What SC is doing to combat rising rates of students missing school

COLUMBIA, S.C. — More students across the country and in South Carolina are missing school now than in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest data, from the 2022-2023 school year, shows one in four students in the Palmetto State were considered chronically absent from school, just below the national average of 26%.

That state figure is nearly double from the 2018-2019 school year, when South Carolina’s rate was 13.1%.

A student is considered chronically absent when they miss at least 10% of the school year, so 18 days in a standard 180-day calendar.

Some education researchers call chronic absenteeism the greatest challenge facing American public schools post-pandemic, and South Carolina will soon put more focus on combatting it.

“Chronic absenteeism can really impact student achievement and student success academically,” Tenell Felder, communications manager for the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee, said.

The Education Oversight Committee oversees the accountability system for the state’s public schools.

It will soon launch a study and focus groups with South Carolina students to try to get to the heart of this issue and then develop recommendations later this fall.

“That could assist schools, teachers, principals, and parents in making sure that students are indeed present in school and ready to learn,” Felder said.

Studies have shown the negative impacts of chronic absenteeism include students being more likely to read below their grade level as well as later dropping out of school.

South Carolina School Report Cards indicate all districts grapple with chronic absenteeism but in varying degrees, ranging from a statewide low two years ago of 7.3% in Fort Mill to a high of more than half of all students, 51.9%, in Lexington School District Four.

On the higher end was Laurens County School District 56, where nearly one in three students were considered chronically absent.

“It’s just old-fashioned hard work and consistency and persistency, and not giving up,” Assistant Superintendent David Pitts said.

Pitts said the district has taken a hands-on approach to addressing absenteeism that includes making phone calls, not robocalls, for every absence, home visits, and even court orders if it rises to the level of truancy.

In one year, Laurens 56 cut its chronic absentee rate from 31.2% percent to 20.7%, which Pitts attributes to the work of school staff and principals.

“They just would not give up on a kid,” he said. “They would not accept, ‘I’m just not coming to school.’”

You can see the chronic absentee rates for all school districts across South Carolina for the 2022-2023 school year below.

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