COMMUNITY
Bridging the Gap : School Attendance During Unprecedented Times
SARAH BABCOCK Deputy Director , Truancy Intervention Project Sbabcock @ truancyprojcet . org
In April 2020 , as the COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning to upend our lives , Georgia ’ s State Superintendent of Schools , Richard Woods , urged parents , teachers , school officials , and policymakers to adopt an approach of “ compassion over compliance .” Recognizing the profound impact of pandemic-related closures on children ’ s mental health and overall well-being , Superintendent Woods exhorted that success in education during this period should be measured by whether children got through the pandemic healthy , safe , and nurtured , not by test scores , accountability , or percentiles . Almost one year later , the need for compassion over compliance is as great as ever . While some children have been able to return to in-person school , others live with elderly relatives or immunocompromised family members , and cannot risk returning to school in-person . These students ’ families may also be struggling with housing instability and food insecurity as a result of the economic impact of the pandemic , to say nothing of internet connectivity issues or lack of devices for virtual school . Data on school attendance nationwide suggests that these issues are leading children to miss school or fail to complete assignments at much higher rates than before the pandemic . School social workers and community partner organizations such as Truancy Intervention Project ( TIP ) have been working diligently to contact these families and bridge the gap with available resources , but the transiency brought on by the pandemic along with a lack of reliable cell phone service and email makes it hard to reach every family .
To make matters worse , the children most likely to be struggling with school attendance during the pandemic are the very students who need the most support . Data from the online math program Zearn shows that participation in the program among low-income students was 40 % lower than normal in spring 2020 , and had only risen to 15.7 % below normal by November 2020 . Meanwhile , participation among affluent students dipped in the spring but recovered almost completely by fall 2020 , rising to just 1.7 % below normal participation rates .
Faced with this widening educational equity gap , what can attorneys do to help ? As a first step , we need to help students re-engage with school , either virtually or in-person . In the short-term , TIP is always looking for volunteers to partner with our families to offer encouragement , support , and referrals to concrete resources in the community to provide the foundation needed to ensure regular school attendance . Because the pandemic ’ s economic effects have devastated the families TIP serves , our clients need food , school supplies , and computers or tablets for schoolwork . TIP staff distribute in-kind donations of these items to our families on a regular basis .
Looking ahead to the 2021-22 school year , students and their families will have lost many of the routines and habits essential for regular school attendance , in addition to dealing with the trauma of losing family and community members to COVID-19 . The support of compassionate volunteers will be essential to bridging the gap for these families and providing the resources needed to help children re-engage with school . Compassion over compliance must remain the guiding principle in these efforts , but we cannot risk becoming complacent in the face of these challenges . Georgia ’ s schoolchildren have too much to lose .
If you are interested in volunteering with TIP , please join us at our next training , to be held virtually on March 18 .
CONTACT : ADRIAN WRIGHT Volunteer & Training Manager Awright @ truancyproject . org
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