July 8, 2025
Fight for Life In The News
Source: The Statehousefile.com | Repost Fight for Life Foundation 7/8/2025 –
In 2020, Rochelle Muhammad, a Merrillville mother who worked the night shift to provide for her teenage son, received some unexpected mail. It was a summons to appear in court after her son was late to school too many times.
“I felt attacked,” she said. “I thought I was a good mother.”
She was shocked to see that she could go to jail for something her child wasn’t doing correctly, like going to the bus on time.
Muhammad wasn’t the only parent battling attendance issues during this time.
Before the pandemic, some school districts, such as Gary Community School Corporation, had attendance rates as low as 25%. During the pandemic, schools had no choice but to switch to kids attending school virtually, and Gary absentee rates spiked to as high as 71%. Since then, Gary and the state’s chronically absent percentage have improved.
In 2024, the Indiana Department of Education released the state’s chronic absenteeism rating, and for the second consecutive year, Indiana’s rating improved.
In Indiana, 17.8% of students were chronically absent for the 2023-2024 school year. That’s 1.4 percentage points better than the 2022-2023 school year and 3.3 percentage points better than the post-pandemic rate.
As absenteeism rates gradually improve in Indiana, state lawmakers have continued to pass bills to address the issue.
For example, Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, proposed House Bill 1540 during the 2025 legislative session, requiring the Department of Education to look at coming up with suggestions to improve the system, creating disciplinary actions to cut down the days kids miss school, setting up guidelines for schools to step in earlier, and making an attendance plan.