Missing: Ending Student Absences Before They End Student Success

Picture a school in the morning. There’s a hum in the building as staff and students meet and greet and go off to class. Well, some students do. There are others who enter the building but do not enter their classrooms. Ending this pattern of “internal truancy” is not about addressing defiance—it’s about examining data to see where systems, relationships, and instruction break down. In this conversation, authors Chacko Abraham and Deborah Higdon reframe the issue from “student noncompliance” to “adult accountability and system design.” Attendees will leave equipped with practical, actionable solutions.