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by Guy Page
Chronic absenteeism has emerged as one of the most pressing — and complex — challenges facing Vermont’s public schools, with educators and policymakers increasingly framing it as a symptom of deeper social and economic struggles rather than a disciplinary issue.
Today, nearly 30 percent of Vermont students are chronically absent, defined as missing 10 percent or more of the school year. That figure represents a 67 percent increase since 2019, according to state data, and reflects a trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and sustained by out-of-school barriers such as poverty, transportation challenges, family instability, and student mental health concerns.
Nationally, chronic absenteeism hovered around 15 percent in 2019, according to a University of Vermont study examining attendance trends before and after the pandemic. When schools shifted to remote learning and later reopened amid ongoing health concerns, attendance became harder to track and harder to maintain. In Vermont, chronic absenteeism peaked at 42 percent in 2022, eased slightly in 2023, and remains high at nearly 25 percent today.
Educators say the numbers reflect more than missed days — they reveal a fundamental shift in how families and students perceive school attendance.
“We definitely saw a shift in people’s perceptions about the importance of coming to school every day,” said Michelle Irish, director of educational quality for the Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union, one of four districts participating in the Every Day Counts pilot study. “Coming back in, it was really hard to get people back into the habit of school.”
When Missing the Bus Means Missing School
In rural Vermont, transportation remains a critical factor. While most students have access to school buses, missing the bus can mean missing the entire day.
“That’s where a lot of absences start,” Irish said. “If a student misses the bus, there often isn’t another option.”
Surveys conducted as part of the pilot study found that missed buses frequently stem from challenges at home, including inconsistent morning routines, lack of reliable childcare, or poor sleep habits. Rather than punishing families or students, schools involved in the study are focusing on identifying root causes.
One approach involves connecting families with engagement coordinators who help establish morning routines, improve sleep hygiene, and reduce stressors that make getting to school difficult.
“It’s going back to that root cause,” Irish said. “Not asking, ‘Why weren’t you here?’ but ‘What’s getting in the way, and how can we help?’”
Rethinking Attendance Policy
The surge in chronic absenteeism has prompted growing calls for a prevention-focused overhaul of attendance policies, emphasizing early intervention rather than fines, court referrals, or punitive truancy measures. Advocates argue that traditional enforcement models fail to address the underlying conditions driving absences — particularly for students from low-income households or those struggling with anxiety, depression, or trauma.
Education leaders say addressing absenteeism will require coordination beyond school walls, including partnerships with mental health providers, social service agencies, and transportation networks.
As Vermont continues to recover from pandemic disruptions, chronic absenteeism has become a key measure of how well students — and communities — are truly rebounding.
“Attendance isn’t just about being in a seat,” Irish said. “It’s about whether students feel supported enough to show up.”
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Categories: Education
Granted cannabis is not the sole factor, but cannabis is a contributor to this trend. In this 2 min. clip, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhj5XFCFoA Dr. Karen Randall gave in 2019 in Pueblo, Colorado, she report on their 38% chronic absenteeism in their schools as one of several disturbing trends after commercialization using the same 10+% absentee rate. This was 5 years after Colorado’s commercialization. Also noted in Colorado was increased ER visits with long lines, greater violence in the ER, increased suicide rates, and increased opioid deaths, increased homelessness, increased illegal grows, increased black markets and a drain on community resources.
Certainly, ruined many of our brothers and sisters families in other big city neighborhoods, it’s not by accident either.
Many employers have had to stop doing drug testing in Vermont because too many people could not pass the test. It’s an epidemic that people are profiting from, and that is a false economy, it’s really more parasitic. Probably the best term, it’s a parasitic economy.
Note: All legislators and the governor were made aware of these concerns before cannabis was commercialized in Vermont.
This state is the problem.
They make life near impossible for the average man or woman.
Affordability is the problem.
The root is Grift.
Grift is a synonym for communism/marxism, in retail speak grift can be similar to shrink, probably the most accurate term for what is going on in Vermont government, shrink of the tax payer, shrink of the rights, shrink of the effectiveness of anything based in Montpelier.
We are run by NGO’s, Lobbyist and nonprofits, primary beneficiaries of shrink. By beneficiaries, I mean the people making and taking all the money.
We shrink the basic rights of people to build basic shelter they can afford with regulations galore.
We shrink the dollar on transportation but not allowing basic transportation that gets exceedingly good gas mileage at less than $12k per vehicle. The world is filled with economical transportation, just not in Vermont or United States.
Look at our healthcare, “non-profit” organizations, look at your health insurance bill, look at your hospital co-pays and look at your general health. Chances are that most everything is going in the wrong direction. This is primarily due to grift, more grift equal more healthcare, not better health. We could have better health outcomes, better care for 50% of what we are currently paying, outlandish? Countries are across the world are proving Vermont catastrophically going in the wrong direction.
What sections of Vermont are “growing”? Government.
Government is by and for the expansion of Government, because we have decided to abandon our classical roots and adopt democratic socialism, lead by Bernie Sanders no less. This is where the majority of government employees and government recipients of others money, vote to take more money, just like they are this session.
This session has such ground breaking taxation as to get lottery sales on smart phones. We are selling people a lie, on multiple fronts. Smoking dope is not going to help family outcomes. Drinking booze isn’t either. Buying lottery tickets isn’t going to work either. Yet we wonder with all these promotions families are in disrepair?
Vermont is like a bad yard sale, across our state, because we have adopted big city solutions across the state. The only difference between Vermont and the ghettos of the big city, that haven’t solved anyone’s issues is we are white and scattered across the state so nobody can see what is going on in certain neighborhood.
We are doing to the Vermont populace what the democratic polices of the 50’s did to the black community and low and behold we are getting the same results.
In the 1950’s of Vermont and the Cities, despite both communities being dirt poor, Vermonters have marked less opportunities than those in the cities, we had strong families, we had strong schools, we were much, much healthier, look that video championing Vermont circa 1950, it’s staggering how much healthier we were.
Vermont needs to jettison these big city solutions. Vermont needs to jettison those carrying water for the new world order, which is the same as the old-world order of feudalism.
Don’t ghetto Vermont, we don’t need it or want it, it’s a failed ideology.
Maybe a few more school employees would help.
You too could be governor with that line of thinking!
Yeah, I guess I could. LOL
Careful…some readers do not have very sensitive sarcasm detection skills and will take you seriously.
We have far too many on our school roles as is.
So here is Tim Ashe, running for state office of auditor, with the below experience….
I look forward to using my experience — which includes four-plus years as the Deputy State Auditor, a decade developing hundreds of units of affordable housing, and service as the president of the board of Vermont’s largest non-hospital primary care organization — to hold government accountable to make progress on the bread-and-butter issues that matter most to Vermonters.
SO HE HEADS UP THE GREATEST GRIFTING ORGANIZATIONS IN THE STATE, SO HE IS THE MOST QUALIFIED TO PROTECT THE BURUACRACY, SURELY!!!
I MEAN DEMOCRACY,
I MEAN PROTECT ALL THE GRIFTERS…..
See this is how things roll down hill in Vermont, with this type of independent thinking Vermonters can rest assured the non-profits, the NGO’s and the lobbyists will be protected with the utmost of care and consideration.
Students in Vermont were just told that they were worse than students in Mississippi. Why would they want to go to school if they are not being taught?
Perhaps skip over the students and go right after the parents to try out accountability as a unique concept. I know these same parents can recite their rights ad nauseam. Perhaps they need to be trained up on parental accountability.
If that many kids are absent, is that the percentage fed up with government schools being run by the government?