Truancy Surges Post-Pandemic as Schools Loosen Attendance Enforcement

One fallout from remote teaching during the pandemic is a large spike in student absenteeism, and a more relaxed attitude from school administrations.

According to a study in North Carolina by the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C., absences among all students were up across the board. Five percent of students missed more than 20% of school days from 2021 to 2023, a percentage that is twice the level of a chronic absentee. Nearly half of all students missed 10 or more days in a school year.

“There’s no rigidity, and there’s no process,” said Kyle Chamberlain, a naturalism teacher in Littleton, Massachusetts, outside of Boston. “There’s less checks and balances for students and teachers,” he said. “If a student misses a million days, sure, teachers might send an email or meet with the parents. But there’s no ‘OK, you’ve missed X-amount, we need to do this and that.’”

The numbers aren’t looking great in Louisiana. According to the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, in the 2022–23 school year, over half of all Baton Rouge students had 15 or more absences. Without more rigid truancy policies, these numbers will not improve, experts said.

“To get the doctor’s note and bring it to the front office and mark it as an excused absence, why would anybody bother when there’s no consequences for unexcused absences?” asked Dylan Guarino, a history teacher at Natick High School in Natick, Massachusetts.

Guarino herself has tried to help fight absenteeism, but only so much can be done by one teacher against a district of students. She expressed frustration from a lack of care or consideration about students missing class — not just from faculty, but from parents as well.

“I just emailed one [student], actually,” she said. “She’s been absent 45 times this school year,” continued Guarino. “There was no communication from the parents… as to why this was going on… There’s not that level of ‘five [missed] classes and you’re done’ anymore.”

Louisiana state Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, introduced a bill proposing that public school funding would be based on attendance data, with higher attendance rates yielding more resources. Six other states, including California and Texas, already use this metric to determine school budgets, and an additional 24 states factor attendance into funding to some degree.

“If you’re not in school, you can’t learn,” said Freiberg. She says she intends to spark a conversation about Louisiana’s alarming rate of truancy with the bill. Freiberg’s proposal did not make it out of the House Education Committee, but the full House passed a nonbinding resolution she sponsored to study truancy and school financing.