Hamilton’s public school board lost 1,756 students. Where did they go?

With the end of the fall semester rapidly approaching, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board is working to re-engage approximately 1,750 students who disappeared from classes in September in the hopes they'll return in the new year.

The tumultuous semester saw an unprecedented shortage of students enrolled in classes. Many families, dissuaded by fears of COVID-19 and complications with remote learning, opted to homeschool their children or hold them back a year without notifying the board.

While several of these families registered their children for classes in late August, the HWDSB later discovered that 1,756 of them either never showed up to school or dropped out early.

The disappearance of the students has posed a multitude of problems for the board. The shortage initially resulted in a major reduction in provincial funding, prompting fears of a significant budget deficit by the fiscal year's end, and it left school principals and teachers scrambling to determine whether the families whose children disappeared had found alternate educational opportunities.

It has also left education advocates wondering if the kids' time away from school will have long-term impacts on their learning and development abilities.

The board estimates half those missing students would have entered kindergarten this semester, while the remainder represent a mix of elementary and high school students. Many are being homeschooled, though it's unclear how much experience the families have educating their children at a provincially approved level. There are also those who the board has not tracked down, who may not be enrolled in any schooling at all this year.

We have a general concern, among the younger students especially, that they get the proper reading and math skills they need. I can't evaluate what's going on in each home, but part of what we want to do is provide families with resources and strategies if they're determined to homeschool them," said Bill Torrens, superintendent of student achievement at the HWDSB.

Torrens said that school principals have been working to make contact with families who've chosen to homeschool their kids, offering resources and teaching strategies they can use throughout the year. But monitoring a child's progress can be nearly impossible when they're away from class.

Tyrrel Parkin, a parent of three whose children normally attend Bennetto Elementary School in the lower city, opted to remove his kids last March when city lockdowns began.

Parkin's son, a third-grader with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, had difficulty keeping up with online classes; he struggled to sit still in front of the computer and was easily frustrated by the multitude of technological difficulties that accompanied the virtual program, Parkin said.

Parkin bought some workbooks and decided to homeschool his third-grader and kindergartener.

It's very challenging, to be honest with you, but there aren't many other options," he told The Spec.

A few teachers have been in touch and gave great advice on what books to buy and such. But I know there's only so much the kids can learn with the workbooks I've bought. There are probably going to be a lot of things, when they get back to school, that we never touched on this year at home."

The impact of missing a school year can vary depending on the student and their age. Judith Bishop, a trustee and former chair of the HWDSB, says that children who are held back a year at a very young age - especially those entering kindergarten - are not at a significant disadvantage if they were to enter school later. Legally, a family does not need to enrol their child in some form of schooling until Grade 1.

But missing grades at a young age can sometimes result in a lack of skills like reading comprehension and basic math.

If you skip kindergarten and go straight into Grade 1, for example, you're often missing a whole lot of language acquisition and the ability to speak in complex sentences," said Bishop.

How to share, how to take your turn, how to be one of a group - these are all basic social skills you learn in kindergarten that are fundamental to your growth as a person."

The HWDSB will introduce a pilot program in early January to re-engage" families of children between kindergarten and Grade 3 who sat out the first semester, said Torrens.

The program will target families living in high-priority areas" to encourage them to reconsider remote or in-person learning and offer strategies and resources for homeschooling if the families want to remain out of school.

We want to make sure children are safe and doing well, and we want to support the families however we can," Torrens said.

Jacob Lorinc's reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows him to report on stories about education.