Alpena schools get tough on absenteeism. Parents don’t make it easy

Chronic absenteeism has doubled in Alpena’s early grades, forcing teachers to repeat lessons and slowing classroom progress
Educators say parental apathy is one of the biggest obstacles to solving the problem
A local agency works directly with families by sending letters and visiting homes to improve attendance before cases reach court

ALPENA — As school districts across northeast Michigan work to get more kids in school, officials here recently scheduled meetings with six parents of frequently absent students.

The goal: learn why their kids missed classes and outline the consequences — potential fines and jail time — if they didn’t start attending more regularly.

Just two parents showed up, said Dorothy Pintar, director of community programs for the Northeast Michigan Community Services Agency, a nonprofit that works with districts to get more kids in class.

So it goes in the fight against school absenteeism in Michigan, which has some of the nation’s highest rates.

Schools cajole, beg and warn parents — and are often met with apathy, Pintar and others said.

Dorothy Pintar poses for a picture in the office. — Dorothy Pintar is community services director for the Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency’s school success program. It works with parents to get more kids back in class where they can learn and, hopefully, succeed. (Mike Wilkinson/Bridge Michigan)

Years ago, “you had parents calling in a panic” after they were contacted by Pintar’s group, she said.

Not anymore.

“It’s like they’re not afraid of the consequences at this point,” she said.

Absenteeism hurts all

That apathy is on display almost daily, officials said.

Parents of the chronically absent often do not call a school to say their child will miss that day or why they did miss. Polls show many parents nationwide aren’t even concerned about poor attendance.

It leaves teachers like Michelle Ilsley, a 33-year veteran of the Alpena schools, wondering each day if they’ll have enough students to move forward with new subjects or circle back on past ones, afraid to leave too many behind.

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Ilsley estimates that 35% of the year there are so many absences on any given day — five or more of her first grade class of 20 — that she has to slow down.

“You get through less stuff, which in turn leads to lower test scores,” said Ilsley, an Alpena native who teaches at Besser Elementary, in the same building where she once was in middle school.

Falling scores are one byproduct of the chronic absenteeism rate that has doubled in Alpena for grades K-5, from 9.2% in 2018-19 to 18.5% last year, with nearly 1-in-5 elementary students missing 18 days or more of school.

While lower than the overall state rate of 28%, Alpena educators say absences have an impact on how much students learn.

Third grade reading proficiency in Alpena has fallen from 43.6% in 2022-23 to 34.9% in 2023-24 and to 31.9% last year. Math scores also fell.

In both subjects, a greater percentage of Alpena students were proficient than students statewide in 2022-23. Now, Alpena lags the third-grade state proficiency rate in math and English.

‘Rotten parenting’

Unlike some districts that have given up pursuing truancy charges, Alpena schools still use the threat in hopes of persuading students back to school.

In Michigan, the consequences for a misdemeanor truancy conviction include a fine of $5 to $50 and up to 90 days in jail for truancy.

Few go to jail.

Michigan lacks a statewide definition of truancy. In Alpena, Pintar’s group gets involved after eight missed days — and interventions increase with 12, then 15 missed days.

That’s when parents must agree to an action plan or risk sending the case to prosecutors.

Most often, the program has its intended impact: of the 2,595 “first” letters sent across districts in nine counties in the 2024-25 school year, 859 got a second letter and 246 a third. Across those nine counties, 30 cases went to court.

Pursuing charges is an extreme attempt to change behavior, said Nancy Ward, chief assistant prosecutor in Alpena County who handles the county’s juvenile cases. If she gets a conviction, she said she’ll suspend it for a year in hopes of improving attendance.

But she and others have been struck by parents who are unable to police their own child’s school attendance, to make sure they get up on time, get dressed and out the door.

Often, said Ward, the parent will complain that “I don’t know how to handle my own kid.”

“It’s rotten parenting,” she said. “It breaks my heart.”

But some parents avoid potential prosecution by pulling their child from school and claiming to homeschool them, said Lisa Werth, a school success liaison.

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In Michigan, there are no requirements for registering or testing homeschooled children.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Scott Moore, superintendent of the Oscoda Area school district south of Alpena.

Moore estimated that 20 to 25 parents each year pull their kids out of school and say they are homeschooling to avoid court. Some of those same students are re-enrolled months later, Moore said, and it is clear many did not get enough instruction while they were gone.

“And then we’re supposed to work miracles,” he said. “If we’re going to homeschool, let’s hold them to a standard that doesn’t exist right now.”

It’s not just Alpena.

State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, is working to draft legislation to curb chronic absenteeism and she recalled dealing with reluctant parents during her days as a high school teacher in New Haven in Macomb County.

She said parents had told her their child was too tired for school because they had been watching videos on their cell phones deep into the night. “I don’t know what to do,” Polehanki said a parent told her.

Her advice, she said, was blunt: “Take the phone.”

Other barriers

For all the lamenting about parents, educators recognize that many have real struggles, including single parents or those without reliable transportation.

The northeast Lower Peninsula routinely has some of the highest jobless rates in Michigan and Pintar said her program works to find solutions for the families that need help.

The school success program grew out of the realization that so many of the regional agency’s clients — for housing, food assistance, utility assistance — had not succeeded in school. The idea was to help parents and school districts keep more kids in class so they can learn, graduate and prosper.

And a big part of that is, simply, going to the home and talking with the parents, Pintar said.

“We need to see people face to face to see what the barrier is,” she said.

Because the goal is relatively simple, to get the student back in school and on a path to success. “We have to have them back in their seats,” she said.

llsley, the first grade teacher, agrees. What frustrates her and other Alpena’s educators is that many of today’s student absences go unacknowledged, with parents not alerting the school when their child will be absent.

“As I get near the end of my career, I want it (absenteeism) to be lower, to get it solved,” Ilsley said, moments before her seasonally decorated room was buzzing with students.

“I would like to see parents be held a little more accountable.”