On a recent visit to Patterson High School, a school serving over a thousand students in the Baltimore area, one thing caught my eye: the walls encasing the stairwells were filled by papers showing the attendance of different grades. It was an attendance competition, in which each grade was competing for the most days of attendance.The most surprising aspect was the 72% attendance posted as the average across the high school. This statistic proved to not be far from the Baltimore City Public School System’s overall attendance, which in the 2019-2020 school year was reported by Fox News to be 87.9%, dropping to 80.6% the following year. 

Project Baltimore, an investigative reporting initiative, reports the biggest problem is “chronic absenteeism”—a student being absent for over 10% of the number of school days. During the school year of  2019-2020, 36.2% of Baltimore City students were chronically absent, which increased the following year to 49.3%. Fewer students attend school in Baltimore City than in any other school system in Maryland. 

Much of this decrease in attendance is due to hybrid learning during the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in half of Baltimore City Students being chronically absent, and most missing more than 20 days of school a year. Yet chronic absenteeism is not Baltimore’s only prevalent school issue.

With decreasing attendance rates comes a corresponding decrease in graduation rates. Dayton Now reports 10 Baltimore high schools having 4-year graduation rates below 50%, which isa nine-year low. The quality of the school facility may play a large part in this matter.

This number is shocking to many because of the ties between poor attendance and incarceration. A former prosecutor claims this is an issue of public safety, saying “truancy leads to delinquency, which leads to further crime.” However, is there a way to resolve this issue of attendance? What can the school system do to  get children back in school? So, to resolve the issue of chronic absenteeism, he suggested the City State’s Attorney’s Office leverage its authority to contact parents about why their children are frequently absent. 

Legal action can also be taken against parents with chronically absent children if they have missed more than 37 days or 20%of school days. They can be fined $50 per day or receive 3 days in jail for their first offense. A number of legal pursuits against parents have already been taken.

Numerous efforts have been made to get children back in school, such as a $1.5 million donation by the Baltimore Ravens to the Renaissance Academy for renovations, a school that had a 52% graduation rate. Ravens Hall of Famer Ed Reed noted, “You want to make sure they have an environment that they can go to, and it changes their lives in a great way, positive way.” 

Baltimore City has the lowest four-year graduation rate in Maryland, and it has gone down every year since 2018. In 2018, 72.2% of Baltimore City students graduated in four years. That number then fell to 70.3% . By 2022, it had fallen to 68.7%, the lowest in nine years.

Even with investments from organizations such as the Baltimore Ravens, absenteeism is increasing and graduation rates are still decreasing in Maryland and at an exponential rate in Baltimore. Even with promises from old and new governmental candidates, guaranteeing better and higher quality education to the Baltimore public school system, this issue stays prevalent and rates continue to decrease. This issue, gaining statewide attention, has made many questions: how else can we work to end chronic absenteeism?