There’s still work to do on getting kids back to school following a huge absenteeism spike during the COVID-19 pandemic. But some schools are seeing significant success.
The most improved school in the whole state, by percentage point decrease, was McCormick Elementary in Baltimore County, according to data provided by the Maryland State Department of Education. The school reduced chronic absenteeism – defined as missing at least one-tenth of enrolled school days – from 47.5% in the 2022-23 school year to 9.7% in the 2023-24 school year.
“We try to be preventative and proactive instead of reactive, because we know the primary goal is to get kids in the classroom before we can even do anything with achievement,” Principal Ligeri Kourtesis said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun earlier this week.
Four other schools with the highest percentage-point drops in absenteeism were ConneXions: A Community Based Arts School in Baltimore City (22.3 percentage-point drop), Halls Cross Roads Elementary in Harford County (21.4), Milford Mill Academy in Baltimore County (20.4) and Roscoe R. Nix Elementary in Montgomery County (20).
But despite major improvement, some of those most-improved schools still had a far higher percentage of absent students than the statewide average for their grade category. Across the state, 21.5% of elementary students were chronically absent in the 2023-24 school year, compared with 23.5% of middle school students and 35% of high schoolers.
Schools that dropped below those statewide averages in the 2023-24 school year included Relay Elementary in Baltimore County, Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle in Baltimore City, Point Pleasant Elementary in Anne Arundel County, Charlesmont Elementary in Baltimore County and Willards Elementary in Wicomico County.
The Maryland State Board of Education recently said it will start tracking absences monthly. The state is still working to “stop the bleeding coming out of the pandemic,” according to MSBE President Joshua Michael last month. The board has a chronic absenteeism task force that is scheduled to deliver a report by the end of this year.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Baltimore City saw a dramatic spike in absenteeism – reaching to a pandemic high of 58%. Prior reporting by The Baltimore Sun revealed that in the 2022-23 school year, around 8,000 out of 75,000 Baltimore City students missed at least 60 days – or an entire third – of the school year.
The most recent data shows 49% of students were chronically absent in Baltimore in the 2023-24 school year.
Have a news tip? Contact Brooke Conrad at bconrad@baltsun.com, 443-682-2356 or @conrad_brooke on X.
