When Minnesota students fail to show up to school for seven days, the absences trigger a call to child protective services — and potentially, an unexpected visit by an investigating social worker, a search of the home and the threat of an official allegation of neglect.
Now, as the state grapples with widespread “chronic absenteeism,” lawmakers want to provide an alternative approach, offering help to families struggling to keep their kids in class and avoiding the child welfare system whenever possible.
“The problem with the current practice is it’s an intense and punitive response towards families and it focuses too much on accountability rather than support,” said Hannah Burton, fellow with the Mitchell Hamline School of Law’s Institute to Transform Child Protection. “What we’re looking for is meeting the family’s concrete needs and providing support to try to get the child’s needs met.”
Unexcused, repeated school absences can result from a range of difficulties, including unreliable transportation or unsafe paths to school, homelessness and food insecurity, according to Attendance Works, a national nonprofit initiative. School absences became acute during the pandemic across the country.
When a child misses seven days or more, parents can be accused of “educational neglect,” triggering a call to child protective services. But in Minnesota, some local governments have found ways to help that do not involve CPS or the filing of a neglect petition against a parent — allegations that are all-too-common in communities of color.
A bill authored by state Sen. Mary Kunesh and Rep. Bianca Virnig in the house would modify the current “child welfare responses” to educational neglect, defined as a parent failing to care for a child by ensuring they attend school. The early-stage legislation would also create limited grants available to local agencies “for the purpose of improving school attendance after receiving a report that alleges failure to ensure that a child is educated.”
Under state law, “educational neglect” is defined as seven or more missed days for children age 11 and younger at a Minnesota school. If a child is 12 years old or older, instead of a child protective response which would include a report for maltreatment against the parents, the responsibility of the absences fall on the child rather than the parents or guardians.
Rep. Virnig said in a statement sent to The Imprint that she’s been concerned about student absenteeism for several years, and that “getting students back into the classroom will require a multipronged approach.” Her legislation builds on counties’ efforts to provide an alternative response to reports of educational neglect.
“A more collaborative approach with counties, families, students, and schools will help families receive the support they need, get our students back into the classroom, and reduce racial disparities in the child welfare system,” the lawmaker stated.
Children of color in Minnesota are overrepresented in educational neglect reports. In 2020, they comprised roughly 70% of all reports, although they represent just 36% of the student population, according to data compiled by the Minnesota Association of County Social Service Administrators.
The issue is not unique to the state. Nationally, 30% of all students were classified as chronically absent in the 2021-22 school year, based on data from Attendance Works.
In Minnesota, chronic absenteeism has surged in recent years, jumping from 34% in the 2017-18 school year to 71% in 2021-22.
Chronic absenteeism worsened during the pandemic across the country, and remains an issue for school districts nationwide, with mandated reporters phoning in their concerns to child maltreatment hotlines. When it comes to these reports of educational neglect, practices vary, experts say. Staff at some schools may make several attempts to reach a missing child’s family before reporting to CPS, while others more quickly place hotline calls.
The reports trigger an in-person social worker investigation, involving a home search, interviews with family members, and an evaluation of safety risks in the home such as domestic violence, or parental substance abuse.
Burton, of the child protection institute, said workers will often visit these homes, find nothing of overwhelming concern, and leave without further follow-up. “They end up closing the case with no real resolution or help for families,” she said.
But in some instances, one CPS report can lead to another, social workers may detect other safety risks, and more punitive impacts can soon follow, such as the threat of a foster care removal.
In a 2018 article reported by the The Hechinger Report and HuffPost, parents, lawyers and child welfare officials argued that educational neglect is at times being used in appropriate ways to pressure parents.
“Fed up with what they see as obstinate parents who don’t agree to special education services for their child, or disruptive kids who make learning difficult, schools sometimes use the threat of a child-protection investigation to strong-arm parents into complying with the school’s wishes or transferring their children to a new school,” the news outlets found. “That approach is not only improper, but it can be devastating for families, even if the allegations are ultimately determined to be unfounded.”
These days, a growing number of Minnesota counties are approaching school no-shows with a response that is more supportive for the children and families involved. In some counties, pathways that divert educational neglect cases from CPS systems are already in place — efforts Sen. Kunesh would like to see replicated statewide.
A new program in the Twin Cities’ Scott County, for example, changes the course for some households under investigation.
After an initial home visit, CPS workers refer families to one of the county’s Family Resource Centers, which aim to provide assistance “at the earliest point possible and outside of government mandated services.” Among the services offered since 2022 is the Promoting Attendance and School Success program through St. David’s Center for Child and Family Development, which provides day care support, transportation assistance such as bus passes or help obtaining special transit services, and translation for those who speak English as a second language.
“We have a whole variety of partners coming in, because they all believe that there’s a different way to serve the community,” said Suzanne Arntson, deputy director of Scott County’s Health and Human Services Division. Community partners provide social services that meet the array of residents’ racial backgrounds in Scott County. “We want something where people see themselves reflected, and where we can provide language access, cultural access.”
Arntson said the program’s objective — along with similar initiatives — is to prevent families from becoming involved with child protective services and unnecessary government intervention, while offering the support they may need with hardships they face.
More than a decade ago, Olmsted County partnered with Family Service Rochester to design the Parents And Children Excel program, known as PACE. The program was designed specifically for children of color ages 5 through 12 and their families who have been reported to CPS for education-related challenges. PACE offers case management services based on the family’s needs that could involve housing, medical, social or emotional needs — as well as those related to the child’s educational well-being.
The program is voluntary and is designed to be preventative. At any point, parents can choose not to participate. But if they do, the CPS system would respond instead, with its potential for neglect and abuse petitions filed in court, and escalating consequences for failure to comply with judge-ordered interventions.
In a 2021 op-ed for The Imprint, Mathangi Swaminathan — a former Foster America senior fellow with the Olmsted County Department of Health, Housing and Human Services and a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School — argued that there’s “growing acknowledgment that parents should not lose their kids because of educational neglect. We need our children to achieve educational success. We also need to preserve families at all costs, particularly those of color, who are separated in Minnesota at rates well above their white counterparts.”
Swaminathan described Minnesota’s Olmsted County as finding a possible solution to getting children back in the classroom, “without jeopardizing family stability.” She conducted an 18-month evaluation and financial assessment study that compared the outcomes of families that received PACE case management services to those who were referred to the program but declined the services. As with other studies of educational neglect, she found that children of color were over-represented among those referred.
Her research also found that in 2019, parents who chose to participate in the PACE program were less likely to have CPS involvement in the future, and the staff who served them were far more likely to be people of color, when compared with county staff.
There were other benefits as well. Her study estimated that the average cost of serving one child through the county child welfare agency — versus through PACE — could reach as high as three times more expensive. She concluded that Olmsted County saved nearly $2 million between 2010 and 2019.
“A high rate of absence from school can be a helpful indicator of a family in need of support,” Swaminathan concluded in her op-ed. “Subjecting them through a traumatizing child protection process and tearing the family apart cannot be the solution.”
In Ramsey County, the second most-populous in Minnesota, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota has helped families whose kids are chronically absent since 2017. Social worker Lisa Kiesel said her agency’s breadth of assistance — from homework help to housing assistance — has been successful. She hopes the pending legislation will be met with success in St. Paul.
“The pandemic brought this issue to the forefront,” she said. “Sure, absenteeism has always been an issue — but now it’s something the state and the entire country can’t ignore. This bill is a perfect response to an issue that has plagued families for so long.”
