Chronic Absenteeism and Attendance Rate of All Middle Schools
Roger Williams consistently has one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism and one of the lowest attendance rates when compared to other middle schools in the state.
Above are all of the public schools with grades 6, 7, or 8 in the state of Rhode Island. Roger Williams MS is represented by the green bar. The chart on the left shows chronic absenteeism rates. The chart on the right shows attendance rates. As you can see, Roger Williams has exceptionally high rates of chronic absence compared to other middle schools, and therefore makes a good school to examine absenteeism. It is also evident that attendance rates often mask high rates of absenteeism.
Absenteeism is often examined in the following four categories: Low=0% to 5%, Moderate=5% to 10%, Chronic= 10% to 20%, and Excessive= 20%+
For this story, we have collapsed low and moderate into one category (<10% absent, or not chronically absent) and chronic and excessive into a second category (10%+ or chronic). Therefore, our definition of chronic absenteeism includes students who are absent at least 10% of the days they are enrolled in school.
Note: Because students with very short enrollment periods may skew chronic absenteeism statistics unfairly, the percentages will be based on students with a minimum enrollment of 30 days or more at a school throughout this story.
