Distance learning and chronic absence of students. Key concepts and strategies



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During the coronavirus pandemic, daily attendance and monitoring, when students miss too much school or too much school time, is more essential than ever.
The pandemic, in fact, has highlighted a harsh reality: many students and families live in a dramatic situation that affects their children’s education and online attendance.

Parents, deprivation and the disproportionate impact of the Coronavirus

Lack of a fixed salary, limited access to food, unstable housing (due to economic shortages and the many evictions still underway), an increased need for health care, and an inability to save make it difficult to simply venture down the road. social cohesion, learning for all and the cultural and social development of our country. The savings, if it had been possible, would have allowed them to be used after a sudden loss of income: but there was none and, mainly, it was not possible. Distance learning has also focused attention on many families who do not own a computer or do not have a quality Internet service (this would have allowed children to benefit from virtual learning). The disproportionate impact of the Coronavirus on the most disadvantaged communities is symptomatic of the long-term health effects and the difficulty of guaranteeing access to educational resources. Cultural racism is taking place (yes, real racism) and if we do not provide it, we reactivate very dangerous phenomena of cultural inequalities.

Surveillance

Monitoring (when students miss out on learning opportunities, offered in person or through distance learning), as mentioned above, is an invaluable tool for strengthening the efforts of educators, community partners, and families to reduce impact. negative effects of this pandemic on hundreds of thousands of school-age children in our beautiful country.

The multiphase framework

Therefore, a multi-phase framework needs to be developed, to be adopted in our institutions, to help educators and school administrators think strategically about supporting students and families.
State, USR and Ambiti thought they had prepared well for the transition back to school. And instead?
But the data says something else today. The school cannot be immune. The way they navigated each stage influenced the next. Those who formed teams to organize a strong response in the spring were able to offer more coordinated supports to students and families. Those who have been able to establish and maintain ties with families while school buildings were closed are more likely to see students return to the DOD after a brief stint, at least for now, in high school, physically in the classroom.

Measures of chronic absence

Essentially, chronic absence measures when students miss so much of school run the risk of being unprepared for childhood, learning to read by themselves (perhaps) in third grade, not attending lower secondary courses, and dropping out of school. high school.
A high level of chronic absence alerts schools, community partners, and families that one or more positive conditions for learning do not exist. When these four conditions for learning

  • physical and emotional health and safety;
  • a sense of belonging, connection and support;
  • academic challenge and commitment;
  • adults and peers with social emotional skills

are present, students are more likely to attend school.

Monitoring participation in distance education

Some students and families were not in contact with their schools during the pandemic. We have developed a list of ideas and strategies to make this connection.

Strategies for connecting with students and families

High levels of chronic absence also indicate the need for additional support for individual students or the investment needed to address systemic issues. The best results are achieved when a deliberate effort is made to avoid blaming students and their families for lack of attendance or participation.
During this period of the coronavirus pandemic, we recommend three strategies that harness the power of chronic absence and other parameters to reduce the negative impact of this crisis.

Three strategies

Leverage existing attendance data to identify where to provide additional support: Chronic absence data, along with other information collected before school closes (for example, special education, health, or housing), sheds light on which students, populations, and Schools need more support, including food resources, physical or mental health, or access to learning materials or technologies. This data, along with information on ethnicity and the language spoken by family members (or dialect, in some specific cases), can be used to determine which staff might be best equipped to reach students and the families. Once contact is made, conversations with families should seek to determine the need for additional support and the opportunity to solve problems together, not to mention absences.

The centralized system

Outcomes should help schools document what is learned during this intervention. A centralized system that tracks various needs and the supports offered can also ensure that families are not called multiple times to protect the same information.

Monitor attendance to support early warning

The pandemic is expanding the notion of school to include learning in virtual and remote contexts. Based on the lessons learned since we helped establish chronic absence as a national metric, we thought about identifying appropriate measures to notice when students are not engaged or participating in distance learning. The result is a new data framework that recommends additional metrics – contact, connectivity, relationships, and engagement – to establish early warning systems and inform program and policy decisions. Along with chronic absence, these metrics help reveal what challenges need to be addressed to ensure equal learning opportunities. See the diagram below.

National policies and the attempt to think only about funds

Given the unprecedented nature of the current situation, we also advise against the use of attendance or attendance data for the purpose of allocating funds, taking legal action or restoring responsibility for gambling at this time. Rather, investment should be made in developing and researching the best ways to measure non-participation and then using experience to define what should be adopted as a common metric.

Transition and back to school (when?)

Use the data to strengthen the back-to-school transition: School reopening for 2020-21 will not be “business as usual.” Transition plans and strategies to help students return to the routine of school will be even more essential. The absenteeism data (chronic absenteeism, no-shows, low attendance during spring, etc.) collected before and after the coronavirus pandemic will be particularly valuable because it is now one of the few consistent real-time data points that is still available to support given guided approaches to enhance learning.

Surveillance

When students return to the classroom, schools will also need to embrace relationship building, trauma information, and restorative practices as part of their approach to supporting student behavior and engagement. Most students, teachers, and support staff will enter schools with challenging and difficult experiences, and many will have been out of the school routine for months.

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