By Victoria Mejicanos
AFRO Staff Writer
Baltimore City Public Schools will host its City Schools’ Attendance Phone-A-Thon Sept. 14 to contact families of every student who has not attended classes since the school year started Aug. 25. The initiative is meant to fight truancy and provide resources to families who may need extra support getting their children to class.
The effort was first launched in 2020 at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic by Lori Hines, director of student conduct and attendance for Baltimore City Public Schools. The attendance phone-a-thon is essentially a small “call center,” Hines said.
According to data provided by the U.S. Department of Education, the national rate of chronic absenteeism reached about 31 percent in the 2021-22 school year and decreased to 28 percent in the 2022-23 school year. A map provided by the DOE shows the rate of absenteeism in Maryland during the 2022-23 school year was 32 percent. Additionally, Black students nationally experienced an absenteeism rate of 37 percent during the same year.
Hines called the date of the phone-a-thon a “sweet spot” since it is the first home game of the football season and more families are likely to be at home. Hines spoke about the volunteer aspect of the phone-a-thon that is meant to cultivate community, rather than shame or punish families for aspects out of their control.
“My goal is that we want all students in school so that they can learn,” Hines said. “That is very important to me. And that’s why I want to take my time, and why other persons that care want to take their time on a weekend because it’s just that important to us. We genuinely care about where our students are and about trying to get them into school because we haven’t seen them yet.”
For Hines “it’s not just about numbers” but genuine care for the children and families of the city.
Dr. Tanya Williams has served as both a coordinator and a volunteer for the phone-a-thon over the past three years. A former school psychologist, she said being able to communicate directly with families has been fulfilling.
“It’s been very rewarding and you learn a lot about not just our families, but Baltimore in general, and about the needs of our families, ” Williams said. “And then we’re able to really strategize on how we can work together to support families so that students can come to school each and every day.”
Both Hines and Williams said that barriers to attendance range from something as simple as a change of address or district that has not yet been communicated, to academic concerns to more serious personal issues such as health concerns or domestic disputes. To handle the range of needs, they collaborate with volunteers from the mayor’s office who can direct them to the right resources.
Williams said that the phone-a-thon is continued work from the summer months.
“This summer, every school had a summer attendance liaison and their job was just to do that– call the families of chronically absent students from the prior school year and connect them to when the mayor had the back to school events or the summer block parties or the schools had their own block parties.”
Both Hines and Williams told the AFRO that these efforts have improved absenteeism and the overall student experience.
“That is really what this work is about,” she said. “I love it, especially when we see those same young people from that family start to come to school, start to look healthy, start to smile again. That’s really what is very fulfilling about this work.”
