Senate study committee convenes joint hearing on chronic absenteeism following passage of SB 123

Senators and House members convened a joint meeting of the Senate Study Committee on Combating Chronic Absenteeism to review local and statewide work following recent legislation.

The committee, chaired on the Senate side by Senator John F. Kennedy, said the committee’s purpose is to examine the drivers of chronic absenteeism, share data and local protocols, and identify policy responses after passage of Senate Bill 123 and adoption of Senate Resolution 217 earlier in the legislative session.

Senator John F. Kennedy, chairman of the study committee and a senator for the 18th District, opened the hearing by thanking presenters and committee members and stressing the joint nature of the session. He said SB 123 “empowers local attendance review teams to identify challenges and share data and propose community based solutions that are tailored for the students' needs.”

The committee will hear presentations from judges, state agencies, school health professionals, and community providers to examine barriers and interventions, the senators said. Committee members emphasized the meeting’s role in informing possible next steps and future legislation.

The hearing agenda included updates from the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement on statewide data, presentations on school-based mental-health services (Apex), local protocols from Cobb County led by Chief Judge Anne Harris, nonprofit perspectives on exclusionary discipline from Georgia Appleseed, school nursing capacity, after-school and summer learning programs, and a scalable mentoring pilot run by Big Brothers Big Sisters. Committee leadership asked presenters to provide follow-up material for the next meeting and signaled plans to continue work in October.