This study uses the attendance records of over 50,000 middle and high school students in a major California school district to gauge the prevalence of “part-day absenteeism”—how often students miss some of the school day but not all of it.
Overall, the authors find that part-day absenteeism is responsible for at least as many missed classes as full-day absenteeism, and that the inclusion of part-day absences raises the chronic absenteeism rate from 9 percent to 24 percent for students in grades six through twelve. On average, students in these grades were absent for all of 4.2 percent of school days and part of 12.2 percent of school days. However, while almost half of full-day absences were excused, 92 percent of part-day absences were unexcused.
Interestingly, although both full- and part-day absenteeism show a jump at the transition from middle school to high school, full-day absenteeism declines from that point onward while part-day absenteeism remains elevated in grades ten and eleven before increasing again in grade twelve. Across all grades, absenteeism varies considerably by time of day. For example, the absenteeism rate for the first and last periods of the day is around 5 percent, while the absenteeism rate for third period is around 3 percent. In addition to these differences, students are somewhat more likely to be absent from some subjects than others. Specifically, they are most likely to be absent from their PE class, followed by their foreign language class, math class, science class, ELA class, and social studies class (in that order). However, these differences are modest, meaning students miss almost as many core classes as they do PE classes.
Unsurprisingly, Asian students have a lower part-day class absence rate (2.6 percent) than white students (3.8 percent), Hispanic students (6.1 percent), or African American students (8.3 percent). Furthermore, incorporating part-day absences sharply increases the overall chronic absenteeism gap between underrepresented minority students and their non-minority peers. For example, when part-day absences are included the chronic absenteeism rate increases in is 47.7 percent in twelfth grade and 69.9 percent for black students. Chronic absence rates are also higher among English learner students (29 percent) than among non–English learners (23 percent), and far higher among students with special education status (46 percent) than among other students (24 percent).
Because students miss the first class of the day more than any other, the authors suggest scheduling planning periods for core-subject teachers during first period to increase attendance in these key classes, in addition to “targeting part-day absence reduction efforts to meet the needs of underrepresented minority students.” Given the huge number of states that are moving to incorporate chronic absenteeism indicators into their accountability systems, one component of this effort should surely be a closer examination of states’ existing data capabilities, as well as their definitions of “chronic absenteeism.”
SOURCE: Camille Whitney and Jing Liu, “What we’re missing: A descriptive analysis of part-day absenteeism in secondary school,” AERA Open (April 2017).
