Since the pandemic, the number of students missing classes has increased. More than a quarter of students were “chronically absent,” meaning they had missed 10 percent of classes or more, during the 2021-2022 school year. That was a big increase from the 15 percent of students missing that many classes before the pandemic.
In fact, absenteeism has become such a notable problem nationally that it was addressed by the White House in May. and a bipartisan coalition They quickly agreed that cutting absenteeism in half should be the “top priority” for American schools. Of particular concern is the effect of missing class on student performance, along with other notable issues such as student behavior. For example, the White House blamed absenteeism about the plummeting reading and math results of the country's students.
But there is another potential consequence of the growing number of students missing class: teachers enjoy their jobs less. At least, that's what a new study maintains.
The core of teaching is instruction and helping children grow and develop, and anything that takes teachers away from that purpose will leave them dissatisfied, says Michael Gottfried, a professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. and co-author of the study.
For researchers, this means that absenteeism threatens to exacerbate the teacher shortage.
Disappointed staff
Published in Educational Researcher this November, this latest study, “Do teachers with absent students feel less job satisfaction?”, claims to be the first to inspect the link between students' attendance at school and teachers' degree of satisfaction with their work. Using data from the U.S. Department of Education on 2,370 kindergarten teachers from public and private schools across the country, the study found that when a higher percentage of students are absent from the classroom, teachers' job satisfaction tends to decline. to decrease.
Previous research by one of the authors has sought to demonstrate that missing class can negatively affect what teachers think about absent students, leading them to view those students as lacking social skills and less academically capable.
With the staffing shortages schools have been experiencing, it's no surprise that adding another challenge makes teachers feel like the job is even more thankless and insurmountable.
In the case of public sector education jobs, the recovery of employment after the COVID-19 crisis was slow. It only occurred in October 2023 using federal aid dollars, according to economic data. analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. However, those public schools still have not been able to meet the demand for teachers, and teaching positions in high-poverty public schools have proven particularly difficult to fill, according to the institute. Additionally, with the added complexities of the classroom after the pandemic, the amount of stress teachers felt has also increased.
But the latest report doesn't just talk about exhaustion, according to one of its authors. The study revealed that teachers of all experience levels felt less job satisfaction when students were absent.
It is also about demoralization.
Since students returned from the pandemic, teachers have had to spend their time remediating disengaged students, Gottfried says, adding, “Teachers are saying, 'God, this is not what I signed up for.'”
Other well-known causes of teacher shortages include low salaries, burnout, and lack of support. So how does this “job dissatisfaction” compare to other problems in the teaching profession, such as low salaries? “I have to tell you, it's a big disappointment when half the class isn't there one day,” Gottfried says. While poor pay and stressful working conditions are the main reasons for teacher dissatisfaction, absenteeism also figures prominently, Gottfried maintains. In their opinion, this alienates teachers, which in turn further aggravates the staff shortage.
But what would it be like to also support teachers?
When we think about the teacher shortage, people don't think enough about why teachers want to leave the job, Gottfried says. That means much of the absenteeism is focused on getting students back to class, Gottfried says. Many of the responsibilities seem to fall on the teacher (communicating with family, sending homework packets home), but once students return to the classroom, what happens?
Teachers feel a great deal of responsibility for absences, and some of the policy attention focused on reducing absenteeism can make teachers feel under scrutiny, being held responsible for students' lack of attendance, Gottfried says.
Instead, he argues that a scaffolding system that helps support teachers, such as before and after school tutoring, would allow students to return to class more easily. Additionally, increased educational assistance could alleviate some of the pressure on teachers. “I would think about ways to support truant students that can bring in other school staff, and not just a truancy officer to help discipline and address things like, 'you weren't here,'” Gottfried says.
