Baltimore’s city council is taking a closer look at chronic absenteeism through a proposed bill that would require school district leaders to submit a report on barriers and solutions.
Almost half of Baltimore City students were considered chronically absent last school year, meaning they missed over 18 days of instruction. At the bill’s first hearing Thursday, sponsor Mark Conway said the goal is to identify “root causes” of why students aren’t showing up to class — and partner school leaders with city agencies to brainstorm interventions.
“Those 18 days can be critical for our young people actually getting the education and learning and support services that we provide in schools,” Conway said. “And it's not just math and science. It's the social emotional learning; it's the resources; it's lunch.”
Councilmembers spent a large portion of Thursday’s hearing probing district leaders and the Maryland Transit Administration about transportation issues. A study published by The Baltimore Banner last month found that it takes the average city student 40 minutes to get to school on public transit, where they often face harassment and delays.
MTA Administrator Holly Arnold said public buses are federally prohibited from only serving students — and the agency is wary about deterring from normal routes.
“The purpose of the public transit system is to ensure public transit for all,” she said. “We still need to ensure that workers are getting to work on time, that people are getting to doctors’ appointments on time.”
But Arnold said there are some changes that could help students, like more dedicated bus lanes and better parking enforcement to reduce delays. She also said MTA has reduced its cancellation rate from 12% to 2% over the last year.
Baltimore City Public Schools Chief of Staff Alison Perkins-Cohen said the district isn’t capable of providing buses for students because of high costs and driver shortages.
“It would be very, very expensive,” she said in response to council questions Thursday. “And it's not just the expense cost. It's the fact of whether you're going to have access to the buses.”
Baltimore has a school choice model that allows high schoolers to choose which institution to attend regardless of their home location. Perkins-Cohen said that causes commute routes to look like “spaghetti strings” across the city, making a bus map nearly impossible to design.
“Sometimes we talk about, is there a way to provide more access to consistent programming across the city?” she said. “That's also a challenge, because students want different things. We have students who want CTE programming. We have students who want arts programming. We have students who want, you know, math or science type programming, and to have all that in different places around the city is difficult too.”
Beyond transportation
John Bullock, chair of the Education, Youth & Older Adults committee, said the scope of the bill needs to look beyond transportation.
“There may be delays or tardiness because of transportation; that’s different than an absence,” he said. “When a young person doesn’t show up to school, there are multiple issues involved. There are family issues; there are neighborhood issues; there are academic issues; there are issues around bullying. So I don't want us to be so narrow in terms of transit, as important as it is.”
Councilmembers raised concerns about housing stability, parent communication and fears from immigrant families amid Trump-era policies that allow ICE to operate in and around schools. Councilwoman Odette Ramos said that barriers will likely look different for elementary versus high school students.
Lori Hines, director of student conduct and attendance, said there is no requirement for schools to report specific reasons why students are absent — which makes it difficult to determine district-wide trends.
This year, Hines said, district attendance experts are meeting daily with 96 city schools to assess the specific factors impeding student attendance and work to find effective solutions.
Councilman James Torrence says he wants to see “more skin in the game” from city schools leaders when it comes to data collection to expand that one-on-one approach.
“I'm willing to find the money and help you,” he said to district leaders at Thursday’s hearing. “But I also want to make sure that when the help comes, the data is there to support the help. We can make the argument and not have people say that we're a city in crisis, rather than a city that is meeting children at their front door.”
