Montgomery County officials point to extracurriculars, school connectedness to curb chronic absenteeism

At a Montgomery County Council Education and Culture Committee work session, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) officials presented an update on the district’s attendance action plan and data, saying school connectedness and extracurricular participation are central to reducing chronic absenteeism among students, particularly low‑income students, emergent multilingual learners and students receiving special education services.

MCPS officials said the district has used a dashboard and school‑level outreach to drive a recent decline in chronic absenteeism but that progress is uneven: the district reported a roughly 3 percent improvement last year compared with the prior year, but pockets of concern remain, especially recent increases among kindergarten–fifth grade students and narrowing gains for emergent multilingual learners in January and February.

The issue matters because missed days correlate to lost instruction and long‑term achievement gaps, MCPS presenters told the committee. "Chronic absenteeism is 10% or more of the days enrolled being missed," said Steve Neff, Director of Pupil Personnel and Attendance Services, defining the district’s primary metric. Neff also noted the state label of truancy as 20% or more unexcused absences.

MCPS’s approach: connect, measure, intervene MCPS presented multiple, overlapping strategies intended to keep students in school. Damon Monteleone, Associate Superintendent in the Office of Well‑Being Student Services, said the system emphasizes nonpunitive approaches and school connectedness: "If a student is connected to their school community, they are going to come…