This story has been updated.

Connecticut’s chronic absenteeism rates in February rose to their highest level in nearly two years, and educators are worried that more families are keeping their children home from school because of recent threats regarding immigration enforcement.

Chronic absenteeism in Connecticut peaked at nearly 20.2% in February — meaning that over 98,000 children missed 10% or more of their in-class instruction time, an increase of over 7,200 students from January, when the rate was 18.7%, and the first time the rate has surpassed 20% since May 2023.

Connecticut is just one of three states and Washington D.C., that reports absenteeism on a monthly basis, which has allowed the state Education Department to “know in real time what’s happening and how to intervene,” Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker said at a press conference last week at Beman Middle School in Middletown.

“It’s the highest number that we’ve seen in quite some time,” Russell-Tucker said. “It certainly got our attention.”

“We heard that some of this is due to just a bad respiratory sickness this time of year, but we also heard that some of this could also be some issues around immigration,” she said.

Since the November election, schools have reported rising fears of mass deportation in their communities. Then, shortly after President Donald J. Trump took office in January, his administration announced that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protections officers could make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals — places that had long been considered “sensitive locations” and barred from immigration enforcement.

The action raised flags for educators who argued the measure would lead to attendance issues. Across the country, state departments of education quickly offered guidance to local districts on how to handle immigration enforcement.

But despite a reaffirmed commitment to student safety from the Connecticut Department of Education — which stressed that both state and federal law “protect a student’s right to attend public schools, regardless of their immigration status” — it’s unclear if officials’ reassurances have persuaded undocumented parents that they should continue sending their children to school.

“There is significant fear in our communities that’s impacting kids attending school and resulting in families not feeling comfortable sending them to school,” said Sabrina Tavi, a senior attorney and director of the Immigrant Children’s Justice Project at the Center for Children’s Advocacy. “There’s much more concern now during this Trump administration versus the first one.”

‘The fear is real’

Most school districts with the largest concentrations of immigrant students had much larger increases of chronic absenteeism since January than the statewide average, data from the Connecticut Department of Education shows.

Statewide, Connecticut had an increase of 1.5% in chronic absenteeism between January and February, but districts including Bridgeport, Danbury, Hartford, New Haven and Stamford saw the figure rise between 2.4% and 4.4%.

Compared to the last two previous academic years, this year’s January-February jump remains an outlier.

Hartford, for example, had a 1.7% district-wide increase in chronic absenteeism in 2023 between January and February. This year, the district had an increase of nearly 4%, or nearly 600 more students.

Stamford had a 1.6% increase in 2023 and a slight 0.7% decrease the following year between January and February, but this year’s jump was 2.8%.

“The fear has always been there … the Biden administration was still deporting folks, [but] it was just not at the scale that it is right now, and there was not, at the time, the anti-immigrant rhetoric,” said Barbara Lopez, the Executive Director at Make the Road CT, a nonprofit that supports immigrant families. “Whole family units are being targeted. … There is a lot of conversation around supporting not just individuals but whole family units now.”

Sonia Hernandez, a Bridgeport community organizer with Make the Road, said she’s seen a range of responses from families — some who are continuing to send their kids to school despite “being terrified,” some who are opting to keep their children at home and some who have even packed their bags to return back to their native country and decided the risk wasn’t worth it.

“The fear is real, especially for new arrivals, but also the community that has been here for the first administration,” Hernandez said. “It’s not just impacting school, it’s impacting everything.”

Even though Bridgeport Public Schools issued the first statement in Connecticut reaffirming the district’s “commitment to protecting the safety and privacy of all students and families,” at a local board of education meeting on Jan. 21, Hernandez said families are still weighing their options.

“[The district] did help reinforce trust, but … the fear is still there,” Hernandez said. “Even with all [the training and reassurance], our community is still afraid of showing up to places … and what can happen.”

There are hints, however, that more direct contact with parents may be the key to bringing students back to their schools.

An outlier

Most urban hubs in Connecticut have similar enrollment demographics, but Waterbury was the only district among its peers to see a decline in chronic absenteeism from January to February of this year.

Sandra Romero, the district’s family and community engagement manager, said the attendance improvement is primarily due to earlier intervention, before a student is identified as chronically absent, and long-term efforts to develop interpersonal relationships among the district, principals and parents.

When immigration enforcement threats began trickling down from the federal government, Romero said, several school principals “were able to pick up on the relationship they already have and continue building on them to provide a safety zone.”

“If a family has trust in you, that family is going to send those students to school. Obviously, there’s some families that, because they’re still scared, choose not to, but then that’s when the whole team from the school community steps in to guide and to help the families make that decision of sending them to school,” Romero said.

This means a principal might “directly call to speak to the parent to get more information around what’s going on,” Romero added. “It’s not accusatory, it’s more understanding … [and] developing a plan with a family. … I know in some schools that they have asked, ‘Would you like someone to go pick up the child?’ Because even families are afraid of stepping out of their home.”

Tavi, of the Center for Children’s Advocacy, said she was optimistic that chronic absenteeism among students who are immigrants or children of immigrant parents will stabilize — as it has in some districts, like Waterbury — if school is seen “as a safe place where they can get some of their basic needs addressed.”

Waterbury’s family-centered approach is similar to a state-launched at-home visiting program called Learner Engagement and Attendance Program (LEAP) that was started in April 2021 to tackle absenteeism.

Education officials say the program is a key contributor to the state’s steady decline in chronic absenteeism from its peak of 26.1% in January 2022.

“With 71,000 home visits actually done, engaging directly families and students, to build trusting relationships and to strengthen connections with schools, we know it works,” Russell-Tucker said at the press conference in Middletown.

Democratic state lawmakers have also prioritized expanding The Trust Act this year, which is legislation that prohibits local and state law enforcement from arresting someone solely on the basis of a detainer — a request from ICE that police hold a person for up to 48 hours so federal agents can pick them up. A bill supported by Democrats would further prohibit public agencies from sharing information about a person’s home address, workplace, school or “the date, time or location of a person’s hearings, proceedings or appointments with the public agency.” 

Clarification:

This story has been updated to clarify that Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker’s comments were made at a press conference last week.