Dear Colleagues,

Among the dire educational consequences of the pandemic, the impact on student absenteeism stands out. The pandemic’s long months of remote learning, hybrid schedules and repeated quarantines frayed bonds among students and between students and educators and fractured routines of attending school. Chronic absenteeism soared to a pandemic peak of 30 percent—more than one in four American public-school students missing more than 10 percent of the school year.

Educators have been working hard to get students back in school, leveraging home visits, text messages to parents, community schools, improving the quality of school buildings, and more. One state—Rhode Island—has gone further.

Under the leadership of Governor Daniel McKee, the Ocean State has built a statewide coalition of mayors, business leaders, hospitals and other stakeholders beyond the state’s education ecosystem to get students back to school—a comprehensive strategy that is yielding impressive early results.

We profile the ambitious Rhode Island initiative—and explore the lessons it holds for policymakers and practitioners nationwide—in Team Sport: Rhode Island’s Statewide Strategy for Reducing Chronic Absenteeism, a new FutureEd report researched and written by FutureEd Policy Director Liz Cohen. It’s an encouraging story, and a testament to the power of political leadership, data, and community-wide collaboration to address challenges in the education sector.