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Indiana’s rate of chronic absenteeism among K-12 students peaked in 2022 at 21.1% and while the rate has fallen since, it remained at 17.8% in 2024. (Photo/Pexels.com)

This story was originally published by TheStatehouseFile.com

By DeMarion Newell
The StatehouseFile.com
January 24, 2025

Indiana’s absenteeism rate for the 2023-2024 school year was 17.8%, meaning nearly one in five students missed at least 10% of school days, or about three and a half weeks.

Senate Bill 482, authored by Sen. Stacey Donato, R-Logansport, and Sen. Linda Rogers, R-Granger, aim to improve those statistics, defining “chronically absent” among other provisions.

In a Senate Education and Career Development Committee meeting Wednesday, Donato charged the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) with trying to get some good information statewide on why children are not in school.

“Once we have that data, I think we can take it and use it wisely and move things forward,” she said.

The bill would charge IDOE with creating a system to differentiate between excused and unexcused absences, collect absence data from schools, and report the collected information. Schools would then adopt policies based on that framework.

That data would be given to the Legislative Council by July 1. The council decides what subjects the General Assembly studies over the summer.

IDOE data for the 2024 school year, which stated 17.8% of students were chronically absent, was lower than the previous school year by 1.4%.

The bill would allow prosecutors to hold meetings before taking legal action against habitual truants. The definition of “absent student” would be updated for truancy prevention. Public schools would hold an attendance conference within 10 instructional days after a student’s fifth absence. Lastly, schools could not expel students just for being chronically absent or habitually truant.

After Donato was done speaking about the meaning behind the bill, Sen. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, thanked her.

“I think a lot of what you are adopting in this bill is what we heard in the summer committee about this,” he said. “We weren’t working with the definition of absenteeism. Some schools were putting reasons and some weren’t. So it was kind of comparing apples to oranges.”

He also liked her provision about the prosecutor being able to intervene before and after the meeting with the student and the student’s family.

“I think the meeting could wake everybody up,” Ford said.

Seven people came to testify on the bill.

Cindy Long serves as assistant executive director for the Indiana Association of School Principals and expressed her support for much of SB 482, but she had concerns with some language in the bill.

“The emphasis on ensuring students are present in school we know is paramount to their success,” she said. “We appreciate the provision granting schools five additional days to hold attendance conferences as this extension will allow for more meaningful discussions and the opportunity to coordinate wrap-around services that can significantly improve a student’s likelihood of attending school regularly.”

Long and her association had some worries about the language that prohibits schools from using expulsion solely based on attendance because she said there are rare cases where it will be an appropriate course of action.

“For example, when a student is deliberately absent despite extensive interventions, including calls and meetings with parents and prosecution,” she said. “Our principals report that expulsion and, more importantly, the expulsion process may be a necessary consequence for students.”

Long thought missing significant instruction can make earning academic credit in a high-school situation unattainable.

“Reintroducing these students to a general classroom can disrupt the learning environment and create challenges for peers and teachers alike,” she said. “With that being said, perhaps a modification would be to amend the language to reflect application of expulsion consequence to students only earning high-school credit. Although expulsion based solely on attendance is an uncommon occurrence, the mere possibility of this consequence serves as a powerful motivator for both parents and students.”

Donato responded, “I’m willing to go work with you on the language.”

John O’Neal, a policy researcher and lobbyist for the Indiana State Teachers Association, said he believes this is a great start following up on last year’s work.

“This is going to be something that’s ongoing as we’ve seen the data. It’s like a third … or about a quarter or so of our Hoosier kids are missing schools at a higher, like, alarming rate,” he said.

“Sometimes it just takes resources, support, money, parents and teachers, and communities.”

Robert Taylor, executive director of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, indicated his organization’s support of the bill and acknowledged Donato for her hard work.

“She has taken the time and the effort to understand that chronic absenteeism is a critically complex issue. It’s not I’m not in school, I mark you absent, you’re done. The elements that go into absenteeism are broad and wide ranging, and what she has done with the language in this bill has looked at how do we find the transparency and complexity of absenteeism,” he said.

“We can gain a better understanding of why students don’t come to school. We can speculate, we can blame every other element in a child’s day, but in reality, we really don’t know the complexities, family, social/emotional, academic, hunger. They’re there.”

Taylor thinks this bill is making Indiana a leader in understanding the core of the problem.

“Once we have that, this bill is not just a one and done, this bill will continue to grow,” he said.

“There are a number of different answers to why we have absenteeism and there are even more suggestions how we can fix it, but until we know why, until we know what motivates, what activates students and parents and communities and educators, we are really continuing the same battle.”

The bill wasn’t voted on in the committee but will be brought back up for voting next week.

DeMarion Newell is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

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