Iowa — A new state law to address chronic absenteeism requires notifying parents by certified letter if a student misses school for eight days in a semester.
After additional absences, there must be an in-person meeting with a parent or guardian. Anne Discher, executive director of Common Good Iowa, says the most recent data shows absenteeism is remarkably widespread in Iowa schools.
Advocates of the new law say regular attendance at school is a habit that will carry over into adulthood — and much of what happens in a classroom cannot be learned through make-up work. According to a national group called Attendance Works, one in four Iowa students were chronically absent during the 2021-22 school year. Discher says that means they missed 10 percent or more of school days, for any reason.
Discher is hoping more recent data could show improvement, but she says some students just haven’t reconnected with school after the pandemic.
For younger students, like kindergarteners, Discher says figuring out what’s happening with the parents is key.
Discher has a child in a Des Moines high school and she says before school started the family of every incoming ninth grader was offered an in-home visit from someone on the school’s staff.
Under Iowa law, if a student misses 20 percent of school days in a semester, a meeting of the student, a parent or guardian, and the county attorney will be scheduled.
