TITLE:
Present but Missing: An Empirical Equity Analysis of Chronic Absenteeism among Hispanic English Learners at a Selected Title I High School
AUTHORS:
Charletta H. Barringer-Brown
KEYWORDS:
Chronic Absenteeism, Hispanic English Learners, Title I High Schools, Educational Equity, Administrative Attendance Records, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.14 No.9,
September
1,
2026
ABSTRACT: Chronic absenteeism—missing at least 10% of enrolled school days—is a consequential early-warning indicator of reduced instructional access, academic disengagement, and diminished school connectedness. Yet building-level patterns among Hispanic English learners (ELs) in high-poverty secondary schools remain insufficiently examined. This article presents an equity-centered, retrospective secondary-data analysis of publicly available aggregate attendance and enrollment data for a selected Title I high school in metropolitan Richmond, Virginia. The principal analysis examines the 2024-2025 school year and compares annual chronic-absence prevalence, mean days absent, monthly absence rates, and grade-level patterns across Hispanic EL, Hispanic non-EL, aggregated non-Hispanic, and schoolwide groups. Source values were drawn from public Richmond Public Schools (RPS) and Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) reporting resources and analyzed using reproducible formulas documented in the manuscript. Hispanic EL students had a chronic-absence rate of 38.2%, compared with 29.0% among Hispanic non-EL students and 28.9% schoolwide. The risk ratio was 1.32 (95% CI [1.06, 1.64]), with a 9.2-percentage-point risk difference (95% CI [1.6, 16.8]). Hispanic EL students also averaged 2.7 more absent days than Hispanic non-EL peers. Findings are interpreted as noncausal associations because subgroup differences may reflect intersecting structural conditions—including poverty, mobility, newcomer transition, transportation, health, caregiving, school climate, and language access—rather than deficits inherent to bilingualism or EL classification. The study supports disaggregated early-warning systems, multilingual family partnership, and multidimensional, multi-tiered attendance supports.