State, town leaders address ways to combat absenteeism in Rhode Island

NORTH PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Rhode Island and North Providence town leaders met Thursday morning to discuss ways to combat an ongoing issue: chronic absenteeism.

Gov. Dan McKee, Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, and town leaders, including Mayor Charlie Lombardi, gathered at Stephen Olney Elementary School.

They spoke about efforts to keep children in school, incentives, and improved data tools.

According to the Department of Education, “chronic absenteeism” is defined as missing 18 days of school in a school year. Officials said 85% of high school dropouts are chronically absent.

Rhode Island leaders speak on chronic absenteeism at Stephen Olney Elementary School in North Providence, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. (WLNE)

Rhode Island has seen a drop in almost 8,000 chronically absent students in the past year. The number of students who are consistently missing school, though, is still far higher than it was pre-pandemic.

During the 2022-2023 school year, 38,892 students were chronically absent in Rhode Island.

In 2021-2022, more than 46,000 students were chronically absent.

While the drop in the number of students missing school is an improvement, it’s still far higher than 2019’s number of 25,976.

To further push the initiative of attendance in schools, RIDE made school attendance data available to the public.

That includes real-time attendance numbers in schools, as well as breakdowns of attendance by towns, neighborhoods, ages, and ethnicities.