Justice High School has fought for years to keep atten­dance high. Accord­ing to the Depart­ment of Educa­tion, about 12% of students in Fair­fax miss school for 15 days or more every year. In a school of 2400 students, that’s about 290 students who are consid­ered chron­i­cally absent. Whether it’s because they’re sick, provid­ing for their loved ones or if they just don’t feel like it, the hard truth is that Justice, like many other high schools, is never 100% there.

The school has three admin­is­tra­tors that are directly in charge of getting students to attend, known as the deans of students. Dean Jillian Pala­cios explains “We come in every morn­ing, we have data that we have to run, which basi­cally shows us which students have missed certain days of school. And then we have to contact their fami­lies by letter, we use phone calls and we meet with students about attendance.”

Pala­cios has a goal: to find root causes and whether they’re out of a student’s control, and to help them come back to school.  Pala­cios says “I think that our students face a lot of things here at school, a lot more than what I faced as a high school student, a lot more than a lot of us as adults face. [A]nd I think it just some­times comes down to, does the student not want to be here because they don’t want to be here? Or are they doing other things like support­ing their family, having to pay their own rent or pay their own bills?” 

Richard Peter­son, another dean at Justice, had a differ­ent, blunter opin­ion. “I have worked at 4 differ­ent schools as a teacher and I can say that atten­dance is a concern at all schools. [A]ttendance has been a national prob­lem for years. Research shows the impor­tance of being present and that is why schools focus on making sure students are attend­ing,” explains Peterson.

One way Justice attempts to encour­age atten­dance is a weekly raffle for students who attend school consis­tently. Pala­cios says that it’s meant to make the student body happier, “You know, at the end of the day we see[…] some weeks atten­dance has gone up, some weeks it goes down, but at the end of the day I think that the perfect atten­dance awards and the improved atten­dance awards just bring a smile to our students’ faces, and even if it’s just a small moment, we believe that it’s doing something.”

Robert Gard Marquez, a fresh­man at Justice, is conflicted about the atten­dance awards. Having been excused absent for a few days out of the year due to circum­stances beyond his control, he cannot receive atten­dance awards. Gard Marquez states, “[Atten­dance awards are] a good idea, but there are some students at this school who may not be able to attend. Not just because of holi­days and family events, but for seri­ous matters and mental health issues. That’s happened to a couple of my friends before.”

Many students won’t earn those awards, though, as some find it hard to consis­tently attend post-COVID. Pala­cios worked at another Fair­fax school prior to Justice, and noticed a change: “I think [that] not just at Justice[…] but across the United States, we’ve seen an uptick in absen­teeism. I know we’re coming off of COVID, coming off of the pandemic but it’s going to take a good while for students to get reac­cli­mated to our system. [S]tudents as a whole have been through a lot, and we really need to do what­ever it takes to get them rein­tro­duced to the ways of school.”

Alysha Damra­towski, a coun­selor at Justice, claims absence and class-cutting can nega­tively impact a studen­t’s educa­tion in a number of ways. “Students who miss a lot of school may have diffi­culty form­ing and main­tain­ing rela­tion­ships with their class­mates, which can lead to feel­ings of isola­tion and lone­li­ness. They also are more likely to expe­ri­ence poor acad­e­mic results, such as poorer test results and grad­u­a­tion rates” says Damratowski.

The Depart­ment of Educa­tion shows simi­lar research. “High school dropout, which chron­i­cally absent students are more likely to expe­ri­ence, has been linked to poor outcomes later in life, from poverty and dimin­ished health to involve­ment in the crim­i­nal justice system.” (ed​.gov/​d​a​t​a​s​t​o​r​y​/​c​h​r​o​n​i​c​a​b​s​e​n​t​e​e​i​s​m​.​h​t​m​l#four)

Pala­cios insists that students shouldn’t feel alone while they’re strug­gling with atten­dance. “[D]on’t be afraid to ask for help, lean on the people here at school. I’ve found so many times that students just don’t know how to ask for help or are too scared, but we’re here for the students. At the end of the day, we’ll do what­ever we have to do for our students, but some­times we just […] need students to know that we’re here for them and [to] advo­cate for [them­selves],” explains Palacios.