Jan. 11—A new artificial intelligence platform is helping four New Mexico school districts automate the process of tracking student absences, a task that has grown increasingly burdensome with the rise of chronic absenteeism.
So far, AI technology is being tested in pilot programs in Farmington Municipal Schools, Raton Public Schools, the Carlsbad Municipal School District and Hobbs Municipal Schools.
Farmington started using the technology in November at three high schools: Farmington High, Piedra Vista High and Rocinante High, which have a combined population of around 3,400 students.
Already, attendance has improved slightly, responses from parents of absent students are up, and school employees have more time to provide real attendance support, according to company and school officials.
Nathan Pierantoni, executive director of support services for Farmington Municipal Schools, said the decision to use the technology was a “no-brainer.”
“Kids can’t learn if they’re not present, and we’re talking about a district with 10,737 students,” he said. “Even if we’re running a 92% daily attendance, it means we’ve got hundreds of kids a day that are absent — and trying to dive into the reasons why kids are absent is a complex process.”
High rates of chronic absenteeism — defined as missing 10% or more of instructional time — have plagued schools nationwide since the coronavirus pandemic, but New Mexico was hit the hardest.
The state faced a 119% rise in chronically absent students from 2019 to 2023, the highest increase in the nation, according to a July 2024 report from the Legislative Finance Committee.
The number improved in the last school year, with statewide rates of chronic absenteeism dropping from 39.22% to 29.77% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 — still almost double the pre-pandemic rate, according to state data.
The Farmington district reported only a 5% reduction of chronic absenteeism in the same period, school officials said.
“Coming into this year, we knew that it wasn’t good enough to have a third of our kids effectively still missing 10% or more of the school year,” Pierantoni said.
The platform, released last fall by Edia, an AI firm based in San Francisco, automates processes within student information systems, replacing the work of attendance officials or robocalls. When a teacher marks a student absent, the AI acts as a chatbot, texting parents to ask why their child isn’t in school and requesting additional information, like a doctor’s note, which parents can send via text.
The company reported New Mexico parents replied to the chatbot at a rate of over 60%, “an order of magnitude higher” than the response rates to traditional SMS and robocalls.
“We’re seeing positive trends so far,” with pilot schools reporting double the increase in attendance compared to nonpilot schools, Superintendent Cody Diehl said. Although those numbers were at just 2% and 1%, respectively, he said, they came during the holiday season, which normally brings diminished attendance.
Now, Diehl said, attendance liaisons are becoming “problem solvers” rather than secretaries.
“We didn’t track absence reasons at all before,” he said, but having that information “allows us to provide support, whether it’s academic, behavioral, social, emotional — and attendance is where many of these things really converge.”
Another benefit, Diehl said, is better identification of potential cases of child abuse.
A 2023 study by Safeguard from Abuse, an organization that offers awareness training and certification, found educators submit 56.5% of the reports of possible abuse to child welfare agencies.
With absences better tracked, Diehl said, the Farmington district is better able to raise red flags and intervene.
“This is a tool, not a solution, right? So if we see trends and patterns, we’ll continue to do what we’re supposed to [do to] support our kids — whether that’s inside or outside of our walls,” he said. “It just gives us a good look, and it paints a good picture about a student.”
Still, Farmington has had some implementation challenges, including outdated student information and a need to convince parents to get on board, Diehl said.
While the Farmington district looks forward to a full semester of the program and the data it will bring, other schools are paying attention, too.
“It could be something that we add to what we’re already doing,” Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Hilario “Larry” Chavez said. “Hopefully it would free up some of that time that individuals take to make calls.”
Chavez said he first heard about Edia in December, when the state Public Education Department was presenting its budget proposal to lawmakers and Cabinet Secretary-designate Mariana Padillaapplauded Farmington for its participation in the attendance program.
“It does collect a lot of good information — if the parents are willing to engage with it,” Chavez said.