Many Americans frown upon kids who miss school, often calling it truancy or simply cutting class. But the School Avoidance Alliance believes chronic absenteeism could be part of a much larger problem where anxiety and mental health issues force students to stay home.
"School avoidance is when a child has severe discomfort, distress about going to school. It's not your average, ‘I just don't feel well,’ it is severe and disturbing for a parent to see. The child might be hiding under the covers, they might be crying, tantruming, hiding in the closet. To them, it feels like you're bringing them to a torture chamber. It's severe," Jayne Demsky told Fox News Digital.
Demsky started researching the topic nearly a decade ago when her own son refused to attend 6th grade because his anxiety was unmanageable. She formed the School Avoidance Alliance in 2020 and has since dedicated herself to helping families overcome what she struggled with as a parent.
"School avoidance is very misunderstood," she said.
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"Because kids are not doing their job of going to school, and then it falls upon the parent like, ‘Why the heck are you not getting your kid to school?’ It seems like parents are weak, and the kids are lame. But there always is a specific reason for it," Demsky continued. "Usually, mental health issues could be co-occurring with school learning problems. These are not minor issues."
Demsky said truancy is when a kid skips school for pleasurable activities and the parents are unaware, whereas school avoidance is when the student is purposely avoiding "negative feelings" brought on going to school.
"I know it's really easy to say like, ‘What the heck is wrong with these kids? What's wrong with the parents?’ But our society has perpetuated these feelings of academic success," she said. "There are tons of kids who are dealing with depression right now, anxiety disorders. And a huge problem is there are tons of mental health professionals out there. So, these kids are not getting treatment and the schools have to pick up the slack."
Demsky took exception to the notion that some may write off the kids as "soft," and doesn't agree with anyone who would intertwine school avoidance as old-fashioned skipping.
"The problem is that schools don't know about school avoidance because it's been off the radar for so long," Demsky said. "So, the only way they know how to handle chronic absenteeism is how they handle truancy. And that's usually handled punitively."
The School Avoidance Alliance believes harsh punishments don’t work "for a child in a family who is breaking down at home."
"It's counterproductive to make them feel like they're failing and blaming them," Demsky said.
The School Avoidance Alliance also works with child study teams, teachers, school administrators, mental health organizations, attendance directors, and attendance officers throughout the United States to help bring awareness and solutions to the issue. Research on the issue is hard to gauge, and Demsky said she has seen various studies that from 1% to 7% of kids around the country suffer from school avoidance.
Demsky believes COVID-era school shutdowns, which polarized parents across the country, opened eyes to what she believes is a significant cultural issue.
"School avoidance was an under-the-radar issue for so many years… but when COVID hit, what happened was there were kids who were maybe on the cusp of having anxiety or issues, but they were pushing themselves to go to school. But once they were home and felt that comfortable feeling of being away from the pressure… spending more time with their families and not being stressed, they were like, ‘Wow, this feels good,’" Demsky said. "It has made us reevaluate education as we know it and the function of schools."
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The Department of Education found that average reading scores saw the largest decline in 30 years following the pandemic. When students returned to class, experts in the education field cautioned that a significant number of students were entering classrooms unprepared – in some cases, grade levels behind – and that some could struggle with severe behavioral issues.
Demsky said parents will know if their child has school avoidance because it’s clearly different from a typical student saying they don’t feel well, or exaggerating symptoms to play hooky.
"It might happen a day or two here and there, but it will build. And when it builds and there are consecutive days having problems going to school or missing school, that is an issue," she said. "It's really important for parents to get involved and in touch with their schools right away. We want to nip it in the bud."
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Andrew Mark Miller and Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
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