During my nearly 20 years as an edtech executive, I’ve seen how well-designed technology can meaningfully improve teaching and learning. But I’ve also learned its limits.
Some of the most urgent challenges schools face today aren’t problems of scale or data, but of trust, relationships and human connection. A prime example of this is our struggle to address chronic absenteeism.
Chronic absenteeism emerged as a serious national challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic, peaking at 31% in the 2021–22 school year. While rates declined slightly to 28% in 2022–23, far too many students continue to miss significant instructional time.
Today, chronic absenteeism remains one of the most urgent issues facing K12 leaders, the communities they serve, and our nation.
In response to this crisis, many schools have turned to technology-driven communication tools, such as automated texts, emails and alerts, to try to reach families and bring chronically absent students back to school. These tools can be helpful, but on their own they are not enough, as they lack the compassionate, in-person engagement and relationship-building required to address the deeper realities behind chronic absence.
Based on conversations I’ve had with school leaders across the country, chronic absenteeism is rarely about truancy or motivation alone. Rather, it is often the result of broken trust between schools and families, combined with a complex mix of social, emotional and environmental barriers that make daily attendance difficult if not impossible.
Traditional, compliance-focused attendance strategies often misdiagnose the problem. Instead, the human-centered challenge of chronic absenteeism requires a human-centered solution.
Home visits conducted by trained, culturally responsive community members can be a powerful tool in repairing the broken trust that often sits at the heart of chronic absenteeism. These visits can move the relationship between schools and families from one of enforcement to one of partnership.
When trusted messengers meet families where they are, communicate in a family’s preferred language and honor the cultural norms of the communities schools serve, they reduce the fear and defensiveness that may have grown out of previous negative experiences with school systems.
This approach creates space for families to share the real barriers a student may be facing—housing instability, mental or physical health needs, transportation challenges or caregiving responsibilities—without judgment. From there, schools and families can co-create realistic, supportive plans for returning students to school. The result is not short-term compliance, but sustained re-engagement.
A human-centered approach also means looking beyond attendance data to understand why students are chronically absent. Attendance data can tell us who is missing school, but they rarely explain why.
By prioritizing listening and relationship-building through home visits, schools gain insight into a student’s daily reality. This shifts the conversation from blame to problem-solving and allows educators to respond with tailored supports instead of one-size-fits-all interventions.
When root causes are addressed, interventions become more effective. Students are more likely to persist, families are more likely to engage honestly and schools are better positioned to support long-term academic and social success.
Traditional compliance-focused approaches to attendance are fundamentally limited because they treat absenteeism as a behavioral problem rather than a result of unmet needs. Punitive measures such as warnings or fines may bring students back to school temporarily, but they are often counterproductive, as they can erode trust and push families further away from schools.
In my opinion, only a shift from enforcement to empathy and from mandates to meaningful connection can bring sustainable results in the battle against absenteeism.
Chronic absenteeism is one of the greatest challenges facing K12 education today. The futures of millions of students depend on how we respond.
Technology has a role to play in identifying patterns, supporting coordination and scaling insight. But technology alone will not bring students back to school.
When technology supports trust-building, listening and partnership, it becomes a powerful ally in the fight against chronic absenteeism. But it is not a substitute for the human relationships that help students return to learning and reconnect to opportunity.
To truly address chronic absenteeism, school leaders must make the human-centered approach a central pillar of their work to address this urgent issue.
