A disproportionate number of Minneapolis students in special education classes are chronically absent from school

CATHY WURZER: We all know that the pandemic disrupted education. But what we're still learning is just how much it affected students here in Minnesota. Recent data showed a severe issue with absenteeism. That's throughout the state.

The statewide number of students who attend class has consistently dropped from 85% to less than 70%. And those who are chronically absent in Minneapolis, as an example, are disproportionately special education students. Beth Hawkins is a journalist with The 74.

That's an online education magazine. She's here to explain this absenteeism crisis. Beth, it's always great to hear your voice. How have you been?

BETH HAWKINS: It's always a pleasure to be here, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you. I'm glad you could take the time to do this with us. I'm wondering whether chronic absenteeism is an ongoing issue. It feels like it just didn't all of a sudden-- it couldn't have possibly just all of a suddenly appeared because of the pandemic, right?

BETH HAWKINS: No. Chronic absenteeism has been an issue that's affected children with disabilities for a long time. They have always been the most at risk for missing the most school and are among those most profoundly impacted by it.

CATHY WURZER: Let's talk about the terms that we're using here. Evidently, if a student misses 10% or more of school days in a year-- that's about three weeks of school per year-- that is chronic absenteeism, right?

BETH HAWKINS: That is the federal definition that's used by 35 states, including Minnesota. Yes.

CATHY WURZER: OK. So lay out the harm that results from absenteeism.

BETH HAWKINS: If you're not in school, you're not likely to succeed on multiple measures. Elementary pupils who are chronically absent are at high risk of not being able to read by third grade. Third grade is the point at which you go from learning to read to reading to learn.

Math begins to involve reading, social studies, other subjects start to come up. That's a real deal-breaker point. Students who hit third grade unable to read are four times more likely to drop out of high school. And students who miss 10% or more of any year between 8th and 12th grades are seven times more likely to drop out than their classmates.

CATHY WURZER: Are the numbers even more dire when you talk about special education students?

BETH HAWKINS: Yes. Yes. Special education students persist through high school and beyond in increasingly smaller numbers. Some students do stay in school for extra year. The law guarantees a student with a disability may stay in school up until their 22nd birthday. But even if you filter out those students who typically need more help becoming independent, the rates are astounding. And they just really fell off the cliff during the pandemic.

CATHY WURZER: Wow! In the report that you have written, you report that-- of the Minneapolis public school students with the most intensive behavioral issues, 96% of them don't attend on a regular basis, 96%. What's going on there?

BETH HAWKINS: Yeah, so that number pertains to the school's segregated facility for students with really profound behavioral issues, students who are not able to be successful in a school with general education students and to the high school program. And we know that high schoolers, as a group, tend to vote with their feet. It's harder to get them to school in general because they can simply choose to do something else, whether that's spending time on the street in destructive pursuits or taking a job, babysitting for younger siblings. But those students would be showing up every day to a specialized program that ideally would prepare them to reenter a general education school or to graduate.

And the numbers are not a whole lot better for the district's lower grades, school for students in that category, I think about three-fourths of kids in that school are chronically absent. And I should point out, we said 10%, which is more than three weeks of school, is the definition, but we don't actually know in Minnesota. Individual school districts can calculate this number, but the state and districts don't actually report out how many of those students are absent 30% of the year or 40% of the year. So that number may hide worse disparities.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, my goodness. I'm wondering, do we have any inkling as to what's keeping these kids out of school and not having them reengage after the pandemic?

BETH HAWKINS: We do. We have a couple of things that we can triangulate from. One of them is national research that predates the pandemic from a professor at the university of Pennsylvania, Michael Gottfried, who looked at chronic absenteeism among children with disabilities by disability category. And as you mentioned a little earlier, he found that students with emotional and behavioral disabilities and learning disabilities were the most likely to be up to two times-- or two times more likely to be absent chronically than their peers.

And when you start to drill down on what's going on with those two populations, the common denominator is a lack of belonging in school. So if students are much more likely to be chronically absent if they attend school in a segregated setting, that means if they attend school in a classroom that doesn't include their general education peers. And the reasons for that are that the general education classroom is much more likely to have a sense of community, is much more likely to have a stable, consistent teacher who's there the whole year, who forges relationships with their kids, and the kids are much less likely to feel excluded, to feel like there's something wrong with them that they must be educated in a different setting.

And then where you factor in kids with learning, disabilities and indeed probably all kids with disabilities, is you don't want to go to school if you don't feel successful. And if you're not getting the services that you need to be successful in school, you're likely to engage in school refusal, whether that's a small child having a stomach ache or reporting that they can't sleep, whether it's too much anxiety to get on the bus, or whether it's an older child simply refusing to go.

CATHY WURZER: You mentioned that students sometimes don't feel they have a connection with the teacher or perhaps if they do have a connection, maybe the teacher might leave. In other words, I'm wondering here, gosh, there was a study in Minneapolis that found there were 58 vacant special educator positions at the start of the school year, this school year. So does that have anything to do with what we're talking about here, that maybe there just aren't the educators that they need in order to engage these students?

BETH HAWKINS: Oh, it absolutely does. The federal law essentially says, it's too hard, we can't do it is not an excuse for not getting these kids to school and not meeting their needs. But the reality is that special education classrooms, particularly in Minneapolis, are chronically understaffed. There are some schools in the district that went weeks with no teacher of record in special ed classrooms. There are a variety of reasons for that, ranging from a shortage of special educators in general to the fact that teachers are often reluctant to work in settings with the highest needs.

So there are-- adding to the unpredictability, and the anxiety, and the broken contract with families is that kids may show up to school and literally not have a teacher. And the number that Minneapolis Schools Voices calculated that you referenced, 58 teachers, to put that in perspective, the story of mine that we're here talking about today looked at 55 schools. So that's probably one or more classrooms in the highest poverty schools in the district with no teacher of record in special ed classrooms.

CATHY WURZER: Well, I'm wondering here, Beth, as you know, districts get special education money from the feds and the state. How is, say, the Minneapolis district being held responsible for, again, re-engaging these or engaging these students with disabilities, getting them to class, raising attendance rates for these kids?

BETH HAWKINS: That's a very complicated question, Cathy. But what I will say is that in 2021, the US Supreme Court let stand a decision involving a Minneapolis suburb that found that the Saint Louis Park School District had an obligation to seek out a girl who had been chronically absent for years and find out why. That it was not good enough to say, well, she's not showing up, we're going to throw up our hands. That this child's civil rights under the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act, which turns 50 next year, are so strong that the school district needed to figure out why she was absent and what needed to be fixed in the school.

Was it buzzing lights with a sensory issue? Was it bullying and harassment? What were the factors that were preventing her from getting to school every day?

So the law is very strong and poorly enforced. And it's a problem all over the country right now as kids come back from the pandemic, that special education students got the least schooling and the least consistent schooling during the shutdowns and are, in many places, not getting what's called compensatory services. That is the recovery services that they are entitled to under the law to catch up.

CATHY WURZER: And then what is to become of these kids? I just wonder about that.

BETH HAWKINS: Yeah, I think that's a really huge societal question. And the answers range from the continuation of a school-to-prison pipeline for children who are written off as too behaviorally challenged to be served to kids who are not showing up in school in a way where their brilliance can be seen and where they can go on to be some of the most creative, out-of-the-box thinkers that our country could draw on to solve huge problems or to make giant contributions to society.

The US Department of Education has begun to prod states and districts to up their game in terms of chronic absenteeism and in terms of the services that are provided once kids show up to school. But it is heart rending to think of how many years in the life of a child-- I mean, a child who entered kindergarten during the school shutdowns is fifth grade right now. They've passed that third grade mark.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, gosh, Beth, you really always bring us such interesting articles. Thank you so much for this conversation.

BETH HAWKINS: It's always a pleasure to be with you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to education journalist Beth Hawkins with The 74.