effort to

their classes, leading to chronic absenteeism. Some students may want to put their all into their

classes, but if their parents are not available to take them to school and they have to rely on other

means of transportation, that could surely lead to frequent absences. Parent motivation to be

involved is also an issue that can be completely out of reach for students and teachers to try and

resolve. Even if they have the time and effort, there may be some parents who do not see

importance in playing an active role in monitoring and encouraging success in their child’s

academics, which can lead to a lack of motivation in a student to want to continue their

education.
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Stakeholder Analysis

Who - The Stakeholders

In the case of chronic absenteeism, the most obvious stakeholders are the frequently

absent students themselves. They are the ones most directly affected by the actions they take.

The teachers of those students could then be considered second in line in who is affected by

frequent student absences. But, in looking at parent involvement in managing and curtailing

student absences, parents could be considered the second most affected stakeholder, if not the

primary one. Other important stakeholders can include school faculty apart from the teacher,

such as academic counselors, attendance liaisons, social workers, and in more extreme or serious

cases, vice principals and/or principals.

Their Stakes

As mentioned before, the chronically absent student has the most to gain or lose from

their situation. Grades and overall academic success are highly dependent on how much a

student participates in their class, and the more a student misses their classes, the more their

chances of academically failing increase. Research compiled by Attendance Works shows that

“missing 10 percent of the school, or about 18 days in most school districts, negatively affects a

student’s academic performance,” (Chronic Absence, 2017). Looking back at our introduction to

the problem, not only do students face the possibility of poor grades, but looking past school,

they potentially become set up for higher chances of unemployment and being participants in

criminal activity. Back in 2013, the Chicago Tribune used prison data released at the time and

determined that “[o]f 182 boys and young men recently locked up in Illinois' three medium-

security youth prisons, at least 135 used to miss so much school that they were labeled chronic
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truants,” (Jackson 2013). With teachers, instruction for specific students becomes very

inconsistent and ineffective the more a student is absent to their class. The teacher needs to work

with the student to find time to supplement the missed instruction, and not all students may even

be willing to do that. Some districts/schools also require teachers to automatically fail the student

once a certain number of absences in their class has been reached, meaning that at a certain

point, they lose the ability to even continue providing the student with instruction for a semester

or longer, even if they are willing to try and work further with them. Looking at parents and their

involvement, if they are not able to or do not feel the need to get involved, they risk losing out on

valuable information related to their child’s academic progress. Some teachers or other school

faculty struggle to get in contact with parents as well, typically due to incompatible schedules

between the two parties or other personal issues, making it difficult for them to even set up

appointments that are necessary to try and push any improvement in the student’s attendance and

academic performance.

Roles Played

Regarding absences, the role of the student is the most obvious. They need to show up or

not show up to their classes to be considered either present or absent. This does not mean that

they are always completely responsible for their choice to attend or not. As stated previously,

issues that are completely out of the student’s control, such as health or transportation, can cause

a student to be chronically absent as well. In trying to get their parents involved, students can

typically serve the role as the bridge of communication between school and home. Teachers give

their students handouts for parents to read, but unless something needs to be signed and returned,

there is quite a bit of uncertainty as to how many of those papers make their way into the

parents’ hands.
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The critical role teachers play in relation to student absences is to actually report whether

a student is in their class or not. All teachers are expected to create and maintain accurate records

about who is in their class every day, every period, reflecting the responsibility they have over

students and their safety while at school. They sometimes also need to sign off on attendance

contracts on a regular basis to give their word that a student is in the process of improving their

attendance. Teachers generally only ever have a role with parent involvement when trouble

arises with a student, which can include frequent absences. Teachers can also contact parents to

discuss their student’s grade, whether good or bad, or to discuss their overall academic progress,

such as determining where they feel a student should go past their class.

As far as the parent’s role, if we take the parent(s) of a typical student (full school day of

classes, maybe one or two extracurricular activities), parents might just be expected sign

paperwork related to school policy or permissions, attend some school-based extracurricular

events, to show up to certain events that discuss important changes or occurrences that affect all

students. The most basic role is to ensure that their child is attending classes and performing well

enough to progress normally and graduate. Aside from that, parents are rarely given a direct role

of involvement in their child’s school/homework. They may help them complete homework

sometimes, but that is by no means a requirement enforced by teachers.

Looking at the previous suggestion of having teachers give students assignments that ask

for participation from them as well as their parents, that would change the role of all three parties

involved. Teachers would be given the task of designing collaborative, content area-based

assignments that their students and the students’ parents are able to complete. They would also

need to familiarize themselves with a way to properly assess the student’s work and the parent’s

work. The student would be required to help their parents comprehend any content area
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knowledge that the parent is unsure of if that knowledge is needed to properly complete the

assignment. The parent would be placed in a more active role where they now have to provide

participation to help their child complete their homework. Their child’s grade on the homework

would depend on how much and how well they are willing to participate, meaning that they

would need to do more beyond sign a paper.

Counselors can be expected to help initiate conversations with students about their

attendance issues and help them explore different options to improve attendance, such as online

classes the following semester or starting and ending the school day at a later time, or to work

with the teacher if necessary to help students make up for the work they missed over the days

they were absent. Attendance liaisons play a similar role but to a higher, more specified level.

They can help teachers, counselors, students, and parents determine the most necessary and

effective actions that should be taken to help regulate a student’s attendance. They also need to

take responsibility over the records and progress of students that have been chronically absent

and are currently under some sort of regulation system. Establishing contact with the parents of a

chronically absent student to inform and update them on their child’s attendance, determining

when intervention and higher actions are needed in more problematic cases, and sometimes even

setting up home visits are also other roles or jobs attendance liaisons may play.

Conclusion

Revisiting the question earlier posed, parents do play a key role in how successful their

child is in their education, and looking specifically at the topic of attendance, parent involvement

and awareness has been shown to improve attendance rates/lower truancy. If parents are more

aware of the consequences that exist should their child be absent a certain number of times, they

may be more likely to take steps to ensure that their child attend their classes as much as possible
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and become more involved in the process of monitoring attendance themselves. There is,

however, the issue of parents who cannot for certain reasons, or do not know how to get involved

and become more informed on what goes on in the school regarding their child’s performance.

Simply having the school faculty, whether they be a student’s teachers or the counselors, open up

some sort of conversation with parents that allows for a mutual exchange of information may

work to help establish stronger connections and a stronger sense of reliability on both ends;

parents may feel more comfortable reaching out to the school in case an issue related to

attendance appears, and teachers/school staff can consult parents to discover the root cause of

existing attendance issues. Teachers can also create assignments or create curriculum that brings

in some element of the students’ home lives and partially call on the parents to get involved in

the work that the students do. Ultimately, the goal is to establish a role for parents in school that

goes beyond teachers or other school faculty relying upon them as a sort of last resort when

problems grow to a critical breaking point. Collaboration and communication between the two

domains should be present throughout the entire school year so that problems like attendance

may be addressed and resolved by having both the school and parents involved as soon as the

issue appears.
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References

Attendance Works. (2017). Chronic Absence - 10 Facts About School Attendance.

Jackson, D., & Marx, G. (2013, February 19). Prison data, court files show link between school

truancy and crime. Chicago Tribune.

Kearney, Christopher A., & Graczyk, Patricia. (2014). A Response to Intervention Model to

Promote School Attendance and Decrease School Absenteeism. Child & Youth Care

Forum, 43(1), 1-25.

National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP). (2016). Six Causes—and

Solutions—for Chronic Absenteeism. Communicator, 40(1).

Phoenix Union High School District. (2018). Phoenix Union High School District 2018-2019

Student Handbook.

Shafer, L. (2017, May 10). Parents as Allies in Reducing Absences. Usable Knowledge -

Harvard Graduate School of Education [Cambridge].

US Department of Education. (2016, October 27). Chronic Absenteeism in the Nation's Schools.
CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM AND PARENT INVOLVEMENT 16

Appendix A

Peer-Made Professional Development Reflection

Upon viewing Doyle, Selden, and Smith’s professional development module, Suffering in

Silence, I found myself thinking about the ways that I, as an educator, would support mental

health and visibility in my own classroom. Ultimately, the goal is to make sure that students feel

welcome and comfortable not just as students, but as humans with feelings and lives within and

beyond school. The module points out that many students do not feel as comfortable discussing

their mental health with professionals as they might with their friends, and while friends are nice

to talk to, the module also makes a valid point about untrustworthy friends which are not at all

uncommon in middle or high school. As a teacher, I would understand that my students do have

their own valid problems and it is unrealistic to expect them to shove those problems aside so

they can be happy or attentive within my class. Rather than get frustrated with them, I should let

them know that I am there to help them as much as I can, even beyond just educational support,

and at the very least, I can help them locate resources, both within and outside of the school, that

may be beneficial to them. Success in school involves a lot more than just obtaining good grades,

and even then, poor mental health and support may not even allow some students to obtain good

grades. I would make it clear to my students that my goal is not to stress them out unnecessarily,

or to make them feel like they need to keep their issues outside of the classroom, but that they are

more than welcome to communicate whatever troubles they may have to me and that I will be as

supportive as I can. I want to be considerate of their own feeling and establish mutual respect

with them on the individual level/

The module’s two main suggestions include allowing for more mental health

professionals in our schools and inviting in elderly people and college students (particularly
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those studying social work, mental psychology, etc.) to come and talk to our students. It does

not go into too much detail about how the latter two groups can be helpful, but from an English

teaching perspective, I think it is an interesting approach and would consider creating some sort

of mental health-based unit that involves students having actual conversations with these people.

The elderly are another group of people whose mental health is somewhat pushed into the

shadows, and students could learn about their stories while having meaningful discussions

related to self-care. As far as the college students, I think they would be a very reliable resource

for high school students to have access to, considering that a majority of them were just in high

school and may be familiar with experiences similar to those of the current struggling students.

After having those talks with those people, I would encourage students to write about the

experience and what they learned about the person and themselves. Over a year ago, I

interviewed a high school social worker who told me that many of the reports she gets from

teachers related to student mental health concerns come from the English teachers, where the

students would write about the problems they are going through. Of course, it is not a cure-all,

but I do think writing can be a great way for students, or anyone in general, to vent their

emotions and get them a bit more organized. By combining those two elements, students could

both talk with people who have gone through similar experiences as they have and let their own

voices and experiences be heard or read as well.