HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — “No-show” students have been an issue the Guam Department of Education has dealt with for a couple of years. Although the number of these consistently absent students has decreased, GDOE still has not been able to make contact with 174 students.
At the start of the school year, school officials reported that 864 public school students were habitually absent; many of them never having set foot on campus.
Superintendent of Operations Erika Cruz said school resource officers and social workers partnered to attempt to make contact with all students.
Now, three months into the school year, Cruz said 174 students remain unaccounted for, despite GDOE’s efforts.
“Meaning we actually went to their homes and they were not there. That’s 17%,” Cruz said. Some of the students officials were able to contact were either 18 years old and didn’t want to return to school, or the students had moved off island.
Superintendent Jon Fernandez emphasized that school resource officers made every effort to contact the 174 students.
“It’s not just that the SRO went one time to the home and found they were not there and checked them off the list,” Fernandez said. “Usually we have contact information at the school sites. Sometimes it’s old information and SROs are able to go into PowerSchool system to look and see if there is any other sibling’s information or potential contact to try to make that contact prior to home visits.”
When a home visit yields no results, SROs will check with the student’s neighbors.
“Just to get a better sense, to see if maybe they are just gone during that time of the day or haven’t been seen in that area for a while,” Fernandez said.
GDOE taps into all contacts available to try to connect with the students’ families.
“There is an emergency form and on that emergency form there are relatives that they list in the event there is an emergency and we are not able to contact their parents. We utilize those numbers as well,” Cruz said.
For students GDOE has been able to reestablish contact with, officials said fear of Covid-19 transmission was the primary reason given for students’ habitual absence.
GDOE is working closely with these students to enroll them in the remote model of learning and providing the necessary technology to participate.
Lingering challenge
No-show students have been a challenge for GDOE officials since the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted education.
“For the past two years that has been a challenge because of the various models of learning, shutdowns and trying to reconnect with students in trying to bring them back to school. So the last two years that number has been high. Eight hundred this year, and even more – we were over 2,000 last year,” Fernandez said.
“Again, 2,000 students that couldn’t come to school and we couldn’t send our teams to their homes because it was the height of that particular surge.”
Although students within the compulsory age range are required by law to attend school, the legal ramifications are not enforced because of the governor’s suspension of the truancy law in light of Covid-19.
GDOE may not be able to take parents to court now, but education officials continue to track student absences and exhaust all measures to make contact with families.
Prior to the pandemic, two things would happen when a student was habitually absent.
“One, students are required to come to school and if they fail to come to school, attendance is taken, and if there are chronic absences being detected that’s when progressive interventions takes place, including planning a truancy case,” Fernandez said.
“In a normal year, if a school administrator or teacher notices that a particular student starts to accumulate unexcused absences three, six, nine, 12 and above, there’s various steps of intervention to address those students.”
‘It’s been difficult’
The suspension of the truancy law means parents are not being held accountable for student attendance.
Officials noted that the challenges of the pandemic have compounded the issue.
“It’s been difficult these two years. People are transient, people become homeless because they’ve lost their jobs and whatnot, so it’s very difficult to locate them,” Cruz said.
GDOE officials were clear that making contact with no-show students and their families is not punitive, but instead, is to provide families support to get the students back in school.
“To find out what is happening and what can we do to address their concerns so they can return to school,” Cruz said.
On average, 91% to 92% of students do show up for school daily, officials said.
“That’s been consistent over the last five years,” said Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Joseph Sanchez. “So on any given day you’re looking at 10% of the population out for whatever reason. Of course, you will have to break that down if it is habitual or not, but it is taken into account. If they are truant, then it’s still counted as an absence, so anybody who’s just not present in GDOE is counted in the daily student attendance rate.”
Students from Capt. H.B. Price Elementary School are dropped off at their bus stop on Dairy Road in Mangilao on Aug. 13, 2021.
