Is it possible that the culture has shifted so far that showing up for school is now seen as optional? That’s the assertion of Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. Smack in the middle of a New York Times story about the alarming increase in student absenteeism, Dr. Rosanbalm is quoted as observing, “Our relationship with school became optional.” In the interest of context, she’s describing what she believed happened during the COVID pandemic.
When I read that I was, to use one of my favorite words, gobsmacked. When I was growing up, going to school was no more optional than the rising and setting of the sun. If I complained that I wasn’t feeling well, my father’s predictable question was, “Are you dying?” If the answer was “no,” which it always was, I was going to school. Then, while I was reluctantly grabbing my lunch box, my father would sternly remind me that, “School is important.”
Of course, it still is. We know that when children aren’t at school learning suffers. So do social relationships and the strength of classroom unity. Even committed students who show up every day are impacted because teachers have to slow down and alter lessons to keep everyone on track. If we didn’t fully understand that before the pandemic (though I believe that we did), we certainly learned it during the COVID shutdown. Across the country, students are still struggling to make up for lost time and meet grade-level expectations.
Yet despite those realities, student absenteeism continues to rise. The American Enterprise Institute estimates that a national average of 26% of public school students were chronically absent during the last school year. (Chronic absenteeism is usually defined as missing at least 10% — or at least 18 days – during the school year. That number is sobering enough, but chronic absenteeism is even higher in poorer school districts: The American Enterprise Institute says that about 32% of students are chronically absent. Experts warn that the problem is approaching crisis level.
The question is, why? Experts cited in the Times article universally place the blame on the pandemic:
- Work habits changed, allowing many parents to work at least some days at home – making it easier to keep children home, too
- Quarantine rules intended to protect students and staff from COVID have resulted in more students staying home when sick with colds, flu and other more common ailments
- Students who fell behind during the shutdown more likely to be absent because the struggle to keep up has led to crippling stress and other mental health challenges
- The continuing requirement that most teachers post lessons online has lulled many parents into the complacent belief that their children are keeping up – even when they are not
- The prolonged shutdown broke established habits of getting ready for and going to school
I don’t dispute that all of these pandemic-related factors – and others – have contributed to the absenteeism problem. And. I think there is another, perhaps greater, force at play here, too: Americans generally are less likely to honor their commitments – any commitments – than they used to be.
That began long before the pandemic. Do you remember the time when, as an adult, you were expected to keep track of your appointments, social engagements, due dates and other commitments – and honor them? No more. Today, apparently, we have to be reminded, cajoled, even harangued into showing up.
One medical office that I’ve been going to for years now sends me reminders starting a full month before my appointment. It escalates from there. By the time we’re in the week of the appointment I’m getting daily reminders via text message, phone calls and email. That office is not an outlier. I also get frequent reminders about scheduled haircuts, airline travel I’ve booked, performances to which I have tickets and on and on. The reminders always strike me as progressively more desperate as the date approaches.
Clearly, business have resorted to these tactics because they have to. A hair stylist that I know recently told me that a longtime client had missed her appointment and then blamed the salon because she hadn’t received a reminder that morning. (She acknowledged that she had received a reminder – and confirmed the appointment – a couple of days earlier.) Since when did other people become responsible for getting us where we need to be?
It isn’t limited to business, either. Even in my social relationships the expectation seems to be that any commitment is tenuous. That’s what I’ve concluded, anyway, in the face of what I call the still confirmation: “Are you still taking me to the airport?” “Are we still on for lunch?” and so on. Granted, I recognize that sometimes things happen that force a change in plans. I once missed a lecture I was scheduled to give because I was in the emergency room being treated for a kidney stone, for example.
But those situations should be rare, not so common that we now assume that a commitment will not be met if it isn’t confirmed (and sometimes even if it is). No wonder school absenteeism is up. If medical appointments, concerts, social engagements and even airline flights are optional, why shouldn’t school be, too?
It’s time to begin changing that attitude. One step in that process is to begin teaching children the importance of honoring commitments. We know that we can’t count on children learning acceptable behavior at home. We’ve also learned that when we take responsibility for defining and teaching acceptable behavior there are few disruptions, test scores go up, student engagement improves, and the classroom climate is healthier.
Should we have to teach the value of honoring commitments, too? Of course not. But if we don’t, we’ll continue to face rising absenteeism that threatens everything else that we’re working to accomplish.
