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Every parent wants their child to show up to school, to life, to opportunity. But across Minneapolis, thousands of students are missing so much school that it's putting their futures at risk. And for a long time, the adults trying to solve that problem have been doing so without a key voice in the room: families themselves.
That's starting to change. Great MN Schools released a focus group report, Centering Family Voice in Absenteeism, that puts parents and guardians at the center of the conversation on chronic absenteeism.
Before the pandemic, about 81% of Minneapolis students attended school consistently. By 2023, that number had dropped to 63%. Statewide, Minnesota's absenteeism rates are now 79% higher than they were in 2019 — a staggering shift that falls hardest on the students who can least afford to fall behind.
Research is unambiguous about the consequences. Middle school students who miss more than two weeks of school have a 66% likelihood of starting high school on track to graduate — compared to 92% for students who miss two weeks or fewer. By 9th grade, missing just one week per semester cuts a student's probability of graduating by more than 20%.
For BIPOC students and those from low-income families, the data is especially stark. Even before COVID-19, these students were chronically absent at more than twice the rate of their white peers. Today, nearly half of low-income and BIPOC students in Minneapolis are still missing too much school.
Great MN Schools brought together more than 130 parents and guardians. Their goal was simple: listen. What they heard was revealing.
The most surprising finding? Most parents significantly underestimate how often their children miss school. Ninety percent of focus group participants believed their student attends more consistently than their peers. In reality, the chronic absenteeism rate in Minneapolis is 37% — far higher than most families realize.
That gap isn't a sign that families don't care. It's a sign that communication is broken. Many parents said their school had never clearly explained what counted as chronic absence, or what the sick policy actually required. A third of participants said they didn't understand their school's illness policy at all. Some kept children home out of caution, not knowing they were crossing a threshold that would follow their child in the data.
Beyond the information gap, families described three core barriers driving absences: illness and confusing sick policies, transportation challenges, and — perhaps most powerfully — a lack of belonging.
The sense-of-belonging findings are hard to read and impossible to ignore. Students and families — particularly Black and brown families — described feeling unseen in their schools. Parents shared stories of teachers who viewed their children as problems to manage rather than young people to support. Mental health emerged as a significant attendance barrier, with Black and African American participants three times more likely than others to cite mental health as a reason their child missed school.
These aren't abstract concerns. They're the everyday experiences that make a child decide — consciously or not — that school isn't a place where they belong.
Community organizations are filling some of this gap. Participants praised groups like the YMCA of the North, Boys & Girls Club, and Big Brothers Big Sisters for creating welcoming spaces where students feel valued. The message is clear: belonging matters, and it can be built — but it has to be intentional.
The focus groups didn't just surface problems. They surfaced solutions — ones that are practical, relational, and centered on trust.
Families want schools to communicate clearly and consistently: about sick policies, about attendance thresholds, about what resources are available, and how to access them. Non-English-speaking families especially felt left out of this information loop. Families also want individualized outreach. Multiple participants described how much it meant when a teacher or staff member reached out personally to ask why a student was missing school. That simple act — someone noticing, someone asking — made families feel like the school was in their corner.
Great MN Schools recommends dedicated staff to support attendance, expanded transportation options, and investment in culturally responsive school climates. But perhaps the most important recommendation is the simplest: treat families as partners, not obstacles.
Great schools give students a fair shot at a good life. Getting there means showing up — and making sure students and families want to. That work starts with listening.