ELKHART — Some advocates are alarmed by the rate at which students in Elkhart County are absent from class and are hoping to raise awareness of the issue.
About one in four students in Elkhart County struggle with chronic absenteeism, according to The Source, a system of care within Oaklawn that provides services for youth who have mental health concerns.
Anna Sawatzky, director of The Source, said chronic absenteeism is tricky to define. When the original research by the Indiana Department of Education came out, absenteeism was defined as missing 10 percent or more days in a school year. This year, the Indiana Department of Education changed the metric to where the goal is to have students in school 94 percent of the school year.
“In August 2023, we had focused on that indicator,” Sawatzky said of school attendance. “So, we meet twice a year to talk about the dashboard and what we’re seeing there and see what action is needed. In August 2023, when we had met to look through this together, we found that the county numbers were worse than the state and that was alarming because the state’s not doing very well on the national level.”
The Source has an Elkhart County child dashboard that tracks indicators related to child and family well-being and lack of well-being. The dashboard tracks indicators from employment statistics to school attendance. It showed that Elkhart County is struggling with chronic absenteeism.
The organization convened a group consisting of representatives from each of the seven school districts in Elkhart County: Goshen, Concord, Wa-Nee, Fairfield, Elkhart, Baugo and Middlebury community schools. The group also consists of several community agencies such as the Community Foundation of Elkhart County, the Tolson Center and the Center for Community Justice.
“That equates to roughly about four or five days a quarter or 10 days a semester,” said Byron Sanders, superintendent of Baugo Community Schools. “If you exceed that number, you are in a position where you are habitually absent and so that’s what triggers the state’s response to habitual absenteeism.”
Elkhart Community Schools and Concord Community Schools are below the state attendance rate average, according to the Indiana Department of Education’s dashboard, Graduates Prepared to Succeed.
Based on a percentage measured by the number of students with at least a 94 percent attendance rate divided by the total number of students enrolled in school a majority of the year, Concord was at a 62.5 percent attendance rate, while Elkhart was at 47.3 percent in 2024. The state average attendance rate was 63.4 percent in 2024.
Sawatzky said the effect the COVID-19 pandemic had on absenteeism was huge. Between 2020 and 2021, the attendance rate for each school took a massive decrease.
The Source looked at three issues to see how COVID-19 affected chronic absenteeism: frayed bonds, frayed routines and changed messaging.
“Some of these things that we were trying to do the best, meant the best, but really it gave an impression that’s hard to backtrack on now,” Sawatzky said.
In addition to COVID-19, the mental health crisis experienced by older students has also played a factor in high absentee numbers, according to Lindsey Brander, Elkhart’s director of student services. The level of anxiety and stress that some students experience may prevent them from coming to school, she said.
Brander also pointed to access to child care as an issue for families as well, which is leading to high absentee numbers. Some parents do not have access to paid time off, so they are not able to take time off to watch the younger children, so older students are tasked with staying home to watch their younger siblings.
“It is a communitywide issue, as far as all of the factors that feed into why kids aren’t coming to school as much as they have previously,” Brander said.
To change the messaging on school attendance, the group convened by The Source partnered with LightBox to create and launch a campaign highlighting the importance for students of being in school. The campaign is using billboards, posters, banners, mailers, yard signs and a video featuring local students and community members.
Each school district is also employing its own tactics to support students and families. Larry Huff, superintendent of Elkhart Community Schools, said his district hired a K-8 attendance coordinator, Travon Curry.
“I think one of the best things we can do is create engaging learning environments that kids want to come to,” Huff said. “When I say engaging learning environments, are students having opportunities to interact and learn in environments where they’re going to be exposed to things that are relevant to them?”
Lisa Kendall, assistant superintendent of educational programming at Concord Community Schools, said her school district has put in place different systems and refined those systems to have absenteeism data to keep families informed as to how often students are absent.
School officials saying the campaign to make people aware of absenteeism is improving numbers. From 2023 to 2024, Concord has seen a 12.6 percent increase in its attendance rate among all students.
“I would definitely celebrate the fact that our students, our families, our staff recognize the importance of being in the classroom for learning and we saw great gains last school year,” Kendall said.
Elkhart Community Schools’ attendance rate increased by 3.3 percent from 2023 to 2024. Baugo Community Schools attendance rate increased by 0.6 percent from 2023 to 2024 and the school district’s overall student attendance rate is over the state average at 64.9 percent.
Sanders said Baugo is looking to curb its absenteeism numbers by doing what every school in the state is doing, which is monitoring the numbers.
“We have a progression, so when students meet the threshold of absences in a marking period, letters go home and if the attendance doesn’t improve, then obviously phone calls and parent meetings occur to reduce absenteeism,” Sanders said. “Our goal is to try to work with the family to avoid any referral to the juvenile justice authority, but if that was required, we would obviously meet that expectation and make that referral.”
While absentee numbers remain high, school officials are optimistic that the numbers can be turned around to what they were before the pandemic. Other Elkhart County schools are seeing improvements in attendance as well.
The attendance rate at Wa-Nee Community Schools is below the state average, but the overall attendance rate has improved by 1.3 percent in the last school year. Goshen Community Schools has improved its overall student attendance rate by 4.4 percent in the last school year, while it is still below the state average. Fairfield Community Schools is above the state average and has seen a 12.9 percent increase in the last school year. Middlebury Community Schools is also above the state average in attendance rate at 65.5 percent and has increased 1.8 percent in the last school year.
“We’re seeing attendance improve a little bit because we’re having more conversations about it and it’s not just us as a school corporation saying, ‘You got to get your kid to school. You got to get your kid to school,’” Brander said. “It’s different community partners who are providing that support as well. So, that’s a positive that we have a lot more awareness.”