Why Attendance Matters: Understanding and Addressing Absenteeism

This episode of Thrive Cast continues an important conversation on chronic school absenteeism, exploring the complex and often overlooked reasons students struggle to attend school consistently. From transportation challenges and unstable housing to mental health concerns and lack of motivation, the discussion highlights the real barriers many young people face. Drawing on insights from student intake experiences, the episode also sheds light on resources available to support families and help students stay engaged in their education. It’s a thoughtful look at a widespread issue—and the steps communities can take to make a difference.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We know that when a young person leaves school, the statistics of them just getting back enrolled in school, they're very, very low. So we try our best to get them connected somewhere, whether it's a mentoring program or a sports program, anything like that, so that they can still have that community, so that when the time does come for them to be eligible to get back into a school, that they're still connected and we can get them on the right track.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Welcome to Thrivecast, a production of the Flint Center for Educational Excellence. My name is Dawn Hibbert, and I will be your host. Our topic today is a continuation of our conversation on chronic school absenteeism. I have with me in the studio Tiffany Rouser, Associate Director of Gear Up to Lead. Welcome, Tiffany. Thank you for having me. As I said before, this is a continuation of the conversation that we had a while ago with the full panel where we had six people talking about the chronic absenteeism problem in our schools. And it is not unique to the Flint schools by any means. This is a nationwide problem. But in that conversation, in your role as Garup to lead, you were talking about resources that parents don't know that are available to them. And because that you had that unique perspective, I wanted to bring you back into the studio to have that conversation about um listening to you at least tell us some of the reasons that you see that students leave school or are absent from school, and then tell us more about these resources so that any parents out there listening will know what's available to them. So let's first discuss. Um you had said when you take in a new student, you get you ask a lot of questions and you get a lot of insight to why students either don't feel comfortable in a traditional educational setting or m other reasons that they might step out of school. Can you can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yes. So every student um that comes to us, every young person that comes to us, the first thing that we do is an intake, and that helps us to assess their needs. Um but then also just getting to know them and what their situation is, what has been successful for them and staying connected to school or any other resource and maybe what's been a barrier for them. Um, so I think when we talk about barriers to education, transportation might come up as one of the main things that people highlight, um, which is I would say that's in the top three. You know, when we look back at all the intakes that we've done, that's definitely a top three barrier. Um, but you also have things like housing. Um, maybe a young person is, you know, not necessarily out on the street, but they have unstable housing, meaning they're living with family members or kind of bouncing around from house to house. Um, so that instability in their housing can be a big issue. And another thing that we see a lot in our intakes is um mental health. Um, so young people might express feeling anxious going to school. Um, maybe they just don't feel safe going to school. Um, and then just a general, you know, in their words, they feel a big lack of motivation and they don't know what to do with that. Um, so they're coming to us because they're, you know, maybe they've stopped going to school completely already, or they can tell, like maybe they haven't been to school often enough as often as they should be going. Um so they're trying to get resources to help them before they just stop going altogether. Um, so we work, GearUp works in a network called the Opportunity Youth Coalition. It's a network that we oversee and it has 25 other uh service providers. Um, some are nonprofits, some are workforce, some are education partners, and we work together to be able to connect our young people and their families to resources. So, right after we do an intake, um, once we find out about the young person and their family, their situation, their needs, then we can better understand what resources they might qualify for, ones that might be really helpful to them. And then we can help them through that process.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

You mentioned the transportation. Now, I know with the schools of choice, we have families making decisions to put their child in a school that they may not be able to walk to, obviously. And you did you did mention um in our earlier conversation that Gearup to lead arranged for a bus pass for a student who was not did not wind up entering into the Gearup to Lead program, but went to a more traditional school. Is that what your partnerships are helping you be able to facilitate for these students?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yes. So um, because we, you know, our focus was on young people who had dropped out of school, we had to start thinking, well, how can we keep them from even having to come to us since they were out of school? So we had to be um proactive. So when we had a lot of young people who were Flint-based, but you know, doing school of choice, they're going to Grand Blanc or, you know, other schools that aren't necessarily in Flint. And um, they were saying we go there, but we don't always have a consistent ride there. Um, so they came to us needing help. And because we wanted them to stay in school, we agreed to help them with bus passes. Um, so during the school year, we can help them get to school.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Now, you also mentioned that um sometimes, through whatever circumstance, a student might be expelled from a school or a school system, and that parents, and and I would be one of those parents, what what would be your next step? I mean, I as a parent, I would not know where to even begin if my child had been disenrolled and and what my next step might be.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Right, yeah. And it's a lot of things people don't think about that until it happens to you and you don't know where to turn. Um, so that's another thing we've started to do is try to go into the schools and partner, you know, with whether it's a counselor or any kind of school admin to let them know about our programming. And if they have a young person that needs resources, um, if it's something that we can't provide directly, that we can connect them to resources. Um, so when a young person is expelled from school or, you know, leaves school, they the school might not always be required to give them any other options. Um, so the young person and their family, they feel quite abandoned because no one, you know, has an obligation to tell them where to go next. Um, so we see a lot of young people like that. Um, it is a tricky situation. Some schools won't take you during an active expulsion, things like that. So you really do have to have a lot of options lined up and go through one until you find the right one. Um, but I think more than anything, knowing that parents have a place to turn is it's really helpful to them. So even if they do have to go through a couple of options before they find the right fit, at least having someone there to go through it with them, it can be a huge comfort.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

What are other other than finding out another school system or school district where to enroll your child in, what are some of the other options that parents might have? And and I want to clarify, are we talking about K through 12 or are we talking mostly about high school and middle school aged?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

So we at Gear Up to Lead, we focus on high school age and then even young people all the way up to age 24. Okay. Um, so there are options, you know, education, like you said, um there are some school districts that will, you know, take them. Um, there might be an online option until their expulsion period, you know, ends, and then um they can look at doing something more in person. Um even if all of that fails, we do still try to connect that young person to a resource of some kind to keep them connected because we know that when a young person leaves school, the statistics of them just getting back enrolled in school, they're very, very low. So we try our best to get them connected somewhere, whether it's a mentoring program or anything like that, a sports program, so that they can still have that community and that connection to resources, so that when the time does come for them to be eligible to get back into a school, that they're still connected and we can get them on the right track.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah. Being out of school for any length of time is always makes it a challenge to get back in. Right. Yeah. I used to work at Mock College and there were multiple programs on the campus that helped students step back into education. And one of those was the um the there's the Mock Middle College, which is a high school technically, uh, but they do serve Olive Flint. And then there was a program where students who had been out for a period of time, you know, and I think they had to be out more than six months, they could step back in. Okay, that's great. Yeah. And and it was it you when you said mentor program, that's what made me think of it because it was highly mentored. They had active, they had to meet with their mentor every day. So there was that attendance requirement. And yep. And it really did uh for a number of students that I talked to, it was a very it was exactly the fit they needed.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Right. Yeah. And I think, you know, that can be a really discouraging time if you think of a young person who goes to school and all of a sudden, you know, something happens and they are disconnected from their friends, they're disconnected from their teachers and just the familiar place that school is. And then you kind of have nobody all of a sudden. So especially like you said, that mentoring piece, having someone that's dedicated to you and can help you, you know, go through um how it might be affecting you being out of school or whatever. It's really important to have that connection um to be able to help you get on the right track because it's hard to go through something like that alone.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Now tell me a little bit more about Gear Up to Lead because you have talked about you have students that your program is um, and I don't I don't know how to describe it, but you have you have students and you meet with them.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yep. So we uh specialize in helping students who are online based. Um, we know that you know, ever since COVID, online learning has boomed, and a lot of young people are doing their core classes online, um, which is great for a lot of people. It provides a lot of flexibility and the ability to work ahead if you've been behind, um, which is how a lot of young people get in there. I know I mentioned young people who might have mental health challenges like anxiety and being in big schools is hard for them. So that online piece is really something that can be useful for them. But online learning comes with its own challenges. You have to be very disciplined to stay on pace because you don't always have a teacher or someone built into, you know, whatever schooling system you're using that's helping you pace. So at GearUp, um, that's what we do. We have students who are learning online, but they see us throughout the week. So we mentor them, we help them pace their classes so to help them finish their classes on time to meet their graduation requirements. And then we also provide enrichment opportunities so we pay for them to have um monthly passes at the Y so they can get that health and fitness aspect of it, um, art classes through FIA and other art, um, you know, independent artists around town. Um, so we really try to bridge the gap of the things that they're missing from being out of a traditional school. We don't want them to miss out on those things because we know that they're important. So we provide that for students and you know, they still have that flexibility of learning online. What's the age range that you work with? So um for our high school program that's specifically with those virtual students, if they're in high school, um, it could be as young as, you know, 14 or 13, as long as they're in the uh the ninth grade. And then we go all the way up to 20 years old.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Okay. That's I that's interesting that you have brought in the enrichments too, because that is something that does seem to tie a lot of students back to education. And I think that's um part of the problem that we have in the public school systems now is there's not enough of the art and music and physical education that was what kept some students coming back.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Right. Yep. And I mean, we see that too. We have um these skill classes where we go through life skills and job readiness and career exploration. Um, so there'll be times where maybe we won't see a kid in the skill class, but when we go to the why, we'll see them at the why. So we can meet them where they're at. Um, we know that those are the activities that students love. And so if we've gotta, you know, encourage them to work out at the why and then sit down and do some schoolwork after that, like we want to meet them where they are. Those extracurricular things, they're very important to be able to socialize because when you're learning online, you don't have a class uh full of peers, right? Um, so having those opportunities for them to play basketball together or like I said, to do art together, that really is huge.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Now, you you say you have 90 students that you're serving right now. In addition to the academics and these enrichments, are you having to, with this group, are you having to provide any of the wraparound services that would help them? I mean, you you spoke about transportation and housing being considerations.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yep. So we provide transportation, which is usually in the form of a bus pass for a lot of our students. Um, the other program that we have that works right along with our high school program is our engagement center, which is a resource center. Um, so we serve our 90 students and we're open to the community as well. So anyone can walk in and say, you know, I have a young person that needs whatever resource, if it's a mental health um resource, if it's a housing resource, um, that's when we really tap our partners and the Opportunity Youth Coalition to be able to refer our young people there. Um, so that's really helpful because there are things that maybe we don't provide in-house, but we don't have to send them out, you know, on their own. We can call our partners and get them a soft handoff so the young person doesn't have to sift through all of those resources by themselves.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Um, do you have data yet on your graduation rates?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

We have some. Um, so we have seen an increase in our graduates. And I think when you look at the data, I we talked earlier about people who have stopped going to school. When they get back into school, the chances of them getting back into school are low. Um, so the fact that we can have young people who have stopped going to school not only get back into school, but then graduate is huge. So our numbers might not seem big to someone who's looking at a big school district. Um, but when you really look at each family who has a young person that's graduating, we hear every year, we never thought our young person could graduate. And so that's huge to us. We do have an increase of graduates, and a lot of young people who come to us, they are behind in their schooling. Um, so they're trying to get caught back up. Um, but yeah, I think looking at each one of our young people and you know the challenges that they've overcome to get to that graduation, um, and just seeing like the joy in them because they didn't think they could, um us being able to just come around them and say, no, you can, and we're gonna stick with you as long as it takes, we're gonna stick with you. And then um they succeed in that. So we're really proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Do you have any stories about students who've gone on to higher ed or career training?

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Yeah, so we a big part of Group Gear Up's program is career exploration. Um, we're meeting with our seniors right now to go over over things, everything from FASFA to what um career training opportunities can they roll into this summer, right after they graduate, to keep that momentum. Um, so we have a huge focus on that. And one of the things that we launched, I think it was maybe last year, um, was an internship program where we partnered with small minority businesses in the Flint area to place interns who were looking for job experience. And we were able to cover the cost of that through a grant so that the business didn't have to put any funds into that. We were able to cover that, train the young people, and they stayed in that internship for 10 weeks. Um, so we have a young person right now graduated last year before he graduated. He was able to do this internship actually with Wayne the barber down the street here in Flint, and he loved it so much he decided that's what he wanted his career to be. So we were able to help him now go into um the training to become a barber. So being able to see him all the way from student to someone who's pursuing something really post-secondary has been huge because he's another one. You know, if he was here, he would say, I didn't think I could do that. Um, but we knew that he could. And seeing him grow throughout that process, it's it's been awesome to watch.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

I'm hearing a theme here. It sounds like you get a lot of students who don't think they can. Yeah. And you guys, your your organization is the one that's helping show them they really can do this. Right. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

And our students, you know, all of them, they're so amazing in that they can do so much. And, you know, it could be the circumstances that they've come from, it could be their own internal struggles they're dealing with. Whatever it is, we let them know like, you're already great. We're just here to help you break down some barriers and do the things you want to do. Um, so when they see, you know, that they have dedicated people in their corner, it does empower them to push down barriers and to reach for their goals. Um, and we're also very, you know, practical about it too. We know that success takes planning. So that's why we do those skills classes that I mentioned earlier, where we walk them through how do you set a goal? Like, what does that look like to plan for your future? If you want to be, you know, whatever it is, whatever career you want to go into, well, what does a training look like for that? And then after the training's done, what does the job look like that career-wise? So we really try to walk them through the nitty-gritty of it so that they know it is a process, but it's something that can absolutely be done.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yes, I think it's in our digital age, it's harder for people to understand there is a process to things. Right. You know, there are multiple steps, it's not just point and get.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Right, right. Yeah. Everything is so instant now. Sometimes it feels like waiting a little bit. It's it's hard. So we talk about that too. Um, but good things do come with time. And time goes a lot faster than you would think. So we try to put it in perspective. Yep. Don't blink.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah. Well, before we close, I want you to tell people how to reach out to Gear Up to Lead and where your downtown office is.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

So you can reach us. Um, we are located at 141 West 2nd Street, downtown Flynn. Um, we're there Monday through Friday. And you can just walk in or you can call us. Our number is 810-545-7070. And um, our website is gearupflint.com. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Tiffany Rouser, uh, associate director of Gear Up to Lead, has been with us today to talk about some of the reasons that students step out of education and what those what resources are available to those students and their families. You have been listening to Thrivecast, a production of the Flint Center for Educational Excellence.