How Mass. schools are working to curb chronic absenteeism years after the pandemic [Video]

Massachusetts students are not attending school at alarming rates, which is putting their education in jeopardy, according to educators, and now they’re taking new measures to get kids back into the classrooms. Chronic absenteeism is defined as a student missing 10% or more of their school days in a year, whether absences are excused or unexcused. It’s a problem across the state, including in Fall River School District.Fall River has been making strides to curb chronic absenteeism one student at a time.5 Investigates watched first-hand as Jennifer Nawrocki called the homes of various students who were marked absent from Fonseca Elementary School during one day in the first week of the school year. One of the students who was absent included a first-grader whom Nawrocki said had a concerning pattern that they’ve been tracking since her kindergarten year.”If I look at her history, she’s only a first-grade student and she …