The Calgary Board of Education said overall attendance rates are up across the board, which the district said is a key predictor of learning excellence.
According to the CBE’s Annual Education Results Report (AERR), students were absent 11.7 per cent of the time in the 2023-2024 school year. This is 0.7 percentage points lower than the 2022-2023 school year, which saw 12.4 per cent absenteeism.
Students who are English As Additional Language Learners (EALs) were absent around 11.4 per cent of the time in the 2023-2024 school year, while those with special education needs were absent 15.6 per cent of the time.
Mike Nelson, a superintendent of school improvement, said the overall improvement in attendance rates indicates that current processes for addressing student absenteeism are providing positive outcomes. According to the AERR, the CBE’s Attendance Team supported 174 schools with 658 students experiencing attendance concerns, the report said. Less than 10 per cent of students who were consulted needed additional intervention through the Provincial Attendance Board.
Nelson also said that the improvement is a key indicator of learning excellence at the CBE. According to the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. students who attend school regularly have been shown to achieve at higher levels compared with peers who chronically miss school. Kindergartners who constantly miss school were associated with greater absenteeism in subsequent years and lower achievement in reading math and general knowledge. Children with higher levels of absenteeism throughout their childhood also have higher high school dropout rates.
A 2023 study published in Frontiers In Education also suggests that chronic absenteeism is associated with deficits in academic and social-emotional functioning and the effects can last several years.
“We, of course, will continue monitoring attendance data and collaboration with students, parents, community partners, and this will help build to the success,” he told trustees at a Nov. 26 board meeting.
However, Grade 10 to 12 students continued to see the highest rates of absenteeism. More than six per cent of these students were missing more than half of their high school classes, and many were absent for reasons that aren’t clear because the school didn’t receive contact from legal guardians.
Grades 1 to 3 and Grades 4 to 6 students tend to miss less school than Grade 7 to 9 and Grade 10 to 12 students, the report added.
Jennifer Turner, another superintendent of school improvement, said the district will continue to work with parents to drive home the importance of regular school attendance.
“We know that we do have robust processes in our schools. They may work with our Attendance Team, but [mostly] through our assistant principals, guidance counselors and teachers,” she said.
“If a student misses a certain number of days, [Attendance Team members] either connect with that independent student or their parent and if it continues, they use guidance counselors to try to leverage those relationships to improve attendance.”
Turner also noted that students with identified special education needs are often absent from school due to medical appointments, treatment and therapy outside of the school environment. Staff are working with families to better understand the reason for the absence and the duration of the absence, as well as making plans to ensure that the student can keep up with school work during their absence.
“We are not aware of any legal concerns as a result of [the absence] not being identified, although school staff do take a consistent relational approach with those families to ensure that we are understanding and finding ways to pull them back prior to moving forward through the more formalized attendance process,” she added.
