HOLLAND, MI (WHTC-AM/FM, Feb. 4, 2024) – The rate of students chronically missing school got so bad during the pandemic that it will likely be 2030 before classrooms return to pre-COVID norms.
That’s according to a new report released this past week from the American Enterprise Institute, based on available data from 39 states, in which the percentage of pupils chronically absent for at least 10 percent of the school year was up in Academic 2023. The authors say that chronic absenteeism is the greatest post-pandemic challenge for schools, and is hindering students’ ability to recover academically.
Locally, Dr. Kyle Mayer, superintendent of the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District, says that schools along the Lakeshore haven’t been as affected by absenteeism as much as other districts across the state, due in part to having in-person learning resume earlier than those districts, but that this issue is still concerning to him.
The AEI report also showed a substantial increase in the share of districts where at least 30 percent of students missed 18 or more days of school.
In addition, a national report from Harvard and Stanford shows Michigan students have not recovered from pandemic related closures. The report shows that students did make gains in math and reading between 2022 and 2023 but the gains did not make up for losses during the pandemic. The state is one of 17 where students are more than a third of a grade level behind.
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