The Doubling of Students with Chronic Absenteeism: Analysis and Implications Over Time

• In Event: Politics of Identity-Based Data: Evidence Supporting the Development of a Critical Quantitative Community Data Hub

Abstract

Since the 2011-12 school year, the proportion of students in one Ontario school board with 10% or more absenteeism (traditionally the threshold of high absenteeism) has doubled. This trend is consistent across North America, most noticeably since COVID, and is thought to threaten the post-COVID recovery (see Dee, 2024). Absenteeism is an issue where both home and school have important roles. Chronic absenteeism may be a result of individual factors such as illness, disability, family commitments, and/or individual circumstances requiring a student to miss school. Conversely, it can also be an indicator of structural disengagement, of students’ experience of exclusion in school, resulting in an intentional withdrawal (see Authors, 2020; Santibañez, & Guarino, 2021). The growth of absenteeism has been a gradual process, Canada’s largest school board, although the greatest increases occurred during and immediately after COVID. The increase has been across all grades, from junior kindergarten (JK) to Grade 12. It is at this time unclear whether these absenteeism patterns are permanent, a short-term result of COVID, or some combination. However, it is clear that absenteeism plays a significantly negative role in students’ achievement in school and future academic opportunities.
As we learned throughout the pandemic, the impact of COVID did not affect communities equitably. Students from racialized families, families living in low-income neighbourhoods, in insecure housing or engaged in precarious labour, and families living with disability or chronic illness had higher absenteeism rates prior to COVID, and were far more likely to bear the brunt of COVID, either as a direct result of falling ill or of the subsequent restrictions and lockdowns. (Authors, 2020; Authors, 2013; Hess, 2024; Santibañez, & Guarino, 2021).

Adopting a critical quantitative methodological approach, one that centres the intersectional relationship between systemic racism, classism and ableism, this exploratory analysis will examine yearly trends by grade from 2011-12 through 2022-23 (each year has approximately 240 K students attending Canada’s largest school board) and examine who has been most impacted by this emergent trend. As anticipated, preliminary descriptive statistics have found that students from historically marginalised subgroups had both the highest rate of absenteeism, but also encountered the most barriers in catching up academically. For example, 2022-23 Grade 9 students living in areas of lower income were much more likely to have higher absenteeism rates, compared to students with higher income. But if they had higher absenteeism, they had much lower credit accumulation compared to students living in higher income areas with comparable absenteeism.
It should be noted that absenteeism of almost all income and demographic groups increased noticeably after COVID. One question to consider is whether students' relationships with in-person learning is also shifting, alongside increased access to remote learning through technology.

The analysis will then focus on the relationship of absenteeism and achievement in 2022-23 through a series of logistic regressions, examining who is most impacted by these structural factors and query the reproduction of inequity through the school system’s pandemic response and recovery.

Authors

• Robert Stewart Brown, Toronto District School Board 

• George Tam, Toronto District School Board