Lawmakers Huddle: New Georgia law prohibits schools from expelling chronically absent students

Caption

An American flag is seen in an elementary school classroom. A new Georgia law now prevents chronically absent students from being expelled.

Beginning this school year, students who are chronically absent will no longer face expulsion. 

In this week’s Lawmakers Huddle, GPB’s Donna Lowry dives into the reason behind the new law with one of its chief sponsors, State Senator John F. Kennedy of Macon. 

TRANSCRIPT

Donna Lowry: Since the pandemic, the rate of school absenteeism continues to rise nationwide. Georgia is seeking to address the issue, starting with ensuring that schools no longer expel students solely because they are chronically absent. Joining me is one of the primary champions of the new law, Sen. John F. Kennedy. Thank you for joining me on Lawmakers' Huddle, sir.

John F. Kennedy: Hello, Donna. It's great to be with you. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about this really important issue to Georgia and the children of Georgia.  

Donna Lowry: So, we're going to discuss Senate Bill 123. What an appropriate bill number: 1-2-3. Was that deliberate?  

John F. Kennedy: I wish I could say I was smart enough to have made that happen, but I would just say, no. It was absolute luck and providence that we wound up with Senate Bill 123 to talk about something very important to children.  

Donna Lowry: When you presented the bill on the Senate floor, you mentioned learning about the issue during a trip to another state. Talk about that a bit.  

John F. Kennedy:  I was traveling last summer for a conference, picked up a newspaper. Read about the problem of chronic absenteeism in this other state. I came back to my office at the Capitol and asked the staff. I said, “Do we have a problem with chronic absenteeism in Georgia?"  A couple of numbers, if I could give you some. Chronic absenteeism — and that's defined as children missing more than 10% of their school days. That's basically 18 days or more of school a year that they're missing. Before COVID, we were at about 9.5%. As you would expect, it spiked during COVID and got as high as 26%. It's come down, Donna, but it's still at about 21%.That represents 360,000 of our school kids in the public school systems of Georgia that are chronically absent, meaning they're missing 18 days or more.    

Donna Lowry: What worries you most about chronic absenteeism beyond some of the things you've talked about?  

John F. Kennedy: The first thing that worried me most and still worries me is that it did not seem to be a topic of conversation or a problem that we seemed aware of. And it's not unlike the literacy problem, or illiteracy problem, that have in Georgia. 

Y'know, Donna, this bill is just the first step. And what I mean by that is when I presented the bill to the committee and the House and the Senate, I said "I don't think this is the silver bullet to fix everything. We're going to have to continue to work on this." And for that reason, I formed a study committee and that I'm chairing — or our Senate side formed a committee that I chair. And we're going be studying the issue of chronic absenteeism this summer with multiple meetings. 

Donna Lowry: It deals with making sure students aren't expelled because of chronic absenteeism. What else does it do?  

John F. Kennedy: One of the things it does, sort of the heart of it, it creates a local attendance review team. And that has the folks in the school system — from the counselors to the administration to other people. If your metrics are such that you're chronically absent, that is, your school system, either a particular school or school-wide system, has a chronic absenteeism problem, you have to identify the problem. You have to work on solutions. And there's some accountability there.  

One of the things I hope, as I said, that we'll learn from the study committee this summer. What are these root causes? I would tell you from my work on this, I think it can be everything from mental health issues. It can be unstable housing that students are facing. It could be unreliable transportation issues and problems there. And sometimes it may just be a lack of connection that the student has with their school. We need to learn what those are because that's the first step in moving forward and trying to find solutions.  

Donna Lowry: Sen. Kennedy, thank you so much for coming on Lawmakers Huddle.  

John F. Kennedy: You're welcome, Donna, thank you. It's great to be with you as always.  

Donna Lowry: You can find more of this interview by going to the podcast, Battleground Ballot Box: Lawmakers Huddle. For Lawmakers Huddle, I’m Donna Lowry.