New app aims to reduce absenteeism from schools

Five schools in Harlem have started using technology to attempt to reduce absences and late arrivals among the student body. The schools are using an app, called Kinvolved, which allows teachers to take attendance with the “swipe of a finger,” and immediately sends alerts to children’s parents when they are either absent from or late to a class. One teacher who has begun using the app told The New York Times that she has already seen an improvement in student attendance, and even noticed participation from students who she had previously never even seen in class before.

Over the years, Etta Covington, a science teacher at Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Harlem, has seen her share of students who routinely show up late to class, cut classes or skip school altogether.

It’s a pattern that can increase the risk of flunking out.

“My average that comes in on time is seven students out of 30,” Ms. Covington told me recently as she surveyed a bank of empty laboratory tables in her first-period living environment class. Of the truant students, she lamented: “They stroll in. And then I have no-shows.”

Now Wadleigh is trying a new approach to absenteeism. In November, the school began using Kinvolved, an app that lets teachers take each student’s attendance with the swipe of a finger, and then automatically sends a text message to parents if a child is absent or tardy. Teachers can customize lateness alerts to include the number of class minutes missed. (The school does not copy students on these messages.)

Ms. Covington said she could already see a deterrent effect. “This one, you used to hardly ever see,” she said, indicating a ninth grader perched behind a lab table, pencil and notebook at the ready. “Now she is one of the first in class in the morning.”