Educators say chronic absenteeism still plaguing New York City public schools
NEW YORK -- Hundreds of thousands of New York City students missed more than a dozen days of school this year due to COVID-19, and it's prompting fears that they will fall even further behind.
CBS2's Aundrea Cline-Thomas has more on what one school did to get students back to class.
Jaden Bruno is now back on track at A-Tech Public High School in Brooklyn, but the disruptions caused by the pandemic took their toll.
"You're home and the only type of thoughts you can have is negative thoughts because you have family members dying. You have friends dying," Bruno said.
The loss of both his aunt and uncle hit hard, and Bruno admits to becoming less engaged during remote learning, as he started oversleeping.
"Some part of my mind knew that I was doing that on purpose a little bit because at 10:15 a.m. my English class started. That was like my favorite class, the only class I really cared to go to," Bruno said.
At one point, he stopped logging on all together, opting instead to play video games.
"I feel like having the game in front of me just distracted me a lot and it was one of the main reasons I didn't come to school a lot when it came to going online. Or if I did go to school, I just wouldn't pay attention online," Bruno said.
He wasn't alone. Student absenteeism across the district was only magnified by the pandemic.
Principal Dr. Neil Harris says punishment was not the answer.
"We had to do some reimagining about what school would look like," Harris said.
The in-school suspension room was transformed into a healing center -- a Zen space for students and staff to decompress with counselors and social workers.
And a food pantry helps address the financial hardships many of the families are experiencing.
Still, in the fall more than 40 percent of students did not return in person, prompting staff to call them and their families daily.
"It's very easy to be very judgmental and (say) you need to come to school and have that attitude, but it's another thing when people say, 'Are you OK? What can we do to make sure you're OK?'" Harris said.
"We are seeing at least a doubling of chronic absence nationwide," said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works.
Chronic absenteeism refers to missing at least 18 days of school. By April, it applied to 37 percent of New York City public school students.
That's more than 300,000 kids.
The surge of the Delta and Omicron variants and safety concerns were major factors.
"If we're not asking the right questions right now, what do you think the impact will be down the line?" Cline-Thomas asked.
"I'm worried that in a couple of years, we're not even talking five to 10 years, you're going to see a huge increase in the number of kids who have dropped out from high school," Chang said. "You could have lots of kids who are not reading by the end of third grade."
At A-Tech High School, the attendance rate now hovers around 87 percent. Bruno said he couldn't wait to return in person, he says, thanks to a teacher who stuck by him.
"Coming back in the building felt amazing. Like, all my grades went up. My attendance was higher," Bruno said.
Because experts say before you can teach a child, you have to reach them by any means possible.
"This is not just pandemic work now. We've learned. This has to be infused into our culture," Harris said.
Educators are going beyond the classroom to meet students' most pressing needs.
The Department of Education has partnered with community groups to help with attendance efforts.