by Ty Tagami | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Efforts to make Georgia schools safer are exacerbating student absenteeism, a major problem that lawmakers have been studying since this summer.
Many students who are awaiting a tribunal for an alleged disciplinary infraction may be out of school for several weeks before they get a hearing on their guilt or innocence, Darlene Lynch told lawmakers at a hearing Monday
Kids get long-term suspensions or expulsions for minor infractions and wind up in alternative schools that do not offer busing, said Lynch, who is with Georgia Appleseed, a legal advocacy group. If their parents cannot get them to school, she said, they drop out.
“A lot of our cases involve vapes right now — being suspended for three semesters,” said Lynch, who was among about a dozen advocates, experts and officials who spoke at this latest hearing on the problem of chronic absenteeism, a hearing that combined members from study committees in the House and Senate.
Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 10% of a school year, which in Georgia is typically 180 school days.
Lynch told lawmakers that their own efforts to make schools safe are contributing to absenteeism.
Earlier this year, the General Assembly passed House Bill 268, a bipartisan state law to enhance school safety after last year’s mass shooting at Apalachee High School.
It has many elements that were broadly popular in both parties, such as funding for more mental health services.
It also contains a provision that Lynch asked lawmakers to revisit. It requires schools to collect information on students who skip class, misbehave or display other problematic behavior and to quickly transmit those records when a student transfers to a new school.
The law has added layers of bureaucracy that are slowing new student enrollments, Lynch said, leaving kids languishing outside the classroom.
“Schools around the state are demanding a really wide range of records and evaluations before they’ll admit a child to school,” she said, describing an instance when a first grader was denied enrollment until the parent could secure a psychological evaluation and a risk assessment.
“We’re hearing a lot of stories of schools asking for child abuse records and all sorts of legal records and medical records that are potentially protected by other laws,” Lynch said, “and those enrollment delays are causing kids to be out of school for sometimes weeks while they’re dealing with the denial and the dispute.”
Chronic absenteeism has long been a problem, but it grew significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic and has not settled back to lower levels, with one in five deemed chronically absent last school year.
Experts and officials describe it as a crisis that will affect the earning power and even the lifespan of the population of students who drop out as a result.
“They have worse health outcomes: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, lung disease,” Chief Judge Ann B. Harris of Cobb County Superior Court told the lawmakers.
“On average, the life expectancy of someone who has dropped out of high school is eight years less than someone who completed high school. That’s a staggering statistic,” she said, adding that a 2019 study projected that dropouts from the class of 2019 would cost the nation $337 billion.
