Middle and High School students across Louisiana could be starting school at later times within the next few years.
According to a new study from the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, 51,000 students in the region are missing at least five days of school a year, and more than half of them go on to miss at least 15 days or more.
“We have a lot of students missing a lot of school,” said Jake Polansky. “That’s almost one in five students missing 15 days of school a year.”
Jake Polansky, the Manager of Economic and Policy Research at BRAC, put out a study showing two out of every five students are truant, having at least five unexcused absences during the school year. It’s an issue that’s gotten increasingly worse since the pandemic and East Baton Rouge Parish School Board Member Dadrius Lanus believes it needs to be addressed.
“The state’s own policy says that at ten days you’ve now failed the semester, so you have to track a kid at two to three days because it gives you enough wiggle room to catch them before that fifth day and get them back on track,” said Lanus.
Lanus believes that schools need to start tracking absences earlier in the year, as well as earlier in their education.
“Let’s say a third grader or second grader, if they’re already truant at that age, the warning signs already show us that they’re not going to be successful and graduate by the time they get to high school because a lot of these are tracked behaviors,” explained Lanus.
However, the favored solution is delaying school start times for middle and high school students. A bill now making its way through the legislature would push middle schools to start at 8 a.m. and high schools to start at 8:30. Polanksy advocates that these later start times will give students more sleep, increase their academic performance and improve attendance rates. He said we could even see a positive impact on our economy.
“When students have later start times, they’re more likely to be in school and that has a positive impact on GDP because students are more likely to graduate, they’re more likely to get an associate’s degree or bachelor’s degree so it’s really a domino effect,” explained Polansky.
Lanus said the school board is also working to put together a task force made up of community members and parents on truancy. The task force will talk strategy and possible interventions to tackle the issue.
“These have to be kitchen table conversations,” said Lanus. “If they're not, we’re going to continue to see the problem exacerbated. People may think it’s a small thing now, but when you go look at other cities that have seen these things ten years ago and where they are now, that’s not where we want to be. We need to be very intentional about it and I think we’re moving in the right direction.”
If the bill passes during the session this year, the policy will take two years to go into effect. This would give leaders time to adjust things like transportation and after school activities.