At first, educators thought the plummeting attendance rates experienced during the pandemic were a Covid-19-related anomaly. Illness kept many students out of school, and families were wary of catching the disease.
Now, more than two years after most schools resumed in-person classes, absences are still skyrocketing. Covid-19 has mostly faded as a concern, but it has left behind a changed attitude about going to school every day. Frequent absences have become the norm in many schools.
“This fundamental thing has shifted and we can’t quite get it back,” said Liz Cohen, the policy director at FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University. “It’s troubling.”For lower-income families, the reasons students miss school are similar to those faced before the pandemic, but amplified: transportation issues, unstable housing and family obligations such as having to care for younger siblings. Other families, educators say, are more likely than before to pull children out of school for vacations or let children stay home if they don’t feel like going.
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