According to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), about 9,000 students did not attend class during the pandemic and truancy continues to be an issue. An issue that BESE is trying to fix.
More than one thousand educators are here to advance careers and technical education but the first challenge they have to face is getting the students back in the classroom. “We just need to make sure that we continue to refine those processes to reduce absenteeism and to reduce truancy throughout the state,” explained Cade Brumley, Superintendent of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Child Welfare & Attendance Hearing Officer, Tracy Barber, says their goal is to encourage students to return, by having teachers check in on them at home. “Frequent home visits for students that have hit a threshold in terms of their absences to really try and connect with the families and kind of peel layers back and find out what are the barriers, whether the obstacles that are preventing regular attendance,” he claimed.
