School absenteeism has hit record highs in Florida. Where is it the worst? See the list.
Data from the state Department of Education shows the absenteeism rate for each county. How did Palm Beach County do?
Palm Beach Post | By Katherine Kokal | January 11, 2024
The statewide average of the number of students missing 21 or more days of school has hit a record high at 20.9%, according to data from the Florida Department of Education from the 2021-22 school year.
But the problem isn’t evenly spread throughout Florida.
In Palm Beach County, 16.3% of its 208,719 registered students from pre-K through adult education courses missed 21 or more days of school, the data show.
That’s far below the state’s highest absenteeism rate of 42.3% among students in rural Putnam County, located between Gainesville and St. Augustine. Palm Beach County ranks 59th of 67 districts in the state for the most chronically absent students.
Mirroring national trends, Florida’s absenteeism rate is the highest it’s been since at least 2010, according to a data analysis by The News Service of Florida.
Which counties have the most chronically absent students? And why do students miss class?
Here’s what to know:
Which school districts have the most chronically absent students?
Rural counties showed the highest rates of absenteeism, which is calculated by the state by dividing the number of students who miss more than 21 days of school by the total number of students in enrolled in the district.
Here’s where Florida’s counties fell in the rankings:
Where do urban school districts fall in rankings of absenteeism?
Among the seven large urban school districts, all of which had more than 120,000 students in the 2021-22 school year, absenteeism rates were relatively low.
Palm Beach had the lowest rate of students among these urban districts.
Here are the urban school districts with the highest rates of chronically absent students:
- Orange County: 27.5%
- Duval County: 26.1%
- Polk County: 25.2%
- Broward County: 22.3%
- Hillsborough County: 20.5%
- Miami-Dade County: 18.8%
- Palm Beach County: 16.3%
Why do students miss so much class time?
Before the pandemic, 8 million students were affected by chronic absence across the country. By 2021, that nearly doubled to 15 million, according to Attendance Works, a nonprofit that studies and aims to end school absence.
Education researchers and politicians agree that there is no one type of student or one singular reason students miss class.
Personal or family illnesses, medical procedures, family travel, housing instability and homelessness, lack of reliable transportation, shifts at work, mental illness and child care all play a role in why American students can’t make it to school every day, according to Attendance Works.
Unfortunately, many of those same factors are also to blame for student dropouts. The rate of students who do not graduate from district-run high schools in Palm Beach County was around 7% in 2022, according to the school district.
Chronic absence is different from truancy in that it counts all of a student’s missed time from school, whether that time is excused or unexcused.
Attendance Works found that students who live in poverty are two to three times more likely to be chronically absent from school. Not only does it impact that student’s ability to catch up, but the organization found that “when (absence) reaches high levels in a classroom or school, all students may suffer because the resulting classroom churn hampers teachers’ ability to engage all students and meet their learning needs.”
State lawmakers have signaled they’re interested in learning more about absenteeism and fighting it. Members of the House Education Quality Subcommittee heard from experts on absenteeism in December and referenced the data from the state Department of Education in its hearing.
Paul Burns, a K-12 education chancellor with the Department of Education, said during the meeting that “the circumstances that a family and student may be facing are really individualized,” the News Service of Florida reported.
It’s not yet clear whether lawmakers plan to introduce a bill to address absenteeism, although House Education Quality Chairwoman Dana Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce, said during the committee’s meeting that members “have not heard the last” of the issue, the news outlet reported.
