Ottawa Researcher Sounds Off on Ontario's Absenteeism Push
An Ottawa-based education expert is adding her voice to the growing provincial conversation about why so many students are missing school — and what the government can actually do about it.
Jess Whitley, a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, spoke with CBC about Ontario's recent push to tackle chronic school absenteeism, a problem that intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic and hasn't fully resolved since.
The Scope of the Problem
School absenteeism has become a serious concern across Ontario, with school boards reporting persistently elevated rates of students missing significant chunks of the school year. The issue cuts across grade levels and regions — from rural communities to urban centres like Ottawa — and educators say it's straining schools' ability to deliver consistent learning.
Ontario has been exploring measures to get more students back into classrooms regularly, including increased monitoring, outreach programs, and collaboration between school boards and community services.
What the Expert Says
Whitley, whose research focuses on inclusive education and student well-being, urges caution about approaches that treat absenteeism as a discipline problem rather than a symptom of deeper issues.
Many students who are chronically absent are dealing with mental health struggles, family instability, learning barriers, or a sense of disconnection from school itself. Punitive or purely administrative responses risk pushing already-disengaged students further away rather than drawing them back in.
Instead, Whitley advocates for trauma-informed, student-centred strategies — building stronger relationships between students and school staff, reducing barriers to access, and ensuring schools feel like safe and welcoming places for every child.
Ottawa Schools Feeling the Strain
In Ottawa, local school boards have been working through their own absenteeism challenges post-pandemic. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Ottawa Catholic School Board have both noted the difficulty of re-establishing pre-pandemic attendance norms, particularly among secondary students.
Community supports, mental health workers embedded in schools, and family outreach coordinators have all been part of the local response — approaches that align closely with the kind of holistic intervention Whitley advocates for.
More Than Just Showing Up
At the heart of the debate is a fundamental question: what makes a student want to come to school in the first place?
Whitley's perspective pushes the conversation beyond raw attendance numbers toward student engagement, belonging, and whether schools are meeting kids where they are. That's a harder problem to solve with a policy memo — but arguably the only one worth solving.
As Ontario continues to refine its approach, voices from Ottawa's own academic community are helping shape a more informed, evidence-based response to one of education's most pressing post-pandemic challenges.
Source: CBC News via Google News Ottawa
