Elementary students in Hamilton schools staying home more since pandemic, data shows

When she heard a student threatened one of her daughters with scissors at school, Danielle Gendron says it "scared the life" out of her.

The Hamilton woman took her daughter out of her Grade 2 class for a week before she returned.

While that incident was last year, others she has heard about involving violence and disruption in class have led Gendron to take both daughters out of school at least once a week this year. They are now in grades three and seven.

"It's just not safe," she told CBC Hamilton, adding that she's been able to do that often because she works from home.

Amanda Worthington, a parent with children aged eight and 10 in Hamilton's public schools, said her two kids have been absent 39 times so far this year. 

Worthington, who works from home, said her kids have needed mental health days and have felt exhausted.

She said her kids have missed class more often since the pandemic. The break has been needed and their marks have even gone up but she said she still wishes school was a better environment for them.

Gendron and Worthington's kids have an absence rate of 10 per cent or higher, which is also called being chronically absent. That 10 per cent absence rate works out to at least 18 days in the school year.

The number of students who are chronically absent at Hamilton's public and Catholic elementary schools has been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the 2018 school year, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) had a chronic absence rate of 35 per cent. That number swelled to 54 per cent last school year.

Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board (HWCDSB) has seen a similar jump, from 24 per cent in the 2017 school year to 48 in the 2021 school year.

A CBC News analysis of data collected from school boards has found this is a national trend —  and it's an issue that's flown under the radar in Canada because there is no publicly available national data on how many kids miss large amounts of school or the reasons why.

"If we don't have the data to show that our children are missing tremendous amounts of school, far more than they have in the past … then it's easy to look the other way," said Maria Rogers, a child psychologist and Canada Research Chair in Child Mental Health and Well Being at Carleton University.

She also said children who attend school regularly generally have better emotional health, better relationships with teachers and stronger social connections.