Hartford Schools Report - HPS Chronic Absenteeism Resumes Upward Trend

HPS Chronic Absenteeism Resumes Upward Trend

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) - formerly known as the No Child Left Behind Act - requires school districts to report data on chronic absenteeism. If not for this federal law, Hartford residents would most likely know as much about HPS’ attendance problem as they do about the Superintendent’s performance evaluation.

Under ESSA, states were also required to select “five indicators measuring school performance.” Thirty-six states chose chronic absenteeism as one of their five indicators of a successful Superintendent…rather, a successful school system. Connecticut was one of the 36, thereby obliging HPS to present chronic absenteeism data, and probably ruing that decision by the state.

At the Board of Education’s Regular Meeting this past week, Superintendent Torrez-Rodriguez presented to an uninterested Hartford residency, the trail of chronic absenteeism from the beginning of the school year to the middle of this month.

Although the data for September and October of 2022 as currently stated, differs from that shown during a BOE Workshop Meeting on November 1, 2022, we’ll go with what the Superintendent would like us to go with at the moment, just to align our process with how the BOE works with the Superintendent.

As one of the best measures of student success and school quality, chronic absenteeism data currently provided by HPS reveals that success and quality are features becoming more and more out of reach for Hartford students under the leadership of the current Superintendent and BOE.

The image below was presented by the Superintendent at the BOE meeting. After 4 consecutive months of increased chronic absenteeism to begin the school year, a one-month correction has the chronic absenteeism rate heading in the wrong direction once again. Chronic absenteeism in HPS is 9% higher that it was to start the year, and the number is still 13% higher than it was 2 years before COVID.

For a more positive outlook, HPS’ chronic absenteeism rate is currently 8% lower than it was last year overall, when strategically trained HPS personnel jumped on to their LINK scooters and went on a missing student roundup as part of the LEAP program. We can only wonder where the LEAP-ers were at the beginning of this school year as chronic absenteeism was climbing 12% over 4 months.

For many school districts, COVID will be the go-to crutch in answer to all sorts of educational issues for many years to come. Vice-Presidents wish they could remain significant for such a time. How well is HPS doing on the comeback trail in regard to chronic absenteeism?

For a more positive outlook, HPS’ chronic absenteeism rate is currently 8% lower than it was last year overall, when strategically trained HPS personnel jumped on to their LINK scooters and went on a missing student roundup as part of the LEAP program. We can only wonder where the LEAP-ers were at the beginning of this school year as chronic absenteeism was climbing 12% over 4 months.

For many school districts, COVID will be the go-to crutch in answer to all sorts of educational issues for many years to come. Vice-Presidents wish they could remain significant for such a time. How well is HPS doing on the comeback trail in regard to chronic absenteeism?

Aside from “structural issues,” the Superintendent will point to the large number of special needs students in Hartford as attributing to the HPS low level of recovery from COVID, an additional hurdle that other districts do not have to contend with, she will often state.

However, data matters, or when in Maine, data “matas.” The data here in Connecticut shows that special education students are doing better on the road to recovery than the HPS student body as a whole. Interestingly, in the context of special education students, there are 7 districts in Connecticut where the chronic absenteeism rate is lower than where it was 4 years ago.

When controlling for special education students, HPS’ chronic absenteeism rate is 20.9 percentage points higher in 2021-22 than it was in 2017-2018, compared with the average Connecticut school district of + 10.28 percentage points. HPS is 11th worst in the state when controlling for special education students.

When we look at the “high needs” group, which includes students on free/reduced lunch, English language learners, and students with disabilities, this group by itself is similar to the entire HPS student body when looking at chronic absenteeism numbers. Since the majority of HPS students are placed in one of the subgroups of high needs students by the district, we expect this to be the case.

In 2021-22, the chronic absenteeism rate of high needs students in HPS was 21.6 percentage points higher than where they stood in 2017-18, versus the state school district average of 13.4. The entire HPS student body, as mentioned earlier, had numbers of 20.7 with a district average of 10.4.

The chronic absenteeism rate for HPS high needs students is 8% higher than the state-wide district average, with 20 districts recovering slower than HPS, and 120 districts’ high needs students improving their chronic absenteeism rate faster than HPS.

When controlling for high needs students, in the context of chronic absenteeism, we get the table below:

This table shows that students in HPS who are not labeled special education or high needs, are recovering more slowly from the pandemic recess, in terms of chronic absenteeism, than 105 other Connecticut districts.

Thus, using one of Connecticut’s chosen major indicators of school performance, chronic absenteeism, HPS’ educational performance under the current administration’s “strategic operating plan” and “district model of excellence” mantra, should not be seen as meeting even the most conservative of expectations.