The D.C. Council’s Committee of the Whole recently conducted a public hearing about chronic absenteeism — a topic of great concern to parents, teachers, government officials, and the law enforcement community.
The Tues., Dec. 12 hearing, originally intended to ascertain why D.C. government agencies haven’t been able to curb chronic absenteeism, began more than two hours after its scheduled start time.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who said he was in a meeting with Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), postponed the government witness portion for the afternoon of Dec. 19.
Seven government officials — including Child and Family Services Agency Director Robert Matthews, Dr. Michelle J. Walker-Davis, executive director of the D.C. Public Charter School Board, Cinthia Ruiz, D.C. Public Schools (DCPS)’ chief of integrity, and State Superintendent Dr. Christina Grant — were scheduled to testify before the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday.
In his opening remarks, he called on D.C. government agencies to devise a strategy that gets at the root of why students aren’t attending school. While he cautioned against criminalizing chronic absenteeism, Mendelson connected the problem to increasing juvenile crime.
“All we’ve seen is the [truancy] numbers going up. While they’ve gone down, they are still above where they were pre-pandemic,” said Mendelson, who sat alongside D.C. Councilmembers Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3), and Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) on Tuesday afternoon. “Kids who are not in school are not learning… and they are at risk of getting into the juvenile justice system. Not because absenteeism in itself is a criminal act. It indicates some dysfunction and we know there’s a high correlation between truancy and delinquency.”
Administrators and Teachers Weigh In and Celebrate Some Progress
The most recent D.C. School Report Card, released on Dec. 1, showed a slight decline in chronic absenteeism from 48% to 43.6%. A deeper dive into the data, however, highlighted the severity of an ongoing problem.
According to the report, more than half of the District’s Black students were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year, meaning that they missed more than 10 instructional days.
Additionally, a little more than half of pre-kindergarten students were chronically absent. OSSE also recorded chronic absenteeism rates of more than 50% for economically disadvantaged students, foster children, housing-insecure students, and students with disabilities. At alternative schools, absenteeism rates never fell below 70% across all demographics.
On Tuesday, more than 50 public witnesses also signed up to make their voices heard. Those scheduled to testify included State Board of Education Representatives Eric Goulet (Ward 3), Frazier O’Leary (Ward 4), Robert Henderson (Ward 5), and Eboni-Rose Thompson (Ward 7).
Goulet touted the importance of universal out-of-school time programming and criticized Mendelson for absorbing the council’s Committee on Education into the Committee of the Whole. He said that move weakened the council’s ability to effectively conduct oversight of education agencies.
In his testimony, Henderson called for an expansion of the Safe Passage program and better training of Safe Passage workers. He also warned against conflating chronic absenteeism with criminality. Soon after, Thompson cautioned against employing punitive measures against children who miss several days of school.
To that point, Kortni Stafford, principal of McKinley Middle and McKinley Technology High School spoke about her schools’ participation in DCPS Becoming, an ongoing effort to develop DCPS as an anti-racist and whole child-centered organization. She said strategies implemented this year led to a significant reduction in absenteeism on both campuses.
“We focus on building community among students and adults,” Stafford said. “We also assign students [who have] attendance interventions with adult champions who monitor attendance and make sure they have what they need. We have credible messengers to support students [and] partnerships with student-led groups like the Student-Government Association.”
Karley Sessoms, a DCPS parent and teacher who lives in Ward 5, later told council members that the “school-level ground game” doesn’t address the needs of severely absent students. She went on to suggest that the metric of in-seat attendance shows improvement, but overlooks those who need interventions.
In her testimony, Sessoms urged the D.C. Council to implement systemic changes that focus on the more than 2,000 K-5 students who missed at least 54 days of school last year. While engaging in dialogue with Mendelson, she suggested some form of transportation.
“When bus service is provided, they have better attendance rates,” Sessoms said. “[Buses] are designated for students with Individual Education Plans. We don’t have mechanisms to provide transportation.. But I’ve seen success… even when [students] live within two blocks of the school.”
The public charter school community showed out on Tuesday as well. Russ Williams, CEO of Center City Public Charter School; Justin Lessek, executive director of the Sojourner Truth Montessori Public Charter School; Candice Bobo, executive Director of Rocketship Public Charter Schools, and Laura Maestas of DC Prep counted among those who provided testimony.
Williams spoke about the need to make school more appealing to students. He explained how Center City PCS was investing in a “maker space” for interactive, hands-on STEM instruction. Meanwhile, Lessek touted Sojourner Truth Montessori as a small school where students and teachers are organized into small communities.
“These students spend each day with these… teachers, and in many cases they have them year to year because as a Montessori school, most of our classrooms are mixed grade level,” Lessek said. “This is even true at the high school level, where our ELA and math classes are mixed grade level and so many of our tenth graders are in their second year with a particular… teacher.”
Advocates Continue to Demand an Interagency Response
In the days and weeks leading to the Dec. 12 hearing, Jessica Giles of Education Reform Now DC (ERN DC) made the rounds at the John A. Wilson Building in Northwest in demand of an interagency response to chronic absenteeism and declining postsecondary enrollment.
ERN DC and Leaders of Color, an ERN DC leader fellowship program, also facilitated testimony preparation sessions for parents who want to see the council and District agencies provide resources to students.
ERN DC released a study in November that designated chronic absenteeism as a roadblock in student achievement and long-term career advancement. Giles, executive director of ERN DC, told The Informer that many students in D.C., a city with some of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the country since before the pandemic, are missing school, in part, out of fear for their safety.
That’s why Giles cited the Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, Court Social Services, CFSA, Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), and the D.C. Office of Victims Services and Justice Grants as instrumental in executing a strategy that supports student safety and improves attendance.
“Students are concerned about getting to school safely, and it’s contributing to the chronic absenteeism issue before us,” Giles said. “The decline in student mental health and well-being plays a factor. The D.C. government and our council committees need to make sure our students go to school every day and consistently. It’s incumbent upon the agencies that have oversight over attendance to take urgent steps to make sure we’re addressing this crisis.”