ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Allentown School District will spend the next six months investigating the causes of chronic absenteeism and developing strategies to combat it through a national program.
ASD was chosen as one of 19 school districts across the United States to participate in the Chronic Absenteeism: Insights and Innovations program, according to a news release from the district. The initiative is run by Digital Promise, a global education nonprofit, and starts this month.
Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10 percent or more of total school days.
According to a report from the American Enterprise Institute, the rate of chronic absenteeism nationwide surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and is just slowly beginning to decrease.
Researchers estimate it may take until about 2030 for absenteeism to fall enough to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Allentown schools experienced the same attendance struggles seen across the country.
In 2023-24, 7,135 ASD students were chronically absent. That was 36.7% of the student body, which at the time was 19,446 students. That percentage is 10.6 points higher than the chronic absenteeism rate in 2018-19 before the pandemic began.
Through the Chronic Absenteeism: Insights and Innovations program, ASD will work with Digital Promise’s Center for Inclusive Innovation, which helps educators, students, families and communities find solutions to complex challenges.
The center will support ASD through “rigorous research, district-community collaboration and multitiered approaches,” according to the news release.
“As outlined in our new Strategic Plan, one of our goals is to increase the number of students who attend school each day, this gives the Allentown School District the opportunity to join a group of forward-thinking, innovative leaders to define strategies to address a nationwide challenge in education.”Carol Birks
The Center for Inclusive Innovation will also connect ASD with leaders who have implemented impactful attendance tactics.
“We are thrilled to have been selected as a part of this diverse cohort in order to reduce chronic absenteeism in our District,” Superintendent Carol Birks said in a statement included in the same news release.
“As outlined in our new Strategic Plan, one of our goals is to increase the number of students who attend school each day,” she said. “This gives the Allentown School District the opportunity to join a group of forward-thinking, innovative leaders to define strategies to address a nationwide challenge in education.”
The district will develop an action plan by November that’s tailored to addressing chronic absenteeism in ASD.
