How to Support Chronically Absent Students When They Return to Class

Tomorrow or another day soon, a young person in your community will return to school after missing the previous day—or previous several days—of class. Let’s call this young person Troy.

Coming back to class will be stressful for Troy. He has missed valuable instruction, so he will inevitably feel lost. Learning in all subjects builds upon itself, so he won’t understand Tuesday’s lesson if he has missed Monday’s. In fact, if Monday’s lesson was worth learning, he shouldn’t.

Troy’s return will also be stressful for his teacher, who must figure out how to catch Troy up while simultaneously moving the rest of the class forward. If his teacher pauses to reteach Monday’s lesson, students who were present on Monday won’t advance. If, on the other hand, his teacher moves forward with Tuesday’s lesson, Troy won’t. 

Troy’s classmates, who recognize that Troy’s arrival might slow them down, may feel stressed too. Their time is precious, and they won’t want to repeat content they’ve already learned.

So this situation isn’t good for anyone. Yet it’s increasingly common: In 2023, more than 25 percent of American students were considered chronically absent.

While teachers learn how to teach the students who are present, and school leaders adopt strategies to increase attendance, few educators receive much guidance on an equally important issue: How do you support chronically absent students when they come back to class?

It turns out that the answer to this question actually helps every learner succeed.

Beyond Makeup Packets 

I come to this challenge from personal experience. In my first year teaching in the District of Columbia Public Schools, I taught a first-period class that had 21 students on the roster—and often fewer than 10 physically present by the time class ended each day.

It quickly became evident that standing at the board delivering a single lesson every day, to the students who happened to be in class that day, wasn’t going to work. The students who missed class would return and feel confused, while the students who did attend regularly became resentful when I had to repeat myself. It was exasperating for all of us.

The traditional solutions I tried—giving students copies of my notes when they arrived, providing makeup work packets, and staying after school to help students catch up—didn’t work either. Students can rarely learn from printed notes and makeup work alone (that’s why they attend school), and I didn’t have the time to stay late every day. Also, there were the factors that made it hard for my students to attend in the first place. Many had family or work responsibilities, long commutes, health issues, etc., which made it hard for them to stay. 

A Better Approach to Supporting Chronically Absent Students

I just hadn’t been shown a way to support students like Troy.

So, I found one. In fact, I did three simple things.

1. I digitized my direct instruction. Rather than explaining my content live, to the students who happened to be in class on any given day, I found and/or recorded short videos that explained my content. Students like Troy could watch these videos at home or in class, at their own pace, and rewatch as needed. This way,I could spend my time in class answering their questions, providing encouragement, and building relationships with my students all the while.
2. I let students set the pace. Some of my students learned quickly, and I didn’t want to hold them back. Other students needed more time to learn, and I wanted to provide that. So, I set clear goals (“Finish these three lessons by Friday”) and let students achieve those goals at their own rate. I also planned rich extension activities for students who finished early and small group mini-lessons to support groups of students who got stuck. This way, every student had the time they needed to learn, and every student felt appropriately challenged and appropriately supported every day.
3. I required mastery. Ultimately, my goal was to help all of my students understand my content. It didn’t make sense for Troy to attempt Lesson 2 if he hadn’t understood Lesson 1. So I gave my students mastery checks: brief, just-in-time assessments aligned to my learning objectives. I required them to demonstrate their understanding before advancing to the next topic. If students fell short the first time around, I made them revise and reassess until they were truly ready to advance.

This Approach Helps Every Learner

This approach worked for Troy. He could come to class, pick up where he had left off, and start learning. If he wanted, he could catch up outside of class, too. He no longer felt lost.

This approach worked for me as well. I no longer felt stressed when students like Troy arrived, and I spent my time in class sitting down with and really getting to know my students. I felt more like a tutor, coach, and mentor than a traditional teacher, and it was fun!

This approach also worked for the rest of my class. It wasn’t just students like Troy who felt more engaged: It was every learner. My advanced students could race ahead, while my students who needed more time and support got it. My approach to teaching was like a curb cut: The strategies that helped Troy helped every other learner achieve their potential too. 

Finally, and most important, this approach—which I now call the Modern Classroom instructional model and have recently written a book about—can work for you. Tomorrow or another day soon, in fact, thousands of educators around the world will use it to make sure that learners like Troy, and all of their classmates, will truly learn. It’s an approach that meets every learner’s needs, and it can meet yours’ too.

For Troy’s sake and your own, I hope you’ll try my three simple steps today.