Absenteeism is an issue that has affected all public schools across the nation. There are multiple reasons for this, but one of them was because of a certain virus. The COVID-19 virus, and the havoc it caused across the country. The New York Times has provided us with important data, from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the absentee rate from students in the U.S. has gone from 13% in 2019-2020 to 26% in 2022-2023. That’s a 13% increase nationwide in just three years.
But COVID isn’t the only thing that’s causing absenteeism to rise all over the country, there’s multiple reasons as to why. Some of these reasons are bullying, kids getting sick (COVID, viruses, etc), school not being enjoyable, and parents taking vacations when there’s school.
A reason why the absenteeism rate increases in schools is because of the mental health of students. Students have something as important as physical health, and that’s mental health. The mental health of students is essential, if a student’s mental health is good, then they are good. They’ll probably come to school ready to learn, but if the student’s mental health is bad, then they might stop coming to school, and they might potentially develop mental issues like depression or get anxiety and make it worse. If someone has depression and can’t go to school, then that’s bad for both the student and the school. So schools should try and promote better mental health and support students in need of it
Bullying is also a major issue in schools, it can be bad for both the student and the school, and it can also cause an increase in absenteeism and make the school lose money, students would probably not want to go to school where they’re getting bullied every day, so by logic, the absenteeism rate would increase as a result of the bullying. However, when people report someone else for bullying, the bully receives a small consequence or the accusation might be ignored completely. Even if the problem of bullying is solved for a student, the trauma that a student would possibly get from bullying can be horrible and could even be everlasting, and that could lead to some awful things happening, for example, their mental health could deteriorate, and some kids might even harm themselves or worse, hurt others as a result.
The final factor as to why the absenteeism rate increases is the fact that school might not be fun anymore. Most students will probably find school exhausting and not fun, this is because of multiple reasons, like students having more homework than usual or teachers bombarding students with finals and not engaging with the students. But to be fair, the homework in Rosemont isn’t much, but that will depend on the teachers that you get in your two years here at Rosemont. But all this doesn’t mean that Rosemont is boring, there are multiple events that one might be able to attend during their stay here, but as of now most events are done since it’s nearing the end of the school year, some of these events were the two school dances that happened at the beginning and the end of the school year, the 8th-grade trip to universal, lunch on the lawn, and more!
There are still more reasons why absenteeism increases, including kids getting sick/Covid. During Covid, the absenteeism rate probably increased even more than usual since fewer kids attended online school, which lowered the amount of money that the school receives and the education that kids receive from the school. So, one question that you might be interested in is how much money does the school lose when a student decides to stay home or not to come to school? Ms. Curtis, an English teacher at Rosemont who is climbing a huge mountain to get a school administration degree, told us, “The school loses 68$ for every student that doesn’t come to school.”
So, as we have stated, absenteeism is a huge issue in Rosemont, but the real question is how do schools solve or reduce this issue? Mr. Laing, an assistant principal at Rosemont says, “At Rosemont, we’re hoping to add next year some attendance incentives and programs to help excite kids about being at school and to have good attendance.” Now, the big question comes in, how do we solve this absenteeism issue? We have seen how the school might try to solve this issue but there are other ways to solve this, one of these is to add new programs as the school might try to do. You could also communicate with others more about their absenteeism as their counselor, friend, or teacher. However, schools could also take more incentives to prevent bullying, since it seems like bullying occurs quite a lot in middle schools and raises absenteeism rates, schools could also try to raise more attention to absenteeism, but not too much to make some kids uncomfortable.
