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Sports and other extracurricular activities make up the largest share of students who were considered chronically absent at the Aspen School District during the 2023-24 school year.
Chronic absenteeism — which in Colorado is considered when a student misses 10% or more (approximately 18 days) days in a school year — has grown nationally since the COVID-19 pandemic, a crisis the U.S. Department of Education said is most common in communities with students in low-income families.
ASD has one of the highest chronic absenteeism rates in the state, according to data released by the Colorado Department of Education and presented to the board of education Wednesday. But the data is murky — the state considers excused absences in its chronic absenteeism counts, which can account for school-sponsored absences like sports games, choir or band performances, and absences for doctor or dentist appointments.
At ASD, about 85% of students missing school are participating in athletics, including school-sponsored athletics, club sports games, or Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club activities, Superintendent Tharyn Mulberry said.
About 30% of students in Colorado are considered chronically absent. At the Aspen School District, 43.1% of students were chronically absent during the 2023-24 academic year, according to CDE. During the 2022-23 academic year, 42.2% were chronically absent.
ASD is among the top 15 school districts out of almost 200 in the state with one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism. But it was among the lowest in the state for its truancy rate, the amount of unexcused absences a student racks up, which is an indicator of a student missing out on school for reasons other than extracurriculars. School board members were concerned the data didn’t show a full picture of what the absences meant at the district.
“We have all of these different types of situations thrown into one calculation. It doesn’t parse out the kids who are missing school for approved reasons, because they’re doing something school-related,” school board member Stacey Weiss said. “My concern about that is we’re looking at this as if it’s all in the same basket.”
Only 3% of students were considered truant in the district during the 2023-24 school year.
Aspen High School had the highest rate of chronic absenteeism among all three schools in the district. At the high school, 68.2% of students were chronically absent during the 2023-24 academic year. Chronic absenteeism is most common in high schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education. It is also when activities outside of class ramp up, Mulberry told the board.
“When you have an involved student, I can assure you they’re missing a lot of school,” Mulberry said.
About 33% of students at Aspen Middle School were chronically absent during the last academic year, and 23% of students at Aspen Elementary School were chronically absent.
Being a rural school district can also contribute to higher absenteeism, school board President Christa Gieszl said. Athletes regularly have to miss periods at the end of the school day to travel to sports games outside of the Roaring Fork Valley, a problem not as prevalent on the Front Range. Parents might also have to take their students out of class for doctor or dentist appointments in Glenwood Springs during the day.
“I just do think, also living in a rural area, there are some caveats to this data that also are what we want in this high school,” Gieszl said. “We do want a well-rounded experience, music and art and sports, and everything.
“(In Denver), they don’t have to travel three hours for a football game,” she added.
Attendance policies vary slightly by school at ASD. Each school notifies parents when their student misses school. At the high school, attendance letters are sent to families on a weekly basis if students have four absences, seven or more absences, or seven or more illnesses. Parent meetings are required once students have seven or more absences or illnesses.
At the middle school, parents are notified twice a day when a student misses school, and will receive an attendance letter if a student has more than four absences. After 10 consecutive absences, students are disenrolled from the middle school.
The elementary school will either send a letter, make a phone call, or set up a family meeting to discuss student absences. It works closely with Aspen Family Connections to remove barriers to attendance.
Vacations can also be to blame, Mulberry said. While the majority of absences are due to those school-sponsored events, administrators have also noted that parents sometimes excuse their children from school for longer vacations. It is more common in the elementary and middle schools, Mulberry said.
While truancy is low at ASD and most absences are school-sponsored, students still end up missing valuable instructional time, Mulberry said.
“They are excused absences, students are not missing school per se, but they are missing their academic classes,” he said. “So I think that’s really important for us to consider because a lot of these can 100% be educational experiences that the students are involved in, but we should maybe take a deeper dive.”
It is often teachers whose classes are at the end of the school day who express frustration with students missing class, and the district needs to find better ways to mitigate school-sponsored absences, he said.
“We could improve with our attendance, and I do think that we need to really do a better job of prioritizing school,” Mulberry said in an interview with the Aspen Daily News. “Also, when we’re thinking about our schedules and calendars, when we’re coming up with our athletic schedules, we should really be prioritizing the attendance in school.”