By Shandel Menezes, NBC 7 San Diego
Attendance rates for the San Diego Unified School District are the best they've been since the pandemic, the district says, adding that the improvement came about with a focus on overall student wellness.
San Diego Unified serves more than 121,000 students and fewer of them are chronically absent, meaning fewer of them miss 10% or more of their classes in a school year.
"You really have to be healthy enough to be coming to school to learn,” Susan Barndollar told NBC 7's Shandel Menezes.
Barndollar executive directs nursing, wellness and mental health for San Diego Unified.
"I think we have this huge issue where people who do really well with mental health are the ones showing up at school, but the people with poor wellness and mental health are the ones who have the most absenteeism rates," Vihaan Bhardwaj said. Bhardwaj is an 11th grader at Mount Everest Academy.
He’s also vice chair for the district’s Student Wellness Education and Resources Committee.
"We can't even help them if they're not at school because they are suffering from mental health issues at home. We're not showing up at school, so it's a vicious cycle, and we really need to find ways to improve absenteeism," Bhardwaj said.
The data from the last school year pre-pandemic showed about 12% of students were chronically absent. That rate tripled to about 36.7% at the worst point of the pandemic (2021-2022) but has since fallen to about 18% projected chronic absenteeism by the end of this school year.
See the full coverage from NBC 7: https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/san-diego-unified-attendance-rates-climb-to-best-since-pandemic/3923007/