Teachers struggle with students’ high absenteeism rates and frequent illness.

As absenteeism remains high post-pandemic, teachers simultaneously struggle with supporting student populations experiencing absenteeism and resisting schools’ pressure for sick students to come to school. Many conversations bubbled up in response to the NYT article, “Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere.”

Sample Educator Conversations

  • Teachers describe how high absenteeism rates detract from their teaching, day in and day out, with chronic absenteeism contributing to burnout and detracting from student learning.

Teachers report feeling exhausted from constantly “adjusting/pivoting mid-lesson to create time to support students who come back from being absent” and lament that “too many students are in catch-up mode.” Some teachers share ways they’ve adjusted their curriculum to anticipate absences.”

  • Teachers respond to a viral article, “Is a Sick Kid Better Than an Absent Kid?” arguing that (1) chronic absenteeism is usually not a result of illness, (2) these policies are dangerous to all students, (3) these policies pressure families to send very sick students to school. 
    • At the same time, teachers report seeing higher illness rates in both teachers and students since the pandemic.