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More Than 2,000 NYC Students Haven't Connected With School At All This Year, Officials Say
By
Sophia Chang
Published Jan 21, 2021
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By
Sophia Chang
Published Jan 21, 2021
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Thousands of New York City public school students have completely dropped off the radar this school year, according to a Department of Education official speaking at a City Council hearing Wednesday.
“To date, we're at around 2,600 students that are still being pursued. And we're looking into social workers, attendance teachers and school personnel to locate and to ensure that students become connected (and) logged on,” said First Deputy Schools Chancellor Donald Conyers at the Council’s Committee on Education hearing.
The DOE could not immediately provide data on which students are missing. The current number of students "not engaged" with either remote learning or in-person school was 2,260 students, including children who left the school district and are in the process of discharging their enrollment, the DOE said Thursday.
“Our goal is to have every student attend school every day, and school staff conduct calls home, send emails, mail letters, get in touch with friends, perform home visits, monitor trends in attendance data, and conduct wellness checks to remove any barriers to participation. Many of these students are currently being discharged from enrollment, a process that takes time, requires documentation, and involves families," said Nathaniel Styer, spokesperson for the DOE, in an email. "Every year there are students who do not show up for instruction, but that does not stop us from quickly and urgently addressing issues of absenteeism so all students are maximally engaging.”
While the missing students are a small fraction of the estimated 1.1 million students enrolled in New York City’s public schools, advocates say these are likely the most at-risk students who need support systems offered in school the most during the pandemic.
“The stakes really couldn't be higher," said Michelle Yanche, the Executive Director of Good Shepherd Services, which is one of the city’s largest youth services providers. "I mean that you have the double impact of both the disconnection from education, and just what that is going to mean for the young person, in terms of losing precious ground during this time, but also just the isolation that comes with the pandemic, and all of the ways -- some extraordinarily scary -- of what that could mean for a young person."
Students not only receive education from schools, but a range of developmental, social and supportive services as well, she said -- services that are even more necessary during the trauma and stress of the pandemic.
“We need to be attentive to and worried about the young person being disconnected from peers, from developmental activities, from support that would ordinarily be part of their lives,” Yanche said.
The pandemic has affected attendance at schools nationwide, a metric frequently used as a key predictor of student achievement. Studies show students who miss class are far less likely to graduate from high school. The pandemic has also exacerbated inequities in absenteeism: Preliminary data from Connecticut and California have shown that Black and Latino students, poor students, English Language Learners, students with disabilities, and homeless students have had substantially lower attendance rates than white or more affluent peers.
When students leave school, they’re not just falling behind for that year, according to Hedy Chang, the Executive Director and President of the national advocacy group Attendance Works. They’re also eroding the foundation of how their education builds.
“What we know is that the key to addressing learning losses is starting early to prevent it, to investing in making sure kids develop the fundamental skills that they need to learn,” Chang said in a phone interview. “It gets more and more expensive if those issues are unaddressed while kids are young, and you don't catch them till much later, because then you're talking about much more costly remediation...the school systems aren't aimed at helping kids catch up. They assume kids have gone to school to achieve a certain level of learning, and then they can go on and proceed with the next set of learning tasks for next year. And so when kids lose out and they're among our youngest kids, it really has a huge impact on their ability to learn and thrive and succeed.”
The DOE said it uses a "tiered response strategy" to address chronic absenteeism, including deploying "centrally-based attendance teachers who specialize in making contact with severely chronically absent students and help remove barriers to participation. As a very last resort, referrals can be made to the State Central Registry for follow up by Child Protective Services."
Yanche called for the city to immediately track down the missing students, starting with home visits and connecting with the city's Administration for Children's Services or community providers -- strategies the DOE said it already employs. Identifying the causes of the disconnect will be key, according to Yanche.
“In these situations you need someone to go to the home to really assess what the situation is and immediately start helping to bring resources to bear. In some cases it may be as simple as a laptop or, or a hotspot,” Yanche said.
And the issue of engagement isn’t limited to students who are disconnected, Yanche said. Even students who are logging on for school aren't necessarily learning. “We know they're not really engaged, and they're losing ground, they're just really not on the radar about what's happening,” she said, adding, “this is a central concern for us.”
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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