Attendance up since pandemic, but many St. Louis-area kids are still skipping school

ST. LOUIS — School attendance in the St. Louis area has started to rebound since the pandemic, but more than a quarter of students are still missing significant portions of the school year, newly released state data shows.

Nearly 26% of public and charter school students in St. Louis, St. Louis County and St. Charles County were chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year, compared to about 16% in the 2018-19 school year.

Even so, the latest attendance figures show improvements from pandemic lows. In 2021-22 — the worst school year for attendance in recent memory — nearly 30% of the students in the city and two biggest counties in the metro area were considered “chronically absent,” defined as missing more than 10% of the school year.

Education leaders are encouraged, even though they concede other key measures of school performance — test scores and enrollments — have failed to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels.

“With the increase in attendance in 2024, we’re starting to see a trend of modest improvement over these last three years,” said Lisa Sireno, Missouri’s assistant commissioner of quality schools. “This is especially important because absences have magnified impact on the lowest-performing groups of students.”

Every district and charter school in St. Louis, St. Louis County and St. Charles County saw gains in attendance last school year, with the exceptions of charters Gateway Science, Biome, Lafayette Preparatory Academy and Atlas Public Schools.

The improvement may reflect more of a societal change than any new or concerted efforts taken by schools.

Most school officials reached by the Post-Dispatch said they communicated the importance of good attendance to students and families but didn’t cite any new or district-wide initiatives they took to get kids back in classrooms.

The Special School District, which saw attendance climb 5 percentage points, had already conducted home visits and coordinated “school care teams” for a number of years.

Hancock Place, which saw attendance jump 9 points between 2022-23 and 202324, didn’t take on any new or special efforts in recent years, Superintendent Kevin Carl said.

But what has changed is a pandemic-era mindset that school was “somewhat optional,” Carl said in an interview.

“School districts wanted to take a supportive approach during COVID,” he said. “If anything, districts loosened their policies and became more flexible around attendance. Now, schools are free of those concerns, and we want kids back in school.”

In the Mehlville School District, administrators at Blades Elementary started awarding classrooms with the highest attendance by inviting students to special events with their principals. One month, a winning class “pied” their principal and assistant principal. The top two classes this month will watch the principals race each other on scooters as they wear inflatable costumes.

But communicating the importance of good attendance remains key, Principal Jeremy Booker said.

“Our biggest things have really just been consistent communication with parents, building strong relationships with families and creating an environment students want to be at,” Booker said.

Ferguson-Florissant School District placed an emphasis on mental health. A big part of the district’s attendance boost — a 5.3-point increase, the second highest among non-charters in the region — derived from the use of a teletherapy program to help students manage anxiety and depression, school leaders said in a statement.

Administrators used pandemic relief funds to contract with Hazel Health, a K-12 telehealth provider, for $144,210 a year in 2022. It made a huge dent in chronic absenteeism, district officials said, with 60% of the students referred to the service now showing up to school more consistently. Among “severely” absent students, attendance went up 91% after therapy.

The district also added attendance secretaries at high schools and “attendance care teams” made up of counselors, social workers and staff to work with families facing challenges.

“We’ve seen particularly strong gains in attendance among Black male students, which is really encouraging,” Superintendent Joseph Davis said.

Regionally, most minority populations continued to experience deep disparities in attendance.

Only 58% of Black students in the city, St. Louis County and St. Charles County attended school at least 90% of the time in the 2023-24 school year, compared with 62% statewide. About 70% of Hispanic students attended at least 90% of the time.

Last school year, students who received free and reduced lunch, an indicator of poverty, had an average attendance rate of 64%.