Some educators and students believe that the value of going to school is indeterminable. Detroit Public Schools Community District put a price on it.
The district began offering a financial incentive to bring high school students into the classroom and keep them coming. Starting January 6, the district has given $200 gift cards to high school students who have a perfect attendance record during every two-week cycle. The program will continue until March 21.
Michigan’s rate of chronic absenteeism, or when students miss 10% of school days, was 29.5% in the 2023-24 school year. While the rate has been improving over the past two consecutive years, Michigan has a significantly higher rate than the national average. In the 2023-24 school year, the national rate of chronic absenteeism was 23%.
Detroit has some of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the state.
In the first four weeks of the program, 4,936 high school students have received one gift card in at least one of the two cycles and 2,028 of them have had perfect attendance all four weeks, according to numbers acquired by Chalkbeat Detroit. The Detroit Public Schools Community District has 14,368 students in grades nine through 12.
The incentive has had a positive impact on attendance so far, according to Chrystal Wilson, assistant superintendent of communications and marketing at Detroit Public Schools Community District.
“The high school attendance program is performing well; we have realized approximately a 5% increase in high school attendance from this time last year,” Wilson wrote in an email to Michigan Public. “We are on Mid Winter break this week and will continue the program when we return.”
At a board meeting on February 11, Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said he believes the incentive program is contributing to this school year’s decrease in chronic absenteeism in Detroit public schools.
“Roughly 10% of students that have received the incentive have … already had perfect attendance,” Vitti said. “And so that tells you, I would suggest, that 90% of students who are getting the incentive do not have perfect attendance. So this is not just rewarding those that have already been going to school.”
The gift card incentive is one of two new incentives aimed at improving attendance. The district has also begun including attendance requirements in grade promotion guidelines. Students in grades K through eight who miss 45 or more days of the year will be required to repeat the grade. High school students who miss 23 or more days of a course in a semester will be required to retake the course or take a credit recovery course.
Some schools in the district have also taken matters into their own hands, giving students additional attendance incentives.
Studies have shown that incentives might not be the most effective way to bring students into the classroom. Vitti spoke at the board meeting about how a lack of accessible transportation and affordable housing are barriers for students who are absent from class.
The Detroit Partnership for Education Equity and Research found that 47% of Detroit students attend a school that has no transportation available to general education students.
The Detroit research group also published a 2021 brief on the issue in Detroit, finding that there are a variety of drivers for chronic absenteeism that gift cards might not be able to alleviate.
“The major drivers of high absenteeism in Detroit and other cities are related to broader social and economic inequalities that will not be overcome through incentives,” the brief reads.
The program’s effectiveness will be discussed by the district and board at the end of the school year.
Mi’Kah West is a senior at Cass Technical High School who is on the District Executive Youth Council. West spoke at the school board meeting about the student body's reaction to the gift card incentive.
“Students were like, ‘Imma come to school because I wanted two hundred dollars,’” West said. “And while we don't want to just say, ‘We want to come to school for the money,’ I think it's important to see that students are … willing to come to school now.”
