INDIANAPOLIS—Over the last two years, the state’s chronic absenteeism rates have improved according to the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE). Still, the department and several lawmakers said much more work needs to be done to get those numbers back to pre-pandemic levels.
”Over 17 percent of our students are missing about a month a school a year,” Indiana Education Secretary Katie Jenner said.
In response to concerns about chronic absenteeism, Jenner said the IDOE recently released an attendance dashboard—highlighting what the issue looks like in every Indiana school.
”Part of what we’re doing as a state is making sure all of our absenteeism data is totally transparent,” Jenner said. “The more that we can get schools, parents and families working together to make sure the student is at school, the better we’re going to see those learning outcomes.”
According to IDOE data, chronic absenteeism in Indiana is most prevalent at the beginning and end of a student’s school career.
”Our lower primary grades, kindergarten, 1st, 2nd grade, and then our high school grades—that’s where we’re seeing the most absenteeism,” Jenner said.
”32 percent of high school seniors are chronically absent, so, that’s a staggering number,” House Education Chairman Bob Behning (R-Indianapolis) said.
”We got our work cut out for us in many areas,” State Sen. Jeff Raatz said. ”There’s some pretty simple things that I think we can do that I think would turn things [around].”
”It’s a hot topic, the question is, what do we do?” State Rep. Ed DeLaney, who also serves on the Education Interim Study Committee, said.
State Rep. DeLaney said he’s concerned by the number of outside organizations asking for state dollars that are promising solutions to the problem.
”The committee is sort of turning into a forum for vendors who want to sell services,” State Rep. DeLaney said. ”The core problem is we don’t have an adequate number of school social workers, we don’t have an adequate num-, and we have nowhere near the number of school counselors we need.”
But Republican lawmakers said there is no “one-size-fits-all” policy, and that they will talk more strategies and next steps at their next meeting in October.
”I don’t anticipate necessarily more laws,” State Rep. Behning said. ”I think the resources you’re going to need most of your time on would be in the elementary, preschool, elementary.”
”There’s some other data that we can collect.” State Sen. Raatz said. ”That most likely won’t take legislation, that could be taken care of potentially in the department.”
An exact date for the next Education Interim Study Committee meeting has yet to be released.
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