Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Hearing via Zoom. In your lives. Welcome to House Education on Wednesday, April 15. April 16, last time you did this.

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: It is.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We passed a bill out of this committee dealing with chronic absenteeism, but we have today an opportunity to sort of learn more about it. Franklin, I'm just going to turn it over to the two of you to introduce yourselves and proceed with what you have to tell us.

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: Thank

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: you so much. My name is Doctor. Heidi Schumacher. I'm a general pediatrician in Burlington.

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: And my name is Chelsea LeRoe. I'm the school engagement clinician for the Colchester School District. So I work district wide.

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: I think I'll start and then Chelsea will follow-up. So Chair Conlon and members of the committee, thank you so much for having us. As a general pediatrician and a former schools administrator myself, it is a pleasure to testify for this committee on a topic that is of great interest to me and I think concerns all of us who care for children and families school absenteeism. So I am pleased that you all have advanced House Bill nine thirty and in so doing emphasized a continued shift from compliance to connection that we need to make in our approach to address school absenteeism one of the most consequential issues impacting the education and well-being of our communities. When I worked in schools, my division of health and wellness's mission statement included the phrase healthy bodies and minds are the foundations of academic success. And I still carry that with me in my work every day as a pediatrician. Through my clinical practice and my work in schools, I've experienced that when kids and families are healthy and and their basic needs are met, they're much more likely to attend school every day. When they attend school regularly, they're able to access not only the high quality instruction and the incredible investments that your committee has supported, But they also build relationships with peers and trusted adults. For many kids, it's their sole or primary source of healthy meals. They access therapeutic services and many other resources. When they attend school regularly, they're more likely to meet their academic milestones as early as third grade. They're seven times more likely to graduate from high school. They're better prepared for the workforce, and they're likely in the long term to live longer, healthier lives, sometimes with a life expectancy difference of up to ten years, even after controlling for other factors. And of course, all along the way, they're in school, their parents and caregivers are able to be productive and engaged in the workforce. So in this way, I've really become convinced that regular school attendance and engagement for young people is the foundation for a healthy, thriving community. But how about when there are health or social or other barriers that make it hard for kids to get to school every day? I know you know this, but common health and social concerns are leading causes of absenteeism. Things that I think about a lot are mental health substance use, not only for the young person, but the caregiver or parent. Asthma, unmet oral health needs are some of the leading reasons that kids are not missing school. Plus, of course, things like transportation insecurity, childcare, among others. And I'll never forget, this was several years ago, but it stayed with me when a seven year old in my office as a pediatrician came in for a well child check. We were discussing this child's asthma. And when I asked the child and the mom, how's the asthma going? How's the medication stuff? They said, yeah, pretty good. And it was only when I asked how many days of school do you think your child has missed because of asthma? And mom said, I don't know,

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: maybe twenty or thirty. Then I

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: thought, wait a minute. It allowed me to open an entire door into better insight on what that young person was experiencing beyond what I would have gotten had I not asked that specific question. And this was a family. I knew they had asthma. We were working together on asthma. But just that simple question, asking how many days of school. I have many other examples I could offer, but the same exact scenario has happened with so many of my patients experiencing anxiety and depression in particular. With that child, after adjusting his medication, and I think just as importantly, after we had a real discussion on what motivates him in school, why do I as your pediatrician think school matters, how can we work together to support this, that child's attendance improved dramatically the following year. Of course, compounding these barriers are misconceptions about school attendance, aversions and disengagements where young people might feel unwelcome, unsafe, or disconnected from their school communities. So in total, these obstacles to regular school attendance have resulted in one in four students in Vermont now being chronically absent, missing 10% of the school year for any reason, a significant increase from pre pandemic levels. And that's, as you all know, 18,000 students in Vermont who are not there consistently. And the absences, of course, don't just impact those 18,000 students, but we see a significant ripple effect impacting social relationships, classroom dynamics, instructional flow. Lead through work that I'll talk about in just a second, did a survey with educators and school staff in four school communities in Vermont last year. And of those two forty one Vermont educators and school staff who responded, two thirds of them reported feeling less efficacious, and sixty percent of them reported less satisfaction in their work as a result of their students' absenteeism. As a result of the student absenteeism, we also know again that thousands of parents and caregivers are not able to be productive in the workforce. But I think maybe the perspective that I can most offer here is that we know the root causes and the impact of school absenteeism are way too big for schools to solve alone. We cannot punish our way out of these root causes, and we have to collectively leverage missed school. In clinical practice, we call it a pediatric vital sign, missed school. And in school settings, leveraging school absenteeism as an early warning indicator that something is amiss for that young person. Lots of evidence based interventions that I know you all are familiar with and I'm happy to talk more about. I think what I would offer is we shouldn't forget that anything in my mind that's an intervention in the school that supports the health and well-being of those young people is an attendance intervention. Having a school nurse in the school building is an attendance intervention. Having school based mental health services is an attendance intervention, etcetera. And one particular effort before I turn it over to Chelsea, I just wanted to highlight has been that work we've done with funding from the UVM Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships. A group of us at UVM supported four communities across the state in each of those communities, a school district and a primary care practice to partner together to really try to amplify up with aligned messaging, the importance of school to use the attendance as a metric that they could leverage to identify kids who may be disengaged from school and from health care. We also had a statewide summit last fall at Killington in partnership with the Agency of Education. And we've really done a lot of trainings and technical assistance across the state. There are so many bright spots to celebrate that I'm happy to share in detail. But many of those school districts dramatically decreased by 50% in one year, their chronic absence rates as a result of these really intentional investments, starting with mindset in both the school and healthcare space, moving through data and really leveraging cross sector multi tiered interventions to support attendance. And I'm happy to talk more about that if of interest. So we need other sectors to come into this work. Safe communities, business, housing, play a role to ensure that kids in school, kids can be in school so that they can learn and grow, their caregivers can contribute to the workforce and communities can thrive. So grateful for your all attention to this issue. I'm so excited about the movement with the bill, and I'm really inspired by your work and the work of the Agency of Education because I think we're all in this together. And we know when kids are in school every day, communities can thrive. So thank you so much.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Representative Brady has a A question that maybe will be answered in your testimony, Justin. Can you talk just briefly about what some of those other interventions are, like beyond the sort of messaging piece that what are some of the benefits coming, feel free to table the question for now. I can just maybe give

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: a quick frame, but I know Chelsea is going to talk about some examples. I mean, that's specific to my Yes, specific to culture storm. So I'm also on the board of Attendance Works, the national organization that does work in this space. So most of what I'm saying comes from their good work. I mean, I think generally speaking, if you think about it on a multi tiered triangle, starting with foundational supports that reach everyone. Again, I'm a pediatrician, so I come to this mostly with the health lens, but having kids up to date on their immunizations, well child checks, having their basic needs be met, have a roof over their head, sort of that foundation of Maslow's hierarchy is one of the most important foundations. But then sort of within the school space and really leveraging, I know you just heard from the community schools folks, of a community based approach, the universal supports like, is there aligned messaging with a positive supportive vibe for families on why does school matter? What does family engagement look like in a very supportive, proactive way? Are there events that promote attendance? Are there data routines that help folks really understand with a routine, not just waiting for five, ten or fifteen days, but really on a regular basis, looking at data approaches? And then at the tier two to tier three level, thinking about where does the data indicate that there is a consistent reason for missed school? So for example, if anxiety shows up as a common reason for missed school, then an evidence based intervention would be to target a population of kids with particular mental health interventions. Happy to talk more, but that's how I would start it.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Representative McCann.

[Rep. Kate McCann (Member)]: I'd be interested in, I think you mentioned something about dental being a really big issue for kids not going to school. And it just so happens, I was at the dentist the other day and she was telling me all about the mobile that are going out to schools, and how many kids they actually see in a day with two chairs inside their mobile, and I was like, wow, that should be going out everywhere. That would be great if we had the funds to be able to do that. So I'm just wondering what

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: does the data look like just around the dental? Yeah, so it's a great question. So I think the program you're referring to is eight zero two Smiles. It's a health department funded program or supported program where they partner with local dental providers. It's mostly dental hygienists actually that go into the school. They do exams, sometimes basic cleanings. There's sort of different tiers that the school can sign up for. It's a tremendous program. It's pretty widespread, but there are some gaps. I think what we find for many folks is they might get the cleaning, but especially for our rural communities, then finding a dentist who will accept Medicaid, who will do the rest can be very challenging. But it is a great program. I think they've had great success with outreach. But we saw here and across the country during the pandemic, in particular, the rates of young people who had unmanaged dental caries and cavities really dramatically increased and we're still seeing the impact of that. This was a Plainfield Health Center. They sent out to by Jana's and a dentist whenever the bus goes. Yep, that's great. That's a great model.

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: I'm gonna read this just so that I don't leave anything out. Good morning, members of the House of Education Committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify about chronic absenteeism in Vermont and my school district's response. My name is Chelsea Legrovich, and I'm the school engagement clinician for the Pulchester School District. This is my fourth year with the district, and before this position, I was an investigator at the Burlington Department for Children and Families Family Services Division. I mentioned my previous role as DCF a DCF social worker because I have thirteen years of unique experience that has shaped my role as a school engagement clinician. While working with DCF, when an assessment truancy came across my desk, there was a standard process in place. Family, schools and students were contacted, truancy was confirmed and a truancy petition was filed. The court hearings were held within a day or two and supports were put in place to support the student and family. There was the threat of education neglect and a question of whether the child's needs were being met and if the child needed to be placed somewhere where a parent could meet their needs. Curancy court was not as effective as we had hoped, but for some families, the law was enough to get students back on track. Now, with the ever changing challenges families face, forced compliance through truancy court has become ineffective and is usually the last hope schools have after exhausting their efforts. While the barriers and challenges students face continue to grow each year, mental health, trauma, unhoused families, food insecurity, substance use, financial insecurity, the list can feel endless. Filing a truancy petition may help some families. However, the courts and DCF are stretched thin and students who struggle with school attendance are often sitting home alone and don't rise to the level of immediate intervention by the courts and DCF. The nature of DCF is that the immediate danger is addressed first, and with the number of emergencies that come through system, students who are avoiding school may go unnoticed. For students who struggle with chronic absenteeism, once a truancy petition is filed and the state's attorney accepts it, it can be months now before families have a hearing and even longer before supports are recommended. For some families, chronic absenteeism has been an issue throughout their school career. Another example of why attending court for truancy is not an effective approach is that the state's attorney does not file truancy charges against students over 16, leaving a population of students at risk of not graduating with no system in place to catch them. It's important to consider what the profile of a student who may struggle with school attendance looks like and why it looks that way. For younger students, it's missed days that add up or long stretches of absences with minimal contact from caregivers. What we don't see upfront is the caregiver whose car broke down and there's no money for gas or a family exhausted because there's seven people in a hotel room and the baby was up crying all night. For older students, they either stop attending school or refuse to attend, and caregivers become frustrated with the constant struggle to get them to school. What we may not see is that the student is too anxious to walk into the building or the student is worried about their caregiver who's using substances and may not be alive when they return. These were all true stories for us, but, when families are struggling, connection and support are what will build trust. As the school engagement clinician, my role is to create systems within our district to help address the barriers our students and families face that impact their ability to attend and engage in school. Although chronic absenteeism numbers have been declining over the last four years, the number of students struggling with coming to school remains staggering. The shift from compliance to connection is how we will increase school engagement. So I'm going to give you five examples of how our district is incorporating connections. So number one, Heidi was talking about the universal approach or like the level one. So this is what we do throughout the whole district, is that we send monthly attendance notifications to all caregivers and students, grades K-twelve. Notifications have a resource embedded in the message each month, such as podcasts, articles on routine setting, upcoming local learning opportunities, research on chronic absenteeism and mislearning. So these notifications include all absences. So all mislearning, like absences, illness, ill by doctor, tardies, and lates. And the goal of that is to ensure that parents actually can see upfront how much time their students are missing. Because sometimes parents don't realize that. Even I sometimes I'm like, oh, wow, that was a lot.

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: You do this for every kid regardless of how they've had struggles struggling with

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: the college. Yes. So that's universal so that everybody is aware. Then, so school engagement referral. When school teams need extra support with reengaging a student who's been struggling to come to school or a parent reaches out for additional support, school support teams fill out a school engagement referral. This initiates additional support from me. I reach out to the family, schedule a meeting with the student and the team at school, and work to connect the family with community resources. In addition, I offer in the moment support to caregivers and students in the morning as they try to get their child to school. This type of support varies from text messaging ideas and encouragement to home visit offering in the morning support. So this is more of a targeted approach. This would be like a layer two or three. And what we've found is that this is not attainable. Because there's so many kids. I have about 80 kids referred, so usually it's from the parent who now will respond. And so this is one of our big projects at the school. We do the trusted adult model at the high school. So with the help of a committee and leadership, we identified two to three chronically absent students per adult. Each time those students are out, the trusted adult, who's the identified teacher, reaches out to the student and family to let them know that they were missed in class. The results were hard to ignore. So the first we we piloted it the first year, and we only had three months at the end of the year. And we found that fifty percent of those students in just three months had their attendance. They were not chronically absent during that period of time. So that was hard to ignore. So this year, we doing it, we did it school wide. And so we've done it all year long and the results are the same. So we took data in March and it was fifty percent of the students at this that they have stopped. They haven't stopped being chronically absent, but their numbers have gone down. So that really ties into relationship and connection. So then we have the No Hungry Weekends program, which is a district wide initiative providing food to families over the weekend because we recognize that transportation can be a barrier for families. So we send food home with students. Each Friday, a wheeled bag is packed with nutritious items such as meat, dairy products, pasta, fruit, vegetables, snacks, and the students bring the bags home to their families. School support teams refer the identified students that might be food insecure, and we're currently sending 47 bags home each week. And the program is funded through donations and grants. And then finally, we do the Fresh Rescue program as well. So we formed a partnership with the Colchester Community Food Shelf and the Vermont Food Bank to break the stigma around food insecurity. So we're doing this at the high school level. And this was something where shahs, when they have to move food off the shelves, they donate it. And so I drive a food truck every Thursday, go get the food, bring it to the high school. And we just put a table out in the hallway with a fridge. And everybody at the school was like, this is never gonna no one's gonna take this food. And I was like, yeah, but we have to give it a shot. Like, let's try. So the first day and ever since, no matter how many pounds of food I bring over, I've brought over 100 to 200, it's gone within twenty four hours. So all different types of students, all of the teachers, everybody, we sent the messaging out of whoever wants this, take it home. Just tons of food. And it's really effective. So in closing, all five of our uniquely designed responses in Colchester have helped to build the connection with students and families, ultimately increasing students' attendance. When we focus on compliance features like attendance codes and punishment, we do not see results. Thank you for allowing me to testify.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You very much for the real world examples. Could you talk about what's different compared to fifteen years ago in terms of what's contributing to chronic absenteeism? I mean, I'm not sure a lot of these issues existed then, too. In experience,

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: fifteen years ago, I feel like the court system was not I mean, they're always bogged down, but I feel like it's different now with the issues that child protection brings. Think mental health is getting people are struggling more since COVID. I think financially, people are struggling, especially we're heading into a lot of struggle. It just feels like the weight of all of these all of these barriers are becoming bigger, and the courts are being overrun. I'm still in communication with a lot of the workers from DCF, and I'll just never forget. I was asking one of them the other day, it was a truancy hearing, and I was like, So what are we going to do? What are we going to do with this family? Because they've been in truancy court for a year and a half, and prior to that, they'd had a truancy here. They'd had truancy. It was minimally effective. But as summer came, they closed the case. And so then the kids just stopped coming to school again. And so the worker was like, honestly, I don't know. She's like, I have like 40 truancy kids and I can't get any of them to school. So it's just one of those things that I think we just need more resources to do stuff like go out in the morning, go out and help these parents, make time to engage with the students. I just think the world's getting heavier. I I was

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: gonna say too, the rates of chronic absence, pre to post pandemic, of course, are much higher now. So one, it's like a volume issue. Two, as Chelsea said, I think mental health, poverty, and other transportation and other stuff has been exacerbated, I think especially in rural areas, but really across the state.

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: And I think the other

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: thing I'd say is, fifteen years ago, the truancy based protocols didn't work all that well then either. I think we just have better recognition now that we can't punish or case manage our way out of one in four kids being chronically absent, especially when they're absent because they're poor and because they lack access to resources. Punishment and referrals don't fix that. And they didn't fifteen years ago. I think we just, in a good way, have better recognition of that. And I would say, yes, more resources. But I also think as a pediatrician, I remember the first time I worked full time in school is almost ten years as a pediatrician. And my first few days in schools, I couldn't get over how much unidentified duplication there was actually of services. Yes, we do need more resources, but we also need to coordinate the resources we have better. And so our Everyday Towns project is one example, tried at least with healthcare and schools to say, let's not both do the same screeners and identify the same needs and refer the same families to the same or different resources, let's sit together and do it together so that, yes, the meeting might take more time, but at least we're not recreating the wheel in our sectors. So I think those collaborative systems existed then, were important then, but I think are even more important now.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Just had testimony about the community schools model and you basically speak right to it.

[Speaker 3]: Yeah, mean, Colchester High School isn't a capital C capital S community school, but my experience twenty years as a teacher and the last day is that the model in school, you are capital C capital S, like, you know, food shelves in schools, all hands on deck, trusted adult models, parts of the pillars are pretty, I don't know if universal is the right word, but I think I would bet you could go into most public schools today and see, and people are piecemealing it together. So that duplication is And right,

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: the opportunity is to systematize it. Mean, see examples all the time of individual humans in various sectors coordinating, but then we don't have, you never seen the sun and then the whole thing falls apart. So building those structures and systems and expecting that those integrated infrastructures are needed to solve something as complex as chronic absence. And then building informal and informal ways, those structures and policies and procedures co creating. The schools can't solve a lot of the students today. Another thing I was thinking when you

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: were talking is that even with the trusted adult model, it just takes time. That's another thing is that, yes, we saw some success, but that's also on the back end. There's also a lot of work of trying to get teachers to buy in and the staff to buy in because it does take shifting something else around because teachers don't have the time to just be like, oh, I'm going to call home and try to de escalate a parent or explain what they're taking it. So it takes a lot of time. We're on year this is the second year, but we're still working on buy in and education.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I can only imagine, you you talk about families that struggle financially and how that's been a thing, and today the weight of that just must feel, you know, overwhelming to where it's easy to almost sort of give up as sort of a middle class person. I'm feeling it personally and I'll be okay, but if it's a choice between filling your tank up with gas and being able to go to the dentist or whatever, that's huge.

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: Yeah, or drive your kid in if they miss the bus or you have a lot of things.

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: When we heard from folks, we did focus groups in December all across the state, and I remember hearing a couple stories that come to mind. One, a parent saying they were getting heat from the school because their child had missed a lot of school. These folks preached to in December. Their child had missed a lot of school in November because they were hunting. And when was helping them harvest, farm season, etcetera. And this parent said, But that's my family's food for the year. So I need my child to be out hunting. And if you refer me to court, what is that supposed to do? I still need food to put up. Are other families talking about how they worked, say, an hour and a half away? They had to leave early in the morning. And if the childcare thing didn't work out and they gotta drop the kid off the cousin's house to get the bus to the thing, to the whatever. And if every single piece of that logistic didn't work out, then it was mom couldn't go to work and would lose her job or the kid missed school. And sometimes that happened more than infrequently. And it's those personal stories. Again, schools can't solve that alone. And frankly, those are the same families that are often missing their health care appointments for the same reason and are likely to fall through the cracks. So thinking about collaborative structures, data sharing can help you with that.

[Chelsea LeRoe (School Engagement Clinician, Colchester School District)]: I have one more quick story. So, this makes me think about, we were at the high school and we were having a meeting with a student who historically had been missing in middle school, but not as much as high school. And so, we pulled everybody in together. And so the teachers, both parents came, the student came, and then we found out that the student was working. So there was an employer that had hired him during the day to do lawn care or maintenance, lawn stuff. And at first, were like, really? Why is an employer hiring this student? So part of this is also a community issue, bringing awareness to not hire students during school days. But then the other piece was that the parents were about they were ready to support this student dropping out at 16 because they need the money. And they both were very clear. His income helps us have housing. So what we did as a district was we just had to be creative. We asked the student to talk to his So he talked to his employer and then ended up He leaves at noon now. So he does his morning classes, goes at noon and works. So just trying to be flexible too.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's sort of solving a big problem on a kid, and it's probably what has to happen on a case by case basis. I'll just

[Dr. Heidi Schumacher (Pediatrician, Burlington; Attendance/Absenteeism expert)]: say, our everyday council budget, we worked with four school districts across the state Franklin Northeast, Deres Hughes, White River Valley Supervisory Union, Orange Southwest and St. Johnsbury, and they all did all different kinds of interventions. We had peer learning together, and it's of interest to this group as we were just wrapping up the intensive piece of that. I'm happy to stay in touch and share more about some of the work that they did. Because one of the things we tried to do with our statewide technical assistance in partnership with AOE has been to lift up stories like Chelsea's and other there's good work happening on the ground. And we don't need to recreate the wheel and thinking about infrastructures and places where we can house those and convene folks so that people are learning from one another and not all just sitting in despair, writing their own policies and developing their own interventions, and of course your bill helps with that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I mean, the bill that we passed doesn't do a lot. It sort of revamps how we deal with truancy and defines chronic absenteeism, but it certainly doesn't provide the supports, but it changes the philosophy. Any other questions? Thanks so much for taking the time. It's something to talk about this. Thank you. Everybody, ten minutes per