New York City schools are preparing to assign staff members to help tackle the city’s persistent chronic absenteeism crisis.
About one-third of NYC students—33%—were chronically absent during the 2024-25 school year, according to the latest available data. Students are classified as chronically absent when they miss at least 10% of their classes.
Under the plan, “school avoidance liaisons” will be existing full-time employees, including teachers, guidance counselors, administrators and social workers, according to Department of Education documents obtained by The Post. They will take on the responsibility without receiving additional pay.
The liaisons will be expected to contact families of students considered at risk of avoiding school, step in early and connect them with mental health services and other school-based support intended to help them return to the classroom.
Principals must identify their liaison and include that selection in their consolidated school plan by Sept. 30, the documents state.
Avoiding school is frequently associated with disabilities and mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression.
The problem is especially pronounced among students with disabilities: 43% were chronically absent during the 2024-25 school year.
Education advocates criticized city officials for allowing chronic absenteeism to grow into a yearslong crisis, saying the new liaison program is evidence of how far the problem has escalated.
“The uptick in chronic absenteeism over the last few years has reached crisis proportions. Schools need to get creative in addressing the problem,” said Craig Slutzkin, treasurer of Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, a New York City group that supports merit-based education.
The school avoidance liaison positions were created through an agreement stemming from a 2024 class-action lawsuit filed by families of chronically absent students with disabilities. The suit alleged that city schools lacked the resources needed to keep students with disabilities and mental health conditions engaged in the classroom.
Critics, however, say the initiative places another unpaid responsibility on already stretched teachers and argue that the work should be assigned to trained professionals outside the classroom.
“Why can’t other city departments handle this? This is just another task that is going to divert teachers’ attention from teaching,” a DOE insider said.
Missing time in the classroom leads to severe academic problems that some students may never recover from — including low math and reading grades, drug use, criminal behavior or dropping out entirely, multiple studies found.
David Bloomfield, a professor of educational leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, called the liaisons a “good first step” but said more needs to be done.
“Outsourcing accountability is not an option,” he said.
The DOE’s absenteeism problem is among the many issues plaguing city schools.
NYC public schools have been bleeding kids for years, with the latest demographic snapshot showing that they’ve lost over 150,000 students since 2015.
City reading scores for grades 3-8 plummeted an appalling 6 percentage points since last year, with just 50.3% of Big Apple students proficient on the state’s English Language Arts test
Over 900 city schools — nearly half the total — had half their student bodies failing state math and reading tests.
A DOE spokesperson said that the School Avoidance Liaisons will establish a “strong framework” to combat chronic absenteeism.
“While achieving our shared goal of every student being chronically present will require sustained effort, NYC Public Schools is committed to removing barriers to attendance and ensuring every student has the opportunity to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally,” the DOE spokesperson said.
