September is Attendance Awareness Month, and local organization, Attendance Matters Louisiana is starting the conversation on how chronic absenteeism can affect our students in their learning journeys.

We sat down with Founder/CEO Terrie Sterling to learn more about the organization and how its helping to reduce chronic absenteeism in our community.

Q: What inspired you to start Attendance Matters Louisiana?
Terrie Sterling: I’m a nurse by original education and training, and I worked a lot during my tenure at Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital. When we opened the dedicated facility across Essen Lane, we began to visit children and families and understand how healthcare sometimes impacts attendance. As I did a little more research, particularly in children and the elementary-school ages, health-related challenges are one of the number one causes of absenteeism. 

There’s a lot of focus on truancy, which is really about unexcused absence and children who sometimes are unwilling to attend school, versus there’s not a lot of focus on chronic absenteeism. What are the key drivers? How do we begin to solve for that? 

Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% of school. It’s about 15 days a year, and there’s a strong correlation with a child who meets that threshold. That learning loss is happening and there will be long-term consequences, because we know that attending school is an essential component to academic and social skills and the foundational skills for children.

Q: What are the main causes of chronic absenteeism?
Sterling There are a myriad of reasons. There’s this new casual nature of school, and particularly in younger children, there is a sense that maybe kindergarten and first grade isn’t essential. That’s where some of the work I’m starting is, an awareness campaign that attending school every day is really important, and that attending school K-3 is as important as any other grade. We know that [during] middle school years, they’re lots of challenges around middle school kids and bullying and peer pressure. Sometimes bullying is a reason [they] don’t attend school, or there’s not a safe path for [them] to walk to school in some urban areas.

Q: Does bullying play a significant role in absenteeism?
Sterling: it’s one of the drivers. A safe environment of getting to school is often a reason. One of the things we focus with parents on is if your child is showing signs of “I’ve been interested in school, and all of a sudden I’m not interested in school,” and understanding, is there an underlying mental health issue? Is there bullying going on? Is there something in the education environment that is causing a disconnect? More so than just thinking, “Oh, he may be tired.” When you see a difference in behavior around a child who, in the past, has been attentive to school and had great fidelity to school, then you begin to see different patterns.

Q: What are the biggest challenges in reducing chronic absenteeism?
Sterling: The first challenge is separating truancy from chronic absenteeism. Then, we need to address and understand that poverty is sometimes correlated with chronic absenteeism. According to The Louisiana Department of Education and other parts of our country, chronic absenteeism is defined as missing up to 10% of the school year. Caregivers, and especially those who work around children, need to come up with a solution. For instance, limiting children’s doctors appointments during school hours is a great way to limit the number of absences the child accumulates throughout the school year. 

And empowering parents, even when I’m given the time and the doctor says, “How about 11 o’clock on Tuesday?” Empowering parents to be able to say, “Jack will be at school and I will be at work, is there a way that we can come the next holiday? On this day? Or is it possible to combine this visit and x’s visit with the two doctors so that we can come one day, so it’s not two days?” The next piece is just awareness that school every day is important, and you have the power as a parent to advocate for your child so that they can be in school.

For more information, visit attendancemattersla.org.