As schools bring their chronic absenteeism rates back toward pre-pandemic levels, a different problem is coming back into view: being in the building doesn’t mean being present. A student can show up every day and still be checked out — mentally, emotionally, avoiding something they haven’t named — and none of that shows up on an attendance report.

That’s the problem hiding under the one that’s been easier to see. Student engagement was once the center of the K-12 conversation, until chronic absenteeism spiked after COVID and became the more urgent, more visible priority — in part because attendance shows up cleanly in the data, in a way engagement never has.

Our panel brings together school health professionals, a behavioral scientist, and a former school superintendent. Together, they’ll discuss why the nurse’s clinic log may hold the earliest hard evidence of disengagement, what behavioral science reveals about school avoidance and the interventions that work, and what district leaders can do next.

We’ll explore:

• How to recognize the early signs of disengagement, before they ever show up in attendance data
• How to turn nurse observations into something principals and special educators can act on
• What the behavioral science reveals about school avoidance and the interventions that actually work
• How district leaders can bring engagement back into focus without losing the ground they’ve gained on attendance

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