The bell rings. You are standing in the hallway welcoming students as they arrive. You overhear an intense conversation happening between a group of 8th grade boys about the newest drama between two celebrities. A few 7th graders share with you a good thing that happened in their social studies class. A bunch of 6th graders are racing to make it to class on time. You are glad to see so many of them in the building, but in the same moment are worried about the quarter of middle school students who are likely absent that day (Hays, 2024). Questions are swirling among staff: Why are so many students not coming to school? How can we get them to come? How can we get them here on time? How can we continue to teach the students who are in class every day, but also support the ones who are not?
Though concerns about attendance are not a new issue, they have become more pressing and pervasive since 2020. Almost double the students nationwide are considered chronically absent (missing more than 10 percent of the school year for any reason) compared to pre-pandemic levels (Hays, 2024).
For middle schoolers in particular, being chronically absent in these critical years can be the start of a pattern that persists throughout the rest of their school career. A pre-pandemic longitudinal study of students in Utah found that chronic absenteeism begins to rise in middle school, and that the more consecutive years of being chronically absent for students led to a greater likelihood of a student dropping out. For each year that a student is chronically absent starting in 8th grade, the odds that he or she will drop out approximately double (Utah Education Policy Center, 2012). More recently, in 2022, the University of Chicago’s To&Through Project released a report finding that students with strong grades and attendance in elementary and middle school were far more likely to graduate from high school and then enroll in college. In fact, students who had above a 3.0 GPA and 90 percent attendance were twice as likely to graduate and almost four times as likely to attend college then those who fall below in both of those metrics (Seeskin et al., 2022).
Understanding Student Experience
Knowing that attendance is one of the strongest predictors of success for middle schoolers in high school and beyond, and that higher attendance is linked to a higher GPA and high school graduation, it is important to understand why students who are coming to middle school continue to come and why those who don’t aren’t. There are many reasons why middle school students may be absent from school, and many of those problems may not entirely be in their locus of control. Barriers like illness, food insecurity, having to help care for younger siblings, other responsibilities at home, or unreliable transportation can cause students to be late or not come at all. Violence in a community can lead to students being afraid to travel to and from the school campus. Some middle schoolers are unsure of how they fit into their community and can experience anxiety or bullying, which can lead to missed days or weeks. Each of these factors requires a different approach and level of support for students and their families.
It is important to understand why students who are coming to middle school continue to come and why those who don’t aren’t.
A short culture and climate survey can be helpful to better understand the perceptions students have of the school and their experiences overall. For students who are regularly in school, this type of survey can help give school leaders information about both the positives of the school experience and what potential changes need to be made. Educators should share the purpose of the survey with students and let them know what they will be doing with the information. This will help to get more truthful and robust answers from students.
It is also important to find out why students aren’t attending school regularly. In these cases, surveys are not enough. Oftentimes, because they are chronically absent, these students’ voices are missing in survey data, or students haven’t been in school enough to feel like they can accurately answer the questions. Conducting a focus group or an empathy interview with students (and potentially their families) may help to gather additional information. The principal, counselors, or other team leaders can create a focus group of chronically absent students to give them an opportunity to build off one another as to the barriers they face in coming to school. Watch for body language and for those who do not participate to see if follow-up is needed. For an empathy interview—a one-on-one conversation with a student to understand their story and challenges—make sure that the student knows that they are not in trouble and that you are there to listen and understand what is keeping them from attending school. Stay curious when having these conversations and use them to better understand the experiences of your students.
Once you have a better understanding of why students are missing school, you can start to assemble teams who can support them and their families. These teams are most effective when made up of staff who can bring different approaches to problems, such as administrators, counselors, teachers, or attendance coordinators.
Building Trusted Connections
Having a trusted adult at school is essential for middle school students in a time of development when they are trying to figure out who they are, who they might want to become, and how they fit into the school community. As Brooklyn Raney writes in One Trusted Adult, having a trusted adult during the period of adolescence “can significantly reduce risk, give you a safe place for processing normal life questions, provide a teacher and model of important life skills, and help you calibrate your inner compass” (Raney, 2019, p. xviii).
Having a positive, trusting connection to an adult at school has also been shown to “have tremendous benefits that include reduced bullying, lower drop-out rates, and improved social-emotional capacities” (Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2023).
Here is a strategy that I have used effectively with schools to identify students who may not have a strong connection at school and help them start the process of building that connection.
Begin by asking students if they feel connected to an adult at the school and why. This can be done in a quick entrance or exit survey. Just make sure that you have a way to track the information and gather all voices. Flag students who note that they don’t have a connection to anyone in the building.
Then ask teachers to identify students who they think would come to them with a problem. Flag students who are not identified by any teacher. Then compare the lists. If there are students who didn’t feel a connection to any teacher, but certain teachers felt those students would come to them with a problem, ask the teachers to build a connection to those students. For students who named a teacher, but teachers didn’t name them, make sure that the trusted teacher knows that the student feels connected to them. If there are students who said they didn’t have a connection to anyone and teachers also didn’t identify them, then find teachers who are willing to build an intentional connection with those students.
Once teachers have their individual lists of students to build intentional connections, ask them to check in with those students as often as possible throughout the week about something other than their performance in school. Aiming for even a two-minute check-in each day can make a huge difference in building that connection.
Every two to three weeks, ask teachers to share any important information that they learned about their list of students in a team meeting. Keep track of relevant information (such as students’ interests, challenging home situations, or interactions with peers) in a spreadsheet so that you can see patterns and trends and note if additional support is needed. Midway through the year, have students answer the same questions again, and see if more students feel a connection or if additional students need to be added to the intervention.
Having trusted adults who are looking out for specific students helps not only to build connections, but also to problem solve when troubling patterns arise around social-emotional needs, attendance, behavior, or grades. One middle school team I worked with who put this into practice saw a big improvement. Two-thirds of the students who said that they did not have a connection at the beginning of the year were able to name a trusted adult halfway through the year. Teachers also reported that they understood their students better and that they became better listeners to students’ needs when they intentionally sought connections with them. They also saw students that they check in with taking more accountability for their grades, attendance, and behavior.
Engaging Students in Learning
Though some attendance barriers go beyond what an individual educator can solve, there are some challenges that can be improved by making changes in the classroom to help students feel more connected to their learning. Middle school is the second most active period of brain development, a time when synapses are being strengthened and students are exploring their identity in a variety of new ways. To engage students in learning, educators need to show students they are seen, valued, and heard. They need to give students opportunities to build peer relationships, share their own stories, and feel like their work is connected to their life and contributing to their community.
Understanding how students are experiencing the classroom is the first step in knowing which area to focus on. After analyzing survey results and information collected from focus groups or empathy interviews, school leaders can share relevant findings with teachers so they can improve the experiences of students in their classrooms. Here are a few examples of ways educators can better engage students.
Encourage students to share their stories.
Knowing that your story matters and people see you for who you are is one of the most important things for middle school students seeking belonging. As adolescents grapple with who they are and how they fit into their community, storytelling is a way for them to see each other’s humanity and perspectives and find common connections.
Storytelling can happen in many ways. Teachers can give students time to share a story about their lives outside of school (What is an experience that you have had where food was an important part of the story?) or something connected to their past (Share a time when you felt celebrated?). Teachers can assign a bigger project where students have to interview someone from their family about an experience or time period in history and share it with the class. They can give students choice in how to share their story and make sure their peers have the opportunity to give positive feedback. Sharing of stories can break down barriers and build a strong sense of belonging where students feel connected to their classroom and school community.
Help students build intentional connections.
Building structures where strong peer-to-peer relationships are central to the success of the classroom is one way to make students feel valued in the classroom. This could take the form of a peer buddy system in the classroom where students meet to hold each other accountable for the goals they set. It could also be opportunities where students come up with and lead the opening question of the day. Would you rather? questions are always a favorite, as are any questions that generate some controversy. You would never guess how much discussion comes from asking the question, Would you rather have pizza or tacos? or Which is more important to you, loyalty or humor? These activities can help make school feel more relevant to students and show them their voice is valued.
Connect learning to life outside of school.
Why are we doing this? How will this ever help me? are questions that students often ask and teachers dread having to answer. Telling students that they will “need this later in life” often seems like an inadequate and unsatisfying response. Helping students to make connections between what they are learning in school and life outside of school builds relevancy and a greater understanding of the content. This can happen in small ways, like giving students a choice in what they are learning or how they are sharing their learning, having them practice a relevant skill like public debate, or having students make and share their own connections to the content through writing or group share-outs. This could also become an entire unit where students engage in a passion project or a service-learning project that allows them to take some action to help their community. Giving students the opportunity to have this type of choice and voice allows them to know that they are being heard and that their voice matters and can make a difference.
Paving the Path for Future Success
For many middle schoolers, school can bring up a lot of emotions and can come with a lot of barriers. Understanding how students are currently experiencing school, making sure that all students have a trusted adult in the building, and figuring out new ways to engage students based on their current development and the need to feel seen, valued, and heard, can truly make a difference in growing a strong community where students know that they belong.
Reflect & Discuss
➛ What are a few ways that you currently gather data from students about their experiences at school? How do you and your colleagues act on that data?
➛ Of the three strategies—sharing stories, building connections, and connecting to life outside of school—which do you think is most needed in your school or district? Why?
