There’s a difference between excused absences and truancy
New state indicators have changed the way schools count absences.
This small modification could have far-reaching consequences, Gilmer County Schools (GCS) Superintendent Dr. Brian Ridley said.
“I am concerned that chronic absenteeism may be the next indicator that the state decides to create a needs improvement list,” he said.
The old rules counted truancies, or unpermitted absences, when evaluating a school district. But the new rules count any student who has missed more than 18 days of school as a “chronic absentee.”
If a student requires an emergency surgery or other long-term medical issue, the student’s absences will still be counted when Georgia evaluates the school.
“Even though it’s medically excused that that kid racked up more than 18 days, they count against us,” Ridley said.
In 2025, 22 percent of GCS students were chronically absent. And 31 percent of these students were high school students.
In 2024, GCS graduated 98.4 percent of its students.
These kinds of absences don’t indicate that a student is lazy, lacks motivation or poorly disciplined, he said. But the state’s new system will count them alongside students who skip school for bad reasons.
“Who knows? You know, they’re not always dependent on a parent to get them to school,” Ridley said.
GCS has “normal” truancy rates, Ridley said. But in absence rates, it ranks 126th in the state.
“We’re trying to target those kids to ensure that we’re helping them to remove the barriers that are keeping them out of school,” he said.
It’s not clear exactly what drives Gilmer’s chronic absentee rate, Ridley said. But a large portion of it is sickness.
“It comes down to kids get sick,” he said.
Although the school system will work to fix these issues and encourage students to attend school, there’s only so much they can do. State compulsory attendance to school ends at 16 years old.
“We don’t control that,” Ridley said.
If GCS can’t raise its attendance rates, it could have major implications for the county, he added.
In other parts of Georgia, legislative authorities have started offering vouchers to parents attending low-performing public schools.
Vouchers give parents a set amount of money to spend on their child’s education.
They can then use the money to enroll their child in private or public school as they see fit. Advocates of vouchers say school choice leads to better educational results overall.
But vouchers might work poorly in a rural county like Gilmer.
“The free-market argument might work in a more heavily populated community, but in rural communities it’s a faulty argument, because there are not enough private schools to serve all the kids,” Ridley said.
If vouchers are implemented, Ridley estimates GCS will have to fire one teacher for every 20 students that leave.
If just one or two students leave from each GCS class, the school will have to fire teachers. This move will cut class sizes, and the situation will get worse, Ridley said.
Private schools don’t have the same degree of community oversight as public schools, Ridley said.
“Everything we do is publicly visible. And that’s not the case with private companies or private schools.”