Detroit Public Schools are taking an innovative step to tackle the troubling issue of chronic absenteeism by offering students financial incentives to attend school regularly.
The Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) has launched a program that rewards high school students with gift cards for maintaining perfect attendance, aiming to emphasize the critical importance of consistent school participation.
Under this new initiative, students can earn a $200 gift card for achieving perfect attendance over a two-week cycle of 10 school days. This incentive is available during January, February, and March, which are the months with historically higher absentee rates.
According to the district’s announcement on January 9, students who miss 18 days or fewer during the 180-day academic year are significantly more likely to perform well on state assessments and be prepared for college.
DPSCD has introduced this program to offer additional support to high school students who face various challenges that can impede regular attendance. These obstacles include safety concerns, family obligations, transportation issues, disabilities, disengagement from school, and health problems affecting the students or their families.
Superintendent Nikolai Vitti addressed the attendance issue at a recent school board meeting, noting that the district’s chronic absenteeism rate was 56 percent in the previous school year. A student is considered chronically absent if they miss more than 10 percent of the school year.
This problem is not unique to Detroit. A report from the United States Department of Education indicated that 31 percent of students nationwide were chronically absent in the 2021-22 school year, which decreased slightly to 28 percent in 2022-23.
The report highlighted that the decline in attendance was initially linked to COVID-19 concerns, a trend that must not be accepted as the norm.
The average absenteeism rate in Michigan during the 2022-23 school year stood at 33 percent. Some states, including Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, and Hawaii, reported chronic absenteeism rates exceeding 40 percent during the same period.
Despite the broader national context, Detroit’s incentive program appears to be showing promising results. Vitti reported that within the first five days of the program, 1,800 more high school students achieved perfect attendance compared to any typical five-day period before the winter break. “Data shows it’s making a difference,” Vitti stated.
The program is structured around five two-week periods, beginning on January 6 and concluding on April 4. To qualify for the reward, students must attend every hour of the 10 school days. By the program’s end, a student maintaining perfect attendance can earn up to $1,000 in gift cards.
The first distribution of the $200 gift cards is scheduled for January 31. The district has designed the system to prevent these cards from being converted into cash through electronic payment platforms, although it’s uncertain if students can be effectively deterred from selling the cards for cash.
Funding for the gift cards is sourced from interest accrued on school accounts reserved for facilities development, as explained by Vitti. The exact total cost of the attendance incentive program remains undetermined at this time.
In addition to the attendance incentives, DPSCD offers students a $2,000 reward for enrolling in a literacy tutoring program. Vitti has also not ruled out the possibility of introducing cash incentives for students to attend summer school.
Despite multiple requests, DPSCD officials did not provide comments by the time this article was published.
