Lodi Unified District Calendar

Lodi Unified digging in to root out chronic absenteeism

Aug. 24—Lodi Unified School District officials on Tuesday said that students in grades 3-6 are the most negatively impacted by chronic absenteeism.

And among ethnic groups in those grades, decreasing absenteeism would have the most positive impact for Black students.

According to staff’s presentation during Tuesday’s school board meeting, Black students in grades 3-8 who are chronically absent read at levels far below students who attend class more than 97% of the time. Conversely, staff said English learners at those grade levels are the least impacted by chronic absenteeism. While their reading abilities aren’t as advanced as their peers who attend class regularly, the gap is not as wide.

Tuesday’s report comes after EdSource released a study that found about 1 million students across California were chronically absent — or missed 10% of instructional days — after schools reopened in the 2021-22 school year, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the study, nearly 40% of Lodi Unified’s 28,565 students were chronically absent in 2021-22, a 25.6% increase over pre-pandemic numbers.

To decrease chronic absenteeism, the district has undertaken a number of efforts that include sending parents and students weekly Sunday night messages from principals, as well as incorporating attendance achievement challenges for the month of September.

The district will also increase the number of attendance advisors on campuses, and increase notices, outreach and family support efforts throughout the year.

Staff will begin using the RaaWee Truancy Dropout Prevention System this year, which provides school districts essential best practices for preventing chronic absenteeism and non-participation.

Child welfare and attendance advisors have been visiting students at home, and school attendance review teams have been meeting with teachers and parents to discuss students who are chronically absent, staff said.

“My experience has been … where you have parents go out in the fields early in the morning, and children get left (at home) to go to school,” board president Joe Nava said. “Parents are really responsible in their support for students’ attendance.”

But the board’s two student representatives had different takes on why students are chronically absent.

McNair High School student Joseph Gardea said he does not feel safe and doesn’t want to go to school when violent incidents occur on campus.

He also said many students miss school because district buses do not have routes in their area, or they have no personal transportation to campus.

“If I don’t feel safe, I’m not going to go to school, and I hope the action steps (staff presented) really aim to improve the safety and well being of students, and lead to a spotlight on transportation issues,” he said. “Maybe then we’ll see a decrease in chronic absenteeism.”

Tokay High School student Logan Sweetman said he has observed that students will come to class more when their teachers treat them with kindness and respect.

“I do know that if a teacher respects a student, and a student respects a teacher, that does help when it comes to going into the classroom,” Sweetman said.

Anne Swehla Garcia, a teacher at Julia Morgan Elementary School, said when she started teaching 34 years ago, the district had an influx of Southeast Asian students.

Garcia said she decorated her classroom with items representative of each students’ background and culture, and even let them write assignments in their native languages so they felt welcome.

She said teachers and counselors at Julia Morgan are still working to make students feel welcome on campus, but it is difficult when there is a revolving door of counselors.

Some counselors on campus only last six months, Garcia said, or they move on to other districts for higher pay. Changing counselors every so often makes it difficult for students to build relationships with staff, she said.

“We need that support staff to help those kids that aren’t coming maybe because they’re afraid, or maybe because they have families that can’t get them to school,” Garcia said. “But we need those counselors to (support them) too.”

To view staff full report about the impacts of chronic absenteeism, visit tinyurl.com/absenteeism.