GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Student attendance and chronic absenteeism rates in Kent County schools are largely trending in the right direction, according to public school numbers released by the Michigan Department of Education.

Chronic absenteeism has long been a problem across the state and nation. It has become one of the most prevalent issues facing schools in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The majority of the schools served by the Kent Intermediate School District (Kent ISD) had a higher attendance rate than the state average and chronic absenteeism was lower.

Michigan defines chronic absenteeism as missing 10% or more of school days during the 180-day school year. State attendance rates improved for students during the 2023-24 school year, but 29.5% - one in three students- was considered chronically absent, down from 30.8% last year. The attendance rate was 90.78%.

Mark Larson, truancy and attendance officer for the Kent Intermediate School District, said people often think of chronic absenteeism as being harmless, especially when occurring in lower grade levels, but that’s not the case.

“We now know that beginning in kindergarten, every year of chronic absenteeism reduces the likelihood of graduation,” he said.

Attendance among most Kent County school districts was higher than the state average at 92.3% and the chronic absenteeism lower at 22.8%, according to absentee data tracked by the state.

However, not all schools across the county are equal when it comes to absenteeism, with six schools in three districts reporting chronic absenteeism with over 75% of students. An additional 24 schools reported over 50% of students chronically absent.

Four of the schools with over 75% chronically absent are in Grand Rapids Public Schools, the largest district in the region. They include Ottawa Hills High School (76.7%) and Alger Middle School (76.6%) and two district alternative educations programs, Southeast Career Pathways (91.1%) and Grand Rapids Learning Center (76.8%).

The other two schools are also alternative programs, the Northview Next Learning Center in Northview Public Schools (88.6%) and River Valley Academy in Rockford Public Schools (77.1%).

Grand Rapids enrolled just over 14,800 students in over 40 school buildings as of last year, according to state data. Chronic absenteeism has long been an issue the high-needs, high-poverty district has worked to address. GRPS lowered its rates as of last year and attendance improved, but not above state averages.

According to the new data, the district had 6,094 students, 41.1% chronically absent from class the 2023-24 school year, down slightly from 42.1 % the previous year, but still far above the 26.9% in 2019-20, when the pandemic struck. Attendance was at 87.93%, up from 87.8%. It was 92.11% in 2019-20.

Mel Atkins II, executive director of community and student affairs for GRPS, said while the district is proud it’s making progress towards decreasing chronic absenteeism, administrators also recognize that the “truancy” model of the past - or being adversarial with families regarding absences - doesn’t always work.

Instead, he said GRPS is more frequently attempting to get to the root cause of the absence and provide resources.

“What we try to do is get the word out that every absence matters,” Atkins said, “and this is why we went to more of the caring conversations. Let’s partner together. We can’t do this alone.”

In the last five years, the trend in Kent County attendance is similar to the statewide trend. The state saw lower attendance rates of 88.82% in 2021-22 and 90.52% for 2022-23, when fewer kids showed up amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and higher pre-pandemic rates of 93.07% for 2019-2020 and 92.91% for 20-21.

Schools also saw a pandemic dip and have yet to return to pre-COVID attendance norms over a five-year period, though they’re trending in the right direction.

Larson said Kent ISD has the district has been pushing hard to improve attendance since 2018, with the creation of a countywide attendance campaign encouraging students to miss less than five days of school each year, “Strive for Less Than 5!”

He said consistent school attendance is “the only thing that will positively affect everything else, from classroom atmosphere to discipline to academic achievement, retention to graduation.”

At the top of the list for attendance in Kent County last school year were East Grand Rapids Public Schools (95.55%), West Michigan Aviation Academy (95.35%), Byron Center Public Schools (95.12%) and Byron Center Charter School (95%). These schools also had lower rates of chronic absenteeism of less than 10%.

Overall, chronic absenteeism has been on the decline in Kent County, from 33% during the 2021-22 school year to 22.8% last year, but was 14.4% in 2019-20.

Below is a searchable database breaking down the attendance and chronic absenteeism data for each school in the Grand Rapids area from the last two years.

WHAT DO THE LOCAL RATES SAY?

Most local school districts also saw an improvement in chronic absenteeism with lower rates of students who were not present 10% or more of school days last year compared to 2022-23..

Larson said Kent ISD is now looking to refresh the messaging surrounding the “Strive for Less Than 5!” attendance campaign, with the potential for new media buys, messages in partnership with the medical community and billboards, dependent on finances and the ability to secure grant funding.

Grandville Public Schools Superintendent Roger Bearup, said he doesn’t believe increased attendance within his district can be attributed to any one thing, but a combination of teachers modeling the importance of being at school and educators building personal connections with students.

At the secondary school level, he said the district has hired several certified educators, social workers and behavioral health specialists, part of a multi-tiered system of support to identify students with academic or attendance-related challenges and build strong relationships with those students.

“At a secondary level, you have kids who go in and out of classes all the time, and while teachers work hard to develop strong relationships with them, they only see them for a very short amount of time every day,” he said.

If the district has employees who can focus on a core group of kids, build relationships and understand both their school and life experiences, “it just makes a huge difference,” he said.

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