White House to tackle chronic absenteeism in schools

WASHINGTON – The White House is hoping that caring mentors will help stop students from skipping school.

The Obama administration announced plans Friday to connect more than 1 million students who miss major amounts of school time with mentors in hopes of turning that around.

Officials say that as many as 7.5 million children miss a month or more of school each year, putting them at risk of falling behind and dropping out. Pairing mentors with some of those students can stop children from risking their futures, said Broderick Johnson, chairman of the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force.

Part of the My Brother’s Keeper program, the Success Mentors Initiative will launch in 10 cities: Austin, Boston, Columbus, Denver, Miami-Dade, New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, San Antonio and Seattle.

“Missing school means missing out on the only chance of success that most children have,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said.

The MBK Success Mentors Initiative, a partnership between the Department of Education and Johns Hopkins University, will pair trained adults with children to meet with them three times a week. It will start with 250,000 students sixth through ninth grade in school districts with low incomes and high absenteeism levels and expand to kindergarten through 12th grade in five years.

Chronic absenteeism is defined by the administration as missing at least 10 per cent, or about 18 days, of days in a school year.

“By the time you get to high school and you’ve missed a month of school, you’re on the track to dropping out,” said Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University’s Everyone Graduates Center.

The Ad Council will launch a multimillion dollar anti-absenteeism ad campaign as well, targeting parents of students in kindergarten through eighth grade with billboards, public service announcements and a website.