ROCHESTER, N.Y. — They say showing up is half the battle. But across New York state, thousands of students are losing that fight before the morning bell even rings.
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted schooling, chronic absenteeism remains a deep-seated academic emergency. Educators and advocates warn that for many families, missing school is not an excuse problem — it is a barrier problem. When a school bus fails to arrive, a family crisis hits, or a mental health struggle takes hold, students fall behind. Without targeted support, playing catch-up quickly transforms into getting left behind permanently.
According to recent reports from non-profit advocacy group The Children’s Agenda, the numbers in Monroe County illustrate the harsh reality:
1 in 4 elementary school students were chronically absent last year
1 in 3 high school students missed 10% or more of the academic year
Advocates note these trends are not isolated to Rochester. Similar patterns are playing out in neighboring regions, including Onondaga County (Syracuse) and Erie County (Buffalo), with absenteeism rates climbing significantly as students get older.
“It hasn’t really come back down to what it was pre-pandemic,” said Eamonn Scanlon, director of community impact for The Children’s Agenda. “And so that’s very concerning for us, because chronic absenteeism is a signal that a child is very unlikely to be reading on grade level, that they’re not going to graduate high school and not going to enroll in college later in life. So, it has a very negative impact on students academically and developmentally.”
Reports also show that school districts with higher concentrations of students living in economically disadvantaged households are more likely to have higher rates of chronic absenteeism, though there are exceptions and many other factors at play.
“Thirty-eight percent of respondents had to stay home, maybe because a loved one was hurt or they were hurt,” Scanlon said. “They could have had housing instability. The power could be shut off. You know, a lot of issues that sometimes are factors related to poverty or just instability at home. Then beyond that, chronic absenteeism is also contributed to through suspensions. So when kids are kicked out of school as a disciplinary measure while they’re not in school, they’re not getting the same level of instruction. And that’s a particularly, acute problem for students of color in the county. Students who are Black are five times as likely to be suspended as White students across Monroe County. Then, there’s a lot of contributing factors. Mental health is a big issue. So, rates of depression, anxiety or suicide ideation have gone up significantly, both pre-pandemic and then increased during the pandemic. With the social isolation and the disconnection, a lot of kids were going through. And so one of the top reasons kids don’t go to school is just having that feeling of anxiousness, that depression, not being able to get out of bed; home being kind of their safe space. It’s not a single thing, that the approach is really about identifying what the students have, what the what their needs are, because there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.”
To understand the root of the issue, the organization has surveyed hundreds of students, with some of the top results tracing to illness, transportation, suspensions and mental health struggles keeping kids home.
“It really devastates me to read this report,” Rosa said. “We adults and community and society really need to put forth some solutions. As a mother and an advocate, I have no choice but to be hopeful. I think one of the parts that hurt me the most is I’m the mother of three young Black and Latino men, and our children are Black and brown children, suffer. And they often don’t have a fair shot at success. And it really is just important for us to look at what’s happening.”
However, one solution is emerging. A heavy investment in the “community school model” is offering wraparound services to families at the unveiling of its new parent center located at Loretta Johnson Middle School Campus.
“It’s a wonderful resource that we wanted to provide them so that they understood our commitment to parent engagement and supporting our parent’s needs, because we recognize that when we support our parents, our parents are then better equipped to support our children,” said Rochester City School District Superintendent Dr. Eric Rosser. “We have in there we have a food pantry, we have a clothing closet for our families. We have a youth zone. We have a computer lab for our families. And also we’re going to have a lot of community-based organizations who are going to be setting up satellite shops here so that they’re able to then provide services and support to all of our families, as well.”
Having centralized hubs like the parent center represents a crucial step in ensuring an education is accessible to every child.
“Our goal is to make sure that, in partnership with families, we’re supporting our families because once we’ve supported our families in the way that they need to be supported, they’re then better equipped and able to then help navigate the system and also support our children,” Rosser said. “I’ve been doing parent centers for a little bit more than 10 years. I first started in the Atlanta Public Schools. I then went to Buffalo, New York, in which I created four parent centers throughout the city, and then Poughkeepsie, New York. I wanted to bring that vision here because I see with the parent centers that we’ve created, we’ve been able to provide extra support to our families; our families feel more belonging to their schools, and they feel much more connected to the work that we need to do together to benefit our children.”