(Radio Iowa) – A University of Iowa education professor who studies why students skip school says she’s encouraged by a new report on a hefty drop in absenteeism in Iowa’s schools, though she says there’s still more work to do.

Kari Vogelgesang, director of professional development at the UI’s Scanlan Center for School Mental Health, says students tend to miss school because they feel overwhelmed, not just apathetic, and the reasons often fall into one of two categories.

Prof. Kari Vogelgesang (UI photo)

“Push factors are something that’s a school-based cause that draws students out of the school,” Vogelgesang says. “For example, exclusionary discipline, an unsafe climate, bullying, these types of things where students don’t feel welcome at school and they disengage and they feel pushed out.”

The other main reason students are absent is some sort of “pull” factor.

“These are external circumstances that draw students away, and they can be things like transportation issues, or housing instability, or health issues, or family responsibilities, employment pressures — that’s typically tied to family responsibilities,” she says.

The report out last week from the Department of Education shows chronic absenteeism dropped by about five-percent statewide in the two years since a state law addressing the issue took effect. In the several years prior to the pandemic, she says Iowa’s absentee rate was holding at around 11-percent.

“In 2022, coming out of COVID and everybody was returning to school, we were at about 26%,” Vogelgesang says, “which was still lower than the national average. The national average was around 30%, which is very alarming. And now we’ve dropped down to about 15.8, depending on who’s reporting it, they’re saying 15 or 16 percent.”

We’re now returning to more of a baseline for chronic absenteeism, which she defines as missing class about 10-percent of the time. School administrators and legislators can do more, Vogelgesang says, to help bring those numbers down even further.

“We know that when you implement a multi-tier, data-driven, relationship-heavy intervention or policy in your school that you’re going to have the best outcomes, and we encourage districts to avoid punitive, one-size-fits-all type of policy,” Vogelgesang says, “but you really need to think about your unique population and what is going to work the best for your students and for your families and educators.”

Vogelgesang studies the drivers of chronic absenteeism and is a founding member of Attendance USA, a national initiative focused on addressing student attendance and engagement. The state report says Iowa’s five-percent drop in absenteeism is one of the largest reported decreases in the country.