These ongoing unsettled times keep impacting our collective well-being and taking a big toll on many of our kids, too. After long-endured remote instruction, masking, and isolation, the “new normal” arrived. Up now: “norm erosion” to explain what’s behind the 14 million kids who spent at least 10% of the school year somewhere other than school.
Meanwhile…
A recent Gallup poll found that…
*** 57% of responding adults said their lives are NOT back to normal, with…
** 14% of them thinking their lives will eventually return to normal, but
** 43% believing their pre-pandemic normalcy is gone for good.
A June NPR/Ipsos poll of parents with school-aged kids found that:
*** Just 33% could correctly define chronic absenteeism or knew why it matters because, says Cecelia Leary of Attendance Works, “Parents aren’t used to hearing about it.”
***Just 5% saw it as a top priority. (#1: “prepping kids for the future.”)
Moreover, explains Stanford professor Thomas Dee: “During the pandemic many children and parents simply began to see less value in regular school attendance…They fell out of the habit of school.”
Hence that “norm erosion” label.
Moreover, as achievers.com has found, “Employees with a strong sense of belonging are twice as likely to be engaged, productive, resilient, and committed…” Schools are workplaces, too, filled with kids hungry for all that good stuff–so are lots of their parents/caregivers. That translates to feeling…
- Welcomed
- Known
- Included
- Supported, and
- Connected
Says UC Santa Barbara’s Erin Dowdy, “I’m hopeful that educators will stop and think about how to help students feel valued and that they matter, and to continue to work towards building a sense of community within their school and classrooms.”
Harvard’s Jal Mehta sees it this way: “The current debate seems to take it as a given that the students and not the schools are the problem.” Along with rote academic tasks that provide little reason to be completed, he also finds that, “Many students, especially the most disadvantaged, have few, if any, meaningful relationships with the adults in their buildings.”
That’s backed by a recent EdWeek Research Center survey of 1,056 high schoolers that found that:
- Just 57% said that the adults in their school care about their well-being and success—at least to a moderated extent; and
- 20% said “the adults in their school care little or not at all about their well-being and success.”
That disconnect came in at #4 of 11 factors behind chronic absenteeism in an April poll of 1,000 respondents:
- 60% of students said school is boring; 20% like school, and 33% find it a waste of time.
- 40% identified a mental health issue—persistent sadness, hopelessness, anxiety and depression.
- Just 33% said their school adequately addresses bullying.
- “Less than 25% said many or all of their teachers try to understand what their lives are like outside of school.”
- COVID’s stay-at-home mandates left some parents not sure when to send their kids to school or keep them home.
- Many parents have Mondays off and say it’s the only time they can spend with their children.
- Remote instruction made in-person instruction less important to some parents.
Rounding out the list:
- Family hardships
- Fears about campus security
- Poverty
- Limited transportation options due to staff shortages, service changes, and/or delays.
The bottom line: We’ve gotta do a better job of caring for our students and bring parents into the fold, too.
After all, as Education Week’s Libby Stanford reminds us: “Researchers agree that robust parent and family engagement in which schools build trusting reciprocal relationships with students’ caregivers is a promising strategy that can help reduce chronic absenteeism, cut dropout rates, and boost academic achievement.”
Yet, writes Harvard’s Karen Mapp, “Far too many educators view parent and family engagement as an ‘add-on’ to their overall practice.”
Calling out teacher-prep programs, she reports that just 5% of them offer such courses. As she puts it: “… If we don’t train them, then, of course, they’re going to think this is something that is not important.”
Not important!??
This when parent involvement is a proven predictor of student success and increased attendance? Schooling, after all, doesn’t take place in a vacuum. It requires parents/caregivers who support learning and reading at home, attending parent-teacher conferences and special school events, volunteering, too.
Maybe start there instead of bribing kids with Wi-fi loaded school buses, in-school video gaming, and now the proposed $1.5 million Ohio House Bill 348, in which…
- Select kindergartners and 9th graders get $25 biweekly cash transfers for showing up 9 out of 10 days in a 2-week period.
- Students who attend 90% of the year will “earn” $150 at the end of each quarter and $700 at year’s end.
Opposed, Ohio State Representative Josh Williams asks, “Is this going to set a precedent for our young kids as young as kindergarten that we are going to pay you to abide by the laws moving forward?”
~ With thanks, Carol
