Since the rate of chronic absenteeism in Georgia peaked at 23.9% during the 2021-22 school year, new policies have been put in place to reduce chronic absenteeism to 19.5%.

The U.S. Department of Education defines chronic absenteeism as “students missing 10% or more of school.” While new interventions, like creating an attendance dashboard, have been working to reduce chronic absenteeism in Georgia back to the rates seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia politicians are now proposing new initiatives to further these efforts. In the Georgia Senate Absenteeism Study Committee’s final meeting on Nov. 20, the committee proposed two punishments for chronically absent students: deeming them ineligible for athletic and extracurricular activities, or suspending their instructional permit or driver’s license.

While chronic absenteeism is an extremely significant problem in Georgia, these proposed solutions are regressive, focusing on punishing students rather than remediating the root causes. With some implemented solutions already working to bring down the chronic absenteeism rate, these policies would only hurt students’ abilities to address the causes of their chronic absenteeism, which can be due to a multitude of complex scenarios: family responsibilities, academic and behavioral struggles or social challenges.

While absenteeism almost always appears as a disciplinary issue, more often than not, it is caused by outside factors, like trauma or poverty, that prevent students from making school their first priority. When students have to miss school to take care of a sick family member or work a second job to provide for their family, taking away their license and suspending them from athletics doesn’t help. Solutions focusing on punishing these students only serve to add extra responsibilities to their plate, and don’t encourage them to actually come to school, making it harder for these students to focus on the problems they are trying to fix, while not actually improving absenteeism.  

Senate Bill 123, passed unanimously during the last legislative session, provides a much better solution to actually reducing chronic absenteeism. The bill prohibited Georgia public schools from expelling students based solely on their attendance and instead forces schools to find appropriate, more focused solutions, such as creating attendance review teams, to prevent the root causes of chronic absenteeism. Unlike the recent proposals that lawmakers have made, this bill doesn’t punish students for being absent, identifying and acknowledging that the causes of absenteeism are systemic, not correctional.

With the new legislative session kicking off, Georgia lawmakers should look to pass a policy similar to SB 123: one that helps students uplift themselves instead of hurting them. Students may need a driver’s license to get to their job to provide for their family, and students may rely on athletics for a social and mental outlet, even if they have to miss 10% of school days. However, Georgia politicians are looking to take that away in hopes of solving a complex systemic issue, deriving from causes unrelated to driving a car or playing a sport. While these solutions target factors that have no real correlation with chronic absenteeism, Georgia could be passing laws that prioritize the student, like requiring schools to assign chronically-absent students with one-on-one mentors who work to improve attendance.

However, state-wide policy can’t solve the whole problem. In order to most effectively reduce chronic absenteeism, schools need to find positive solutions and work with the students to improve their attendance through a targeted, specific strategy. By building environments where students want to come to school, by engaging parents early on to encourage their students to go to school, and by helping students find ways to juggle their other responsibilities with making it to school, schools across Georgia can effectively fight chronic absenteeism.

For example, one study found that rewriting notifications of absenteeism to be shorter, simpler and more personal can connect with the student more and encourage them to come to school. By showing that the school actually cares about its students, rather than sending them the automated notification of their absence, absences decreased by as much as 40%. This shows that if schools were to improve engagement with the issue of chronic absenteeism and make efforts to show students that they belong at school and are wanted in the classroom, the issue itself could be reduced greatly.

Chronic absenteeism is an extremely significant problem that must be solved. When a student misses school, they miss valuable instructional class time while also getting behind on their coursework, ultimately putting them at a disadvantage and harming their educational progress. The long-term effects of chronic absenteeism are notable – for example, one study from the University of Delaware found that chronic absenteeism has a strong correlation with higher rates of high school dropout and poverty in adulthood, and a higher likelihood of the individual interacting with the criminal justice system. While Georgia lawmakers have thankfully made attempts to combat the problem, the solutions they are proposing are regressive and seek to punish students rather than find comprehensive, equitable solutions.