The emphasis on making students feel welcomed and safe at school has helped dramatically cut absenteeism rates at the District School Board Ontario North East.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
The student hadn’t been at school for three days straight.
She didn’t get a threatening phone call from the school demanding her return. She wasn’t told she was going to fail.
Instead, she received a personalized postcard from her teacher saying she was missed and a valued member of the school community.
This is just one small example of how the District School Board Ontario North East, which includes Timmins and Kirkland Lake, is trying to solve the problem of persistent absenteeism.
One student said during a meeting with administrators that the only reason she returned to school was because the postcard she received made her feel cared for, said Lesleigh Dye, the board’s director of education.
U.S. research has shown that sending personalized postcards can reduce absenteeism by more than two per cent, Ms. Dye said.
That’s not much, but with attendance rates so low since the onset of the pandemic, many boards in Ontario are trying anything that might help, from postcards to social workers who will visit with families at their homes regularly to help address the underlying issues that a student may have for being absent.
Last week, Ontario introduced new legislation that would make attendance a significant part of final marks for high-school students, but absenteeism is a problem in earlier grades as well and requires sustained intervention, education experts say.
Opinion: Ontario’s plan addresses the symptom of student absenteeism, not the causes
However, chronic absenteeism is a “wicked problem,” meaning one that has many complex contributing factors and no single, easy solution, said Elizabeth Fairfield, superintendent of education at the Rainy River District School Board in northwestern Ontario.
There is one thing, however, that she knows for sure. “Punitive measures don’t work.”
In the fall of 2024, the board launched an initiative called the 19 Days Campaign, based on the number of days missed during a school year that meet the provincial threshold for chronic absenteeism.
The campaign included practical measures such as setting up an alert system so teachers would know when a student had missed three days in a row or that their attendance had dropped below 80 per cent, among other indicators.
But it also emphasized teacher attitudes.
“We were really trying to work with our staff to ensure that when kids returned, it wasn’t a negative and punitive experience, but that it was like, welcome back. We’re happy to see you. How can we help you to get caught up on what you’re missing?” Ms. Fairfield said.
The emphasis on making students feel welcomed and safe at school has helped dramatically cut absenteeism rates at Ms. Dye’s board.
Attendance at Ontario high schools plummeting, data reveal
In the 2017-2018 school year, 68 per cent of students in Grades 1 to 8 met the provincial standard of attending of 90 per cent or more school days each year.
By the 2021-2022 school year, that figure plunged to 31 per cent, partly because of COVID-19. The provincial average was 50 per cent.
Today, thanks to the board’s strategies – including not just those postcards but a peer mentoring program and an emphasis on early intervention – 62 per cent of students meet the provincial standard, Ms. Dye said.
Moving away from punitive measures to positive reinforcement helps students who are struggling with absenteeism to return to school, especially when it comes to those who have anxiety issues.
The longer these students are away, the more it can compound their anxiety about returning, said Darryl Fillmore, mental-health lead at the Algoma District School Board.
“Anxiety is often made worse by avoidance,” he said.
The troubling rise in youth mental-health problems since the beginning of the pandemic has become a main driver of rates of absenteeism, Mr. Fillmore said.
There have been spikes in anxiety, mood disorders and addictions, he said, in addition to depression, eating disorders, ADHD and poor sleep related to screen use.
According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, the proportion of youth aged 12 to 17 who rated their mental health as “fair” or “poor” more than doubled between 2019 and 2023, rising to 26 per cent from 12 per cent.
Making attendance count for a significant portion of a high-school student’s final grade will likely not be incentive enough for students with mental-health issues, said Katie Simpson, clinical manager at the Bluewater District School Board.
Instead, attendance counsellors at the board, whose job it is to work with persistently absent students to help them return to school, use cognitive behavioural therapy techniques to help frequently absent students take whatever small steps are needed to return to the classroom.
“Small steps would be meeting that kid at their home and just going to the bus stop with them and doing that over and over until maybe they get on the bus,” Ms. Simpson said.
From there, it might be getting a student to be in school for just one hour and adjusting their timetables to make sure that they’re in classes they can engage in, she said.
Trying to solve absenteeism by threatening students with lower grades and not delving into their reasons for missing school is misguided, Ms. Simpson said.
“We’re treating the smoke signals, not the fire.”