Chronic Absenteeism

KIDS COUNT, an annual child wellness report, found 20% of students in Missouri and 27% of students in Kansas were chronically absent in 2021-2022.

Missouri's education department has released new performance data finding chronic absenteeism remains a problem for many school districts. Among them are St. Louis Public Schools with 51% of students chronically absent, Normandy Schools Collaborative with 52%, Ferguson-Florissant with 43%, Hazelwood with 42% and Riverview Gardens among the worst in the state with a 61% of students chronically absent.

Missouri Supreme Court Judge Robin Ransom wrote, with five in concurrence, that the unexcused absences in the case violated state law.

The cheers at the end of the day could be heard down the hall and around the corner, all the way in the office where Sarah Briscoe was making daily…

Charles Robinson’s morning is already upended.With a rap on the wooden door of his small office, he learns the mother of a child in his caseload overdosed…

Lost learning time often means lost potential.That’s the message from a new national report from nonprofits Attendance Works and Healthy Schools Campaign.…

You can’t teach kids if they’re not in class. With more than 27,000 students heading back to St. Louis Public Schools next week, as well as many of the…

Educators and politicians in St. Charles say they have a plan in place to reduce the number of chronically absent students in the city’s school district.…

Rhonda Dunham eases her way through the halls at Franklin Elementary School in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Back in the day she was a student at Franklin.Now she...

Principal Glenn Carter cracks open the door to an Algebra II class at South Pemiscot High School in rural Steele, Mo., where teacher Linda Crawford…