Minn. education committee lays groundwork for multi-year effort on chronic absenteeism; adopts technical amendment

The Minnesota House Education Policy Committee on Feb. 25 debated a set of bills aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism and clarifying attendance rules, adopted an author27s amendment to House File 62 and laid over four other bills for possible inclusion in an omnibus package.

Committee Chair Bennett recognized bill authors Representative Keeler and Representative Baikberg, who described the bills as the start of a multi-year, bipartisan effort to improve how schools, counties and state agencies track and respond to student absences. Representative Keeler27s package includes House File 62 as a "landing spot" to gather existing statutory language into one place; the committee adopted an A1 author27s amendment to HF62 during the hearing.

Why it matters: Committee witnesses and presenters said Minnesota27s attendance data lag and inconsistent definitions across districts make it difficult to target interventions. Matt Schaeffer, senior policy director at Ed Allies, told the committee "30 percent of students ... were chronically absent" in the 2021-22 school year and urged faster, more consistent reporting so districts and the state can identify and support students who miss the most school.

Schaeffer summarized the scale and limits of the data. He said the 30 percent figure represents roughly 236,101 students and that the Department of Education reported a later improvement to 25.5 percent (about 199,185 students). He warned the committee that the state currently…