Why do some children miss more school than others? A researcher at Ohio State University, Arya Ansari, looked at one possible factor: whether a child has had contact with Child Protective Services (CPS), the US agency that investigates allegations of child abuse or neglect. She also asked whether a sense of belonging at school, called "school connectedness", could make a difference.
The study used data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which followed 3,334 adolescents born between 1998 and 2000 across 20 US cities, from birth to age 15. It was published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review. Attendance came from student and parent reports, and connectedness came from student surveys.
Teens with CPS contact missed more school, for both reasons
Students who had contact with CPS by age 15 were more at risk of missing school than those with no contact. This covered excused absences (such as health-related ones) and unexcused absences (truancy). Their teachers were also more likely to raise the absences with their families.
The study did not conclude why these students missed more school, and the author says more research is needed. The article notes that CPS involvement often points to a high-risk home, with factors such as poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence or health problems that make attendance harder.
Feeling connected to school helped every student
The researchers defined connectedness as feeling close to people at school, feeling part of the school, feeling happy to be there and feeling safe. Students with CPS contact reported lower connectedness than their peers, and lower connectedness was linked to more absences.
Connectedness approaches did not help children with CPS contact more than others, but all children benefited. The study suggests the following ways schools can build it:
- creating inclusive environments
- offering extracurricular activities (a separate 2023 study in Applied Developmental Science found these can help students feel they belong)
- supporting teachers to form strong relationships with students
Ansari put it simply: "If a kid feels safe at school and knows that a teacher cares, they're going to be more willing to come." Karen Mapp of the Harvard Graduate School of Education added that schools should contact families regularly, not only after an incident or when a child is already chronically absent.
Ansari also said that early warning systems telling parents their child is missing school have a small average effect. They do not raise attendance for children missing up to 40 days a year who may be facing issues like household instability and food insecurity.
What this study cannot tell Singapore parents
The study did not cover Singapore or any other Asian country. It looked at US teenagers, not young children, and it shows links, not proof of cause. The CPS findings reflect US families and systems, and the article does not say how they apply elsewhere.
The study's recommendations are aimed at schools rather than parents, and it did not test anything parents could do at home. So there is no tested parent action list here. The study does offer one broad idea: children's sense of safety, belonging and a caring teacher is linked to showing up. That is a reason to take a child's reluctance to attend school seriously and to find out what lies behind it.