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State board updates: chronic absenteeism task force launches toolkit and community-of-practice supports
Summary
Maryland officials and Attendance Works told the State Board that chronic absenteeism remains above pre-pandemic levels and outlined a task-force-led prevention strategy that includes an early-action 'spring attendance' toolkit, community-of-practice pilots and expanded data collection to identify students at risk.
Maryland education officials told the State Board of Education on April 30 that reducing chronic absenteeism remains an urgent priority and that a new task force, working with Attendance Works, will deliver practical tools and a summer implementation plan for schools.
What’s measured: Maryland counts a student as chronically absent when the student misses at least 10% of enrolled days. The department displayed data showing a pandemic-era spike and said the state baseline for the 2022–23 year was roughly 30% chronic absenteeism for the student population used in Blueprint targets.
Task-force approach: MSDE formed a statewide task force that met with national experts from Attendance Works to identify prevention strategies, improve local data use and produce a ‘spring attendance early-action toolkit’ for schools. The toolkit bundles strategies for identifying students “on the cusp” of chronic absence, school-team checklists, conversation guides for family outreach, and resources to avoid the end-of-year attendance slide.
Local practice examples: Woodbridge Elementary Principal Laurie Phelps (Baltimore County) described a weekly monitoring dashboard that flags students approaching chronic status, school-run incentive and support programs (including raincoats and assistance for families without reliable transportation) and an in-person required parent conference to problem-solve attendance barriers. Anne Arundel County described districtwide analytics and cluster-based communities of practice with coaching from Attendance Works for targeted clusters of schools.
Data and next steps: MSDE said it will expand community-of-practice pilots, issue a more comprehensive start-of-year toolkit in summer 2025, and pursue more frequent attendance data collection so the department and districts can act earlier in the school year. Officials said they will crosswalk task-force output with newly enacted legislation that establishes a formal chronic-absence task force and statutory deadlines for reporting and toolkit publication.
