Around the Capital Region, schools are still working to recover socially and academically from the COVID-19 pandemic. Test scores have been affected, as has school attendance. A new wave of behavioral issues has unfolded, too. Now, a variety of people...
California’s public school students are continuing to rebound from the pandemic, with more showing up for class, more graduating and fewer misbehaving at school, according to new data released today. The California School Dashboard, a color-coded snapshot of how students...
I dreamed of following in my mother’s footsteps to become a teacher. We would spend our Augusts decorating her classrooms with cheesy quotes and fun colors. During the year, she would grade assignments and share her elementary school students’ funny...
To get students back in classrooms, Oakland Unified decided to test out a simple solution—paying students for perfect attendance. The Equitable Design Project, which just ended its second trial year at Oakland Unified, gives students $50 every Friday if they...
The nationwide increase in chronic absenteeism, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, persists in California—affecting approximately 25% of students. Marginalized communities face disproportionate challenges. Structural issues like transportation and teacher shortages, alongside student-level factors such as insecurity and disengagement, contribute to absenteeism. Tailored solutions recognizing the unique developmental needs of adolescents are crucial. Adolescents' curiosity and peer interactions necessitate opportunities for exploration and contribution, while supportive relationships with adults are essential. Addressing chronic absenteeism requires collaborative efforts, ensuring equitable access to these opportunities and relationships. Local expertise and insights from developmental science should guide the creation of inclusive school environments that promote consistent attendance and engagement among adolescents.
When the state published last year’s batch of post-pandemic school data, alarm bells went off. It was our first glimpse into where kids stood after years of virtual learning, and it was bleak. The data showed that student performance on...
Chronic absenteeism has risen dramatically in our country. A close look at 2021-22 school year data reveals that every state in the country is experiencing a substantial increase in the number of schools and districts with high and extreme levels...
When then-Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature created the Local Control Funding Formula a decade ago, their professed goal was to close the achievement gap separating poor and English-learner K-12 students from their more privileged contemporaries by providing more targeted...
The pandemic had a devastating impact on learning, experts say, with lasting ramifications for the world of education at large. During the chaotic period when California families were running scared, public schools were shuttered and playgrounds off-limits, an estimated 152,000...
Truancy rates for students in the state of California and across the country are again an area of concern. Since the earliest days of the Corona pandemic educators, parents, government and community organizations have monitored the effects of chronic absenteeism...
Ventura County public school students continued to miss school at historic rates during the 2022-23 school year, further crystallizing a post-pandemic trend. Across the county, 22% of students were chronically absent last school year, a small improvement from 2021-22, but...
The surge in chronic absenteeism among California students during the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years was initially attributed, quite reasonably, to the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic. There was optimism that these rates would eventually begin to decline as schools returned to normal. When new chronic absenteeism numbers came out in October—along with California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASSP) data for 2022–23—the findings indicated that rates are down from the soaring absenteeism of 2021–22; 25 percent of K–12 students in California schools were chronically absent in 2022–23, down from 30 percent the year before. However, more than three years after the initial onset of the pandemic, chronic absenteeism among California students is still double the rate of prepandemic levels, and there are no signs of this trend abating.
COVID-19 cases are on the rise throughout Los Angeles Unified and the county. Public health experts are urging caution while school officials are looking to keep children in the classroom for their academic progress and emotional well-being. Despite the surge...
Educators, policymakers, and researchers find themselves now, more than ever, at a moment of inflection. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated health and wellness disparities, food insecurity, housing challenges, and the digital divide. Our country is poised to confront its history...
As the new school year begins, parents, researchers, advocates, and educators are still trying to untangle the academic, mental and social-emotional consequences of the pandemic. There is no one answer to the question: Are the kids OK? Academics with a...
This post presents evidence-based solutions to address the post-Covid persistent absenteeism, which include effectively engaging parents through automated text messages and addressing underlying factors such as the cost-of-living crisis, increasing mental health problems among young people, and a lack of...
From kindergarteners to high school seniors, chronic absenteeism persists around the country, fueled in part by disruptions from the spread of COVID-19 in the last three years, government data shows. In some places, repeated absences are getting much worse. The...
Marin school enrollment dipped again in 2022-23, the sixth straight year of decline, according to new state data. The county’s public school enrollment dropped by an average total of 8.85% since the baseline year of 2018-19. That was almost in...
We may have good reasons to close our local K-12 schools for days or weeks. But we should keep them open anyway. That’s because, in California, we are closing schools so routinely that we’re harming children who are already in...
Chronic absenteeism (when a student misses 10 percent or more of instructional days during the school year for any reason) has spiked by an alarming degree, increasing more than twofold statewide, from 14% in 2020–21 to 30% in 2021–22. This increased absenteeism during 2021–22 is, of course, not entirely surprising. When students returned to school after a year of pandemic-induced virtual learning in 2020–21, they were encouraged to stay home if they had any symptoms, and many students had to miss school to quarantine after an exposure to COVID-19. Even though the pandemic is largely behind us at this point, early warning signs show that we now face challenges with attendance that could persist into the long term; although data for the current school year (2022–23) will not be released at the state level until fall 2023, locally released data show that the patterns this year may be as worrisome as last. How do we urgently move the needle on our high rate of chronic absenteeism so that it does not become the new normal in our state?
Most newcomer students enter school with very low or beginning English language proficiency (ELP), but their language skills can develop rapidly under the right conditions, according to the first in a new series of briefs by Policy Analysis for California...
Distance learning in the COVID-19 context provides a unique challenge in that, in many cases, neither families nor educators chose to engage in this model of instruction, it is an opportunity provided due to circumstances beyond our control. It is...
When California’s schools reopened their classrooms at the beginning of this school year, educators were confronted by a critical question: Where did all the students go? Since the beginning of the pandemic, California public schools have lost more than 4%...
Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School, is a co-author—with Jacob Kirksey, Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University and Gevirtz School alumnus—of the Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) brief “Effects of Immigration Enforcement on Students in...
