“I urge you to dig deeper. DCPS, OSSE [the Office of the State Superintendent for Education] and DME [deputy mayor for education] leadership will give you excuses, point fingers and absolve themselves of responsibility.
“This is a crisis, something should be done.”
The teacher’s Dec. 11 email arrived following my Dec. 8 column on the huge number of D.C. children who are missing school. The Office of the State Superintendent for Education, I noted, reported that more than 40 percent of D.C. students were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year. It painted an even gloomier picture at the high school level, where students accrued a 60 percent chronic absentee rate and a 47 percent truancy rate. To be judged chronically absent, the child must rack up at least 10 unexcused full-day absences.
Those numbers mean that more than 40 percent of D.C. schoolchildren are classified as being academically at risk; three in five high school students fit that category.
And that does not account for the risks that accumulate when children are not in school where they belong.
Last week, three girls — two of them 13, one 12 — were arrested and charged as juveniles with first- and second-degree murder in the killing of a 64-year-old man with disabilities. The girls had no prior arrests. But all three had truancy issues. One of the 13-year-olds had not been in school at all in 2024, according to court records.
Link chronic absenteeism and truancies with carjackings, shooting guns, and getting shot, stabbed or killed? Local leaders say no.
This week, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), disturbed by absenteeism and troubling teen behavior, stepped forward with some prescriptions for correcting the problem. She has been joined by, or perhaps I should say “is in competition with,” D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who has come up with his own list of ways to keep kids in school. As is customary in these matters, each has a banner under which sails their reforms. Bowser’s is the Utilizing Partnerships, Local Interventions for Truancy and Safety (UPLIFT) Amendment Act of 2024. Allen’s: the Chronic Absenteeism and Truancy Reduction Act of 2024.
Bowser’s wins for clunkiness. Both home in on shortcomings in how the school system and other city agencies track and enforce attendance policies.
And both need to drill down on the enforcement issue. Following up on the teacher’s complaint, I asked school authorities how many referrals for “educational neglect” — meaning a parent or guardian’s failure to provide for a child’s education — had been received over the past two school years. The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education told me that 7,059 neglect reports were received in school year 2022-2023 and 4,565 in school year 2023-2024, for a total 11,624. As for the number of investigations that produced a substantiated allegation of educational neglect? The DME reported 115 cases: 75 in the 2022-2023 school year; 40 in 2023-2024.
The DME provided background information on its process for deciding whether an education neglect report is accepted or screened out. That process cries out for a closer and independent assessment.
Bowser and Allen part company on steps needed to deal with infractions and unstable situations in school, as well as the city’s lack of substantive responses to conditions beyond school walls that help explain why children are not in class.
Allen wants to spend more money on early and sustained teacher and staff intervention in schools with high absentee and truancy rates. And he would upgrade reporting on the participation of troubled students in diversion programs meant to keep them away from the court system.
Bowser comes down harder on the accountability side. Her approach is to to concentrate on youth with the most severe attendance and behavioral problems and draw both children and their families into mandatory rehabilitative programs with services aimed at turning around their behavior.
Yet neither Bowser nor Allen draws a direct bead on the Compulsory School Attendance Law itself. They should.
It’s as simple as this: Once they turn 5, all D.C. children are required by law — not by parental whim or wishful thinking — to attend school. And they must attend daily until they meet high school graduation requirements or reach their 18th birthday. Parents and guardians have a duty to comply with the law by having their children attend school. Carve-outs for excused absences? Yes, but only within the law.
Do some students face barriers getting to and staying in school? Yes. Some streets and neighborhoods are unsafe. Transportation can be taxing and tricky. Classwork can be a challenge. Some barriers, however, are closer to home — in fact, are located within the home.
Bowser’s press release stated: “We know that the safest place for our young people is in schools.” That shouldn’t be the case. It is, or it should be, at home.
“Not only is school the safest place for our young people,” she said, “it is also where they connect with trusted and caring adults who can assess their needs and make sure they have what they need to be safe, healthy and happy.” Again, I say not only no, but hell no.
The trusted and caring adults who do all they can to make sure children have what they need to be safe, healthy and happy aren’t found in D.C. schools but in dining rooms and kitchens, in backyards or at bedsides. They are called mothers and fathers. Parents. Kinfolk. It’s called family engagement.
A role that has been marginalized. And a hole in the fabric of our community that needs fixing as much as in-school academics.
That is, if this city truly wants youths ever to receive what they need.
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