Opinion - Communities In Schools

Showing Up in the Classroom Counts

Chronic absenteeism—defined as missing 10 percent or more of the school year for any reason—affects 25 percent of Ohio students. Throughout the Columbus region, thousands of young people are at risk of falling behind. By sixth grade, chronic absence is one of the strongest predictors of dropping out. Even a few missed days each month make it harder for students to read on grade level, stay engaged in class or graduate.

Opinion | Dec. 8, 2025

Tami Hance-Lehr, CEO and State Director, CIS of Nevada

Why Cutting Student Support Now Will Cost Nevada Later

At Communities In Schools of Nevada, we’ve seen what’s possible when public and private sectors come together. With increased federal and state investment over the past several years, we’ve grown from serving 80 schools to nearly 120, a 50% increase. And even with that rapid expansion, we delivered the strongest outcomes in our history: a 97% graduation rate for students in our case-managed programs. It’s proof that public-private partnerships can scale effectively and solve some of society’s most complex challenges.

Opinion | Aug. 15, 2025

Jill Cox, CEO, Communities In Schools of North Carolina

Being Present Matters: Addressing Chronic Absenteeism Requires Community-Wide Solutions

As schools across North Carolina grapple with academic recovery post-pandemic, one alarming trend continues to plague districts large and small: chronic absenteeism. Defined as missing 10% or more of school days in a year, nearly one-third (27%) of North Carolina’s students are considered chronically absent. Before the pandemic, about 16% of students were chronically absent. By the 2021-2022 school year, that number surged to 32%. In 2023, 27% represented over 500,000 students missing a significant amount of school.

Opinion | Jan. 7, 2025

How to Help Students Find Their Way Back to Regular School Attendance

According to the latest data, 2 out of 5 Chicago Public Schools students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 academic year. That means they missed 18 or more school days. The district’s 40% chronic absence rate is 16 points higher than before the pandemic, and it represents more than 2 million missed school days. Like so many social challenges impacting our city, the phenomenon is unevenly spread.

Opinion | Dec. 9, 2024

Tackling Chronic Absenteeism Requires Collective Action

As someone with more than 20 years of experience in youth development in DC, I have witnessed firsthand the importance of collective action in driving positive student outcomes, especially for our most vulnerable populations. As students across the District return to school, our city must come together to deal with a crisis that, if left unaddressed, will have long-term consequences for our children and our community.

Opinion | Dec. 2, 2024

CIS Site Coordinator Marco and Alumnus Esteban

Being Present Matters: The Fight to End Chronic Absenteeism

This month, as 50 million public school students across the U.S. return to the classroom, it’s clear that the pandemic’s impact on students and families isn’t over. Four years after the shutdowns of 2020, millions of students are academically behind.

Opinion | Sept. 30, 2024

Jessica Knapp (left) is executive director of CIS of PA

There’s an urgent need for “wraparound services” to support low-income students in Pennsylvania

Not all students have an equal chance to succeed. The socioeconomic achievement gap is a real phenomenon in which lower-income children are significantly less likely to succeed than their wealthier classmates. Poverty affects children’s brain development, causing challenges in paying attention and retaining information. Low-income students also attend schools with insufficient funding and resources, such as quality teachers.

Opinion | Feb. 5, 2024

Chronic absenteeism doesn’t have just one solution — it has many

Chronic absenteeism has emerged as one of the most severe problems facing American students and educators today. In this op-ed, Rey Saldaña, President and CEO of CIS National, and Debbie Palacios, Executive Director of CIS of Southern Nevada, discuss how solving this problem starts by understanding what’s keeping students away and removing those barriers.

Opinion | Jan. 4, 2024

Improving Student Opportunities

In this op-ed, President and CEO of Communities In Schools Rey Saldaña talks about how education leaders should take a proactive, systems approach to redesign how they plan to meet student needs.

Opinion | May 9, 2023

What MacKenzie Scott’s Gift Means to Me and the Organization I Chair

MacKenzie Scott’s supremely generous gift to Communities in Schools was remarkable in many ways. I serve as board chair of the education nonprofit, and her donation spoke to me as both a woman and a philanthropist who for decades has worked to ensure that every student, regardless of race, ZIP Code, or history of marginalization, has what they need to succeed in school and beyond.

Opinion | Feb. 16, 2022

Two Steps to Put Students on the Right Path

At least three million students have gone missing from classrooms across the nation during the pandemic. In this op-ed, Rey Saldaña talks about how we need a plan to help every school find its missing students, keep kids in school, and put them on a path toward graduation.

Opinion | Nov. 21, 2021

3 Million Kids Missing From School Because of COVID-19 Is a Travesty

Check out this coauthored op-ed written by Rey Saldaña and Shaquille O’Neal on how low-income students are experiencing learning loss and chronic absenteeism at higher rates – but how proper funding and proven whole-child supports models can set students up for success.

Opinion | March 5, 2021