NYC to overhaul attendance rules, requiring a ‘school avoidance liaison’ at every school

“Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox. To address New York City’s stubbornly high rates of chronic absenteeism, the Education Department is proposing to overhaul its attendance regulations for the first time in nearly a decade. One big change : Starting in September, every school must have a “school avoidance liaison.” The city is requiring schools to designate a staffer — a teacher, administrator, social worker or guidance counselor — who will receive training on school avoidance and join their school’s attendance committee, which meets weekly to tackle student absences. The Panel for Educational Policy is expected to vote Wednesday on the proposal. Students who are school avoidant, or who exhibit school “refusal” as it’s sometimes called, might be unable to attend school for large stretches of time due to social or emotional disabilities, such as severe anxiety or depression. As they fall behind academically, it can be even harder to get them back to school. Researchers estimate between 1% and 15% of children exhibit school refusal . Experts say that it tends to be more difficult for school-avoidant children to return to school after periods of transition or prolonged closures. And parents and educators believe the problem was exacerbated when school buildings opened after the pandemic forced buildings to close for remote learning. Education Department officials declined to say how many of the city’s roughly 33% chronically absent students are avoiding school because of social or emotional issues. “By strengthening training and coordination at the school level, we are providing staff with additional tools to work closely with students and families, address concerns early, and connect them with appropriate interventions and resources,” Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said in a statement. The nation’s largest school system has lacked official guidance on how to respond to students struggling with school refusal, as Chalkbeat previously reported. That has led to an uneven response from the city’s nearly 1,600 schools. Some schools might follow the gold standard for care, forming deep partnerships with families, customizing programs to slowly get kids back in the doors, and finding accommodations such as lightening the homework load. Other schools have left families to fend for themselves — or even involved child protective services when students fail to attend regularly. A class action lawsuit filed last year claimed the Education Department was systematically failing to provide equal access to education for students with disabilities who were chronically absent. The city lacked a policy to track, evaluate, and get school-avoidant students back in school, the suit charged. Education Department officials did not respond to questions about the lawsuit, but attorneys who filed it said they were continuing to hash out a settlement with the city. “While we are still working to settle the lawsuit, DOE’s new proposal to add a trained liaison at every school is a crucial step toward helping students with school avoidance,” said Susan Horwitz, supervising attorney of the Legal Aid Society’s Education Law Project . Advocates says struggling students need more intensive support Having a liaison, however, may not be enough to address the needs of some students struggling with school refusal, some experts and advocates say. Maleeha Chida, an attorney who is an Equal Justice Works Fellow at Advocates for Children , said the city should continue to explore additional avenues to help students, such as creating flexible school schedules, connecting them to mental health providers, and hiring trained behavioral specialists to coordinate plans to gradually re-reintroduce students to the classroom. “Students who are facing school avoidance require significant supports and interventions to be able to return to school, and much more will be needed to address the needs of this student population,” Chida wrote in an email. School avoidance often is not something that happens suddenly, said Jenn Choi, a special education consultant . It might start with a student making frequent trips to the nurse’s office because of stomach aches, asking to go home early, or missing one day then going in the next before stopping for longer stretches. “How much time would this person use for preventing and not just treating the problem?” Choi asked. Anne Marie Albano , the director of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders , said confronting school avoidance is rarely a one-size-fits-all approach and echoed the importance of intervening early as well as working with a child’s family. It’s also critical to do a “school climate” evaluation to understand what staffers can do to make the environment “more welcoming,” Albano said. “It’s a multi-level intervention that has to take into account the [child’s] development, the environmental issues, and the family issues, as well as, what are the schools’ resources, and what are the limitations,” she said. A student, for instance, might need resources, such as getting access to transportation for therapy. Or if a relative is ill at home, the child might be worried to leave them, Albano said. “You’ve got to think about what else we have to do to help the systems the child is involved in, so the child can learn how to thrive,” she said. Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org .

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