At the start of the 2022-23 school year, Director of School Improvement for the Caldwell Exempted Village School District Jeannie Yontz knew one family with a few children in the district that had struggled with absenteeism. Each child fell into the category of being chronically absent for two consecutive school years.
However, during the 2022-23 school year, she saw a change. Over the course of the year, that family had some of the highest attendance ratings in the whole school district.
"They had improved so much," Yontz said. "It's the entire community's efforts, and it makes you proud to be part of the school district."
The Ohio State Report Card, released by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, recognizes the progress Ohio has made in each of the four statewide educational priorities – literacy, learning acceleration, student wellness and workforce readiness. Chronic absenteeism is included under the student wellness category and is a key metric measured by the Stay in the Game! Attendance Network (SITG!).
Chronic absenteeism (CA) in Ohio is decreasing and districts in the Stay in the Game! Attendance Network on average have seen a decrease in chronic absenteeism at a higher rate than the overall state for the second year in a row.
When SITG! launched in 2019, the chronic absenteeism rate for students in Ohio was 16.7 percent. After the pandemic, chronic absenteeism increased across the nation and locally, Ohio's chronic absenteeism rate had increased significantly to 30.2 percent for the 2021-22 school year — a sign of more work to be done. With two more years of reliable data, chronic absenteeism has continued to decrease across the state to 26.8 percent in 2022-23 and most recently to 25.6 percent for the 2023-24 school year. This reduction equates to 22,164 more students with consistent attendance in just one year.
For SITG! districts, decreases in chronic absenteeism were even larger. In the state of Ohio, chronic absenteeism rates fell by 3.4 percent for the 2022-23 school year and 5.2 percent in SITG! districts. For the 2023-24 school year, chronic absenteeism rates fell 1.2 percent in the state of Ohio and 2.9 percent for SITG! districts.
"We are excited to see that chronic absenteeism rates have decreased for the state of Ohio for the second consecutive year," Vice President of the Cleveland Browns Foundation Renee Harvey said. "Improving attendance takes a team, and we want to congratulate our district partners for all the hard work that goes into improving attendance within their communities."
In Ohio, student attendance is categorized into four attendance tiers ranging from satisfactory to severely chronically absent based on each student's individual chronic absenteeism rate. For Ohio students, the 2023-24 data shows there is positive movement along the with students shifting from severely chronically absent towards satisfactory, which means there are more students with consistent attendance and less students experiencing chronic absenteeism.
Districts across the state of Ohio have made important progress in reducing chronic absenteeism. Caldwell Exempted Village School District, which has been a member since the Network began in 2019, saw a decrease in their chronic absenteeism rate by 10.3 percent, which was the most across all SITG! districts.
In Northeast Ohio, both Canton Local School District and Niles City Schools saw a reduction in chronic absenteeism of five percent. Cleveland Metropolitan School District, the largest district in the Browns' region, saw a reduction of 4.5 percent. Mansfield City Schools and Maple Heights City Schools saw a reduction of 4.5 and 4.4 percent, respectively.
"It just means that our students are in the classroom more, so therefore they're learning more and getting a better education," Yontz said. "[Stay in the Game! Attendance Network] provided us a framework on how to approach chronic absenteeism, and it provided us with the resources that typically schools do not have access to help improve attendance."
The Cleveland Browns, Columbus Crew and FC Cincinnati have each played an integral role with their concerted efforts to help decrease chronic absenteeism. Working together as a three-team partnership spanning the state, the teams have come together in support of Ohio districts with a common goal of increasing student attendance.
As the Stay in the Game! Attendance Network has continued to grow rapidly, while also keeping its dedication to maintaining quality of support for each district, the Cleveland Browns Foundation, Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and Proving Ground out of Harvard brought in Battelle to manage SITG! operations in July 2024.
The addition of Battelle has allowed for the continued growth of the Network. As of Sept. 30, the Network has 144 school districts across the state of Ohio, impacting 442,408 students in all eight urban districts in the state of Ohio. Major urban and community schools had the highest levels of chronic absence, while also seeing the largest decrease in chronic absenteeism of three percent from 2022-23 to 2023-24.
While SITG! Attendance Network is working locally to tackle chronic absenteeism in Ohio, there is also a concerted effort on a national scale.
Three education advocacy and research groups – American Enterprise Institute, Education Trust and Attendance Works – joined together to launch an attendance campaign with a goal of cutting chronic absenteeism in half over the next five years. Fourteen states across the country have committed to this goal, including the state of Ohio. The SITG! Attendance Network is supporting the state of Ohio in their efforts to continue to decrease chronic absenteeism.
And they know the work is not done.
The Network plans to use the data provided from the Report Card and other evaluations to inform their goals for the future and continue its efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism across the state of Ohio. SITG! continues to promote awareness of the importance of good student attendance as they expand to new school districts.
"The Network is expanding at a rapid rate, and we are excited about the momentum," Harvey said. "Increasing student attendance is a community-wide effort and we look forward to welcoming others to the work to get students in school every day, so they have the resources they need to be successful."
