Student absenteeism — attribution and action

A “wicked problem” is how Winnipeg School Division chief superintendent Matt Henderson described student absenteeism (Manitoba summit to explore solutions to chronic truancy, April 20).

So did Jess Whitley, an expert interviewee from the University of Ottawa on CBC’s The Current and an author of “The Current State of School Attendance Research and Data in Canada” in the journal Educational Science, explaining that “…very little is known about how it is defined and conceptualized and about its prevalence and trends over time, its impact on various communities, its influential and manipulable predictors or the efficacy of the range of prevention and intervention approaches that no doubt exist in many school boards.”

An example is something as simple as characterizing an absence as being sanctioned or not, excused or not, or school-related or not.

Here we are, then, after decades of good aspirations, sentiments, symposia, initiatives and new and highlighted laws and regulations.

Add to this the range of possibly associated factors — among them, stress, anxiety, depression, bullying, peer interactions, fatigue, boredom, access to transportation and to student-specific supports, caring for family members, employment for family support, illness, medical appointments, sporting and cultural events (school- and community-based), family-sanctioned observances and vacations, itinerance, perceived relevance of schooling, food security, sense of belonging at school, sense of safety at school, access to extra- curricular activities, and a sense of academic success (hope).

Does attendance improve belonging, or is it the reverse?

Does absence impede well-being, or does it reflect it? What has been observed in relation to Manitoba’s universal nutrition program?

Will the public transportation subsidy for high school students be studied in relation to absenteeism?

No matter the answers, knowledge is necessary for influential, broad-based programming and policy.

In an April 23 television interview with Radio-Canada’s Le téléjournal Manitoba, Jeff Anderson, assistant superintendent of Louis Riel School Division (LRSD), noted the importance of students knowing they are missed when absent, and of having a strong rapport with teachers and other adults in the school.

The affective domain merits particular focus, based also on results from Manitoba’s participation in a large-scale assessment of reading, mathematics and science called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). It targets 15- and 16-year-olds (mostly Grade 10) and includes a student questionnaire.

From PISA 2003 we learned that 10 per cent of Manitoba students thought school was a “waste of time,” with a similar result in 2009. In 2022, about a quarter of students felt this way. In the 2003 administration of PISA, approximately 12 per cent of Manitoba students disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “I feel like I belong in school.” In 2015, 23 per cent of students felt this way.

In pre-pandemic 2018 and again in 2022, the rate reached about 30 per cent. This is consistent with the LRSD — a Winnipeg-based school division serving a large, diverse student population — “data hub” from which we learn that about one-third of high school students do not have a “positive sense of belonging.”

The LRSD collects this information — and others such as anxiety, bullying and safety — from a student-completed online platform called OurSchool (formerly Tell Them from Me) which, according to its Canadian proprietor, The Learning Bar, is also in use to some degree in about a dozen (of 37) other school divisions.

Information from students such as that collected by the LRSD is a compelling source of data for rigorous, collaborative research to support how action at scale, be it within or outside of the school system, might best complement the day-to-day, student-by-student work done within schools to support student attendance.

This is from Whitley’s “The Current State”:

“As the field of attendance-focused research continues to grow and become more cohesive and conceptually sophisticated in coming years, and as data are more consistently collected, shared and analyzed for multiple purposes, we are hopeful that our questions can move from ‘how often’ and ‘why’ to more complex and nuanced investigations that can inform educators, clinicians and policymakers as they seek to improve outcomes for children and youth.”

Ken Clark, retired in Winnipeg, spent most of his 28 years in the field of education focused on large-scale assessment and assessment policy.