Let's Not Blame Teachers for Chronic Absenteeism
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that teachers bear no responsibility for students who chronically miss school and that the blame belongs elsewhere.
Key Takeaways
- Teachers don't control attendance - Chronic absenteeism is a family, community, and policy issue, not a classroom management issue
- Blaming teachers is counterproductive - It demoralizes staff and distracts from the real causes of absenteeism
- Focus on systemic solutions - Attendance requires enforcement, family engagement, and community support — not better lesson plans
Transcript
What role do teachers play in addressing chronic absenteeism?
I saw this resource on helping kind of come up with a plan for students who are chronically absent to help them come to school more.
And while this is the kind of thing that looks good, I can't help but feel like this just blames teachers for a problem that is not really their fault and not really under their control.
All educators want their lessons to be as engaging as possible.
They want them to be motivating to students.
You know, we want students to come to school.
We want students to want to come to school.
But I think at the end of the day, this idea that we can solve this problem for students is not really true.
Like, if that is true at all, it is to a very limited extent.
And the only person who can really, you know, solve that problem for themselves is the student.
And, of course, the student's parent has a role in getting their kid to school as well.
So, like, I'm not...
sure how to think about tools like this because it seems to me that when we turn something like this into a bureaucratic process, like you have to go through this process if you have a student who is chronically absent, like this just seems like a ritual of blaming the teacher.
And I'm not sure that we can actually get the kind of results we want by doing that because the responsibility for coming to school has to always be on the student and the family.
Let me know what you think.