COVID, 5 years later: The challenge of getting kids back to class

EDITOR’S NOTE — Last week marked the five-year anniversary of California going into shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Herald is taking a look back at how Monterey County residents and organizations navigated that time, as well as the lessons learned. Today, the challenge of getting kids back into the classroom. 

When schools were allowed to return to in-person learning in 2021, educators were looking forward to finally seeing their students’ faces (albeit, faces covered by masks) but were instead met with more empty desks than ever before the pandemic.

Among the endless list of aspects of life that were impacted by COVID-19 was student attendance. Post-pandemic recovery in schools has largely been focused not only on student performance but also on attendance, as chronic absenteeism rates skyrocketed once students returned to classrooms after nearly a year of remote learning. Chronic absenteeism in Monterey County schools jumped from 10.3% in 2020-21 to 28.7% in 2021-22.

“We knew that a lot of our families were experiencing a lot of challenges … trying to kind of make things work,” said Alan Crawford, Monterey Peninsula Unified District’s director of student support, safety and prevention. “But I don’t know that our leaders were ready to see the chronic absenteeism rates as high as they were.”

Since returning from distance learning, chronic absenteeism has been one of the most prevalent issues districts have faced.

The numbers

Absenteeism can be caused by a myriad of factors including transportation challenges, childcare struggles resulting in students caring for younger siblings, general student disengagement, sickness – all of which were amplified by the pandemic.

Monterey County Superintendent of Schools Deneen Guss stands with rapid COVID-19 tests provided by the state. But as schools reopened, one of the biggest challenges they had to overcome was chronic absenteeism. (MCOE)

Chronically absent students are those who miss 10% or more school days in the academic year. Local districts hit their peaks of absenteeism in 2021-22 and have been slowly getting those rates down, but are still struggling to get back to pre-pandemic numbers.

Before the pandemic, Monterey County’s absenteeism rate was just over 11% and just below the state average of 12%. After a high of nearly 29% in 2021-22, the next school year saw a 6.5% reduction. That number continued to drop in the past academic year, with local districts getting down to an average of nearly 17% in 2023-24. Once again, Monterey County did better than the state average of 20.4%, according to data from the Department of Education.

Monterey County’s chronic absenteeism rates have been consistently lower than the state average. (Graph courtesy of MCOE)

“I am proud of the progress we have made in reducing chronic absenteeism across Monterey County,” said Superintendent of Schools Deneen Guss. “Since the pandemic, our schools, educators and families have come together with a shared commitment to ensuring students feel connected, supported and engaged in their learning.”

Salinas City Elementary School District, which serves around 9,000 students across 15 schools, saw its absenteeism rate drop from nearly 38% in 2021-22 to around 22% in 2023-24. The district had the third highest reduction in absenteeism in the county for 2023-24. While the district has had success reducing absenteeism in the years since, the pandemic drastically changed its attendance rate.

In 2018-19, Salinas City Elementary saw only around 4% of its students be chronically absent. In 2019-20, that number was about the same. The next year, during the peak of the pandemic, that number jumped by 34%.

At Monterey Peninsula Unified, the rate dropped from 26.9% in the 2022-23 school year to 16.7% in 2023-24. Due in part to its successes addressing root causes of absenteeism, the district was highlighted in the 2024 Education Recovery Scorecard which tracks post-pandemic recovery across the country.

It wasn’t just California schools struggling to keep students coming to class every day, districts across the country felt the consequences of post-pandemic trends.

Absenteeism post-pandemic nearly doubled nationwide from eight million chronically absent students pre-pandemic to almost 15 million in 2020-21, according to Attendance Works, a state and national non-profit initiative that pushes for policy to improve school attendance.

During the last academic year, Monterey County had the 11th lowest chronic absenteeism rate (16.9%) in California, according to data from the Department of Education.

“The increase in student engagement speaks to the power of strong relationships, clear communication and a deep dedication to student success,” said Guss. “We will continue working together to build on this momentum and keep our students thriving in school.”

Solutions

While the numbers show a steady and successful return to “normal,” the process of intervention and outreach has been long, and at times, expensive.

Monterey Peninsula Unified received a nearly $1.4 million grant from 2024-27 to create support programs aimed at improving student outcomes in part through addressing these root causes of truancy.

Districts have had varying success reducing absenteeism rates from 2021-22 to 2023-24, with those reductions spanning from 3% to 27%. (Graph courtesy of MCOE)

The Promoting Attendance through Collaboration and Compassionate Systems program adopts a non-punitive, evidence-based strategy to tackle the underlying causes of chronic absenteeism.

The district offered telehealth, technical support and enhanced family assistance to families of chronically absent students. A number of video campaigns were also launched to increase family awareness of the challenges students face when chronically absent.

It also launched the EveryDay Labs pilot, enabling school leaders to monitor attendance and provide resources directly to families whose children missed school often. The district reported significant decreases in absenteeism at the five participating schools.

EveryDay Labs also sends out regular messages to parents reminding them of the importance of having their kids in class as much as possible. It’s important to the district that these messages are “compassionate and thoughtful” instead of making families feel like they’re in trouble, said Crawford.

Salinas City Elementary was one of four districts chosen in 2023 to participate in the Research-Practice Partnership, a collaborative effort between MCOE, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence and Attendance Works. The partnership focused on the underlying factors contributing to absenteeism and developed strategies to combat negative trends.

Among the district’s efforts were home visits, tackling transportation issues, food insecurity and health concerns, enriching school culture through increased activities and celebrations and providing families with regular communication and multilingual resources.

The MCOE focused on fostering a sense of belonging to enhance attendance, promoting understanding of procedures and strengthening communication and trust between educators and families, according to Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Caryn Lewis.

A classroom at Marina Vista Elementary Arts Academy sits empty as the school transitionsed to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Monterey Herald file)

Through the Research-Practice Partnership, Salinas City Elementary met with the county office and other districts to determine actionable steps for how to move forward as a county, according to Director of Pupil Services Esteban Hernandez.

The task force met several times a year and inspired the district’s own taskforce consisting of site leaders, counselors and the clerical staff that work directly with families, said Hernandez. Together, the group has been meeting regularly to discuss the best practices for continued communication of the importance of daily attendance.

Looking ahead

Going forward, the only way to make sure chronic absenteeism doesn’t spike again is to keep doing the things that have worked so far, said Crawford.

Monterey Peninsula Unified is planning to hire attendance intervention specialists to work directly with families, according to Crawford. The specialists will conduct home visits and ongoing communication throughout the community.

The PACCS grant will also allow the district to offer telehealth services to students in schools and at home to ensure students are back at their desks as soon as possible.

The Salinas City Elementary task force is currently working on its attendance campaign for the 2025-26 school year.

“It has to be a community effort,” said Hernandez. “It has to be on everyone’s mind.”

The district is also using data to pinpoint at-risk students and work on drawing on the relationships between students, families and site staff to ensure kids feel comfortable and excited to come to school.

One of these strategies is to make sure students who aren’t connected or engaged spend 10 minutes a day, 10 days in a row,  building a connection with staff. The importance of these connections, says Hernandez, can’t be underestimated.

“You build that connection until we see them become more consistent and stable with their attendance and engagement,” said Hernandez. “We have schools that are implementing that and basically it is all hands on deck, whoever can be part of it.”