Yesterday, Superintendent Pekel was invited to speak at a press conference convened by the Minnesota Legislature's House and Senate Education Committees. In his remarks below, he provides an update on absenteeism rates in Rochester Public Schools amidst the current increase in actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota. We are sharing this information as an update to our community about the large number of Rochester students who are currently not attending school and the potential impact this has on their educational progress.
"If the COVID pandemic taught us anything, it is this: it is deeply harmful to students—and to society—when students are not in school.
A large and consistent body of research shows that extended absences harm students' academic learning, social development, and mental health. We also know that the learning students miss during prolonged absences reduces their lifetime earnings and, collectively, the long-term prosperity of our communities and our state.
The sharp increase in student absences we are now seeing in Rochester and across Minnesota as a result of recent federal immigration enforcement activity risks repeating those same harms if it does not end soon.
In Rochester Public Schools, when we compare attendance data from January 9 through January 22—the period during which this crisis has been unfolding—to the prior month, we see that more than 530 additional students have been absent from our schools every single day, on average.
Some absences may be due to illness or other factors. But when we look only at absences excused at parent request, the patterns are unmistakable. During this period, we saw an 81 percent increase in excused absences among all students, a 417 percent increase among students whose first language is not English, a 116 percent increase among students from low-income families, a 68 percent increase among Asian students, and a 376 percent increase among Latino students.
We are also seeing significant increases in absenteeism in our early childhood programs and adult education programs.
In Rochester, we have chosen not to move the district to hybrid or online learning. Instead, we are doing everything we can to keep schools open and welcoming and to give families options. Since January 7, we have enrolled 186 new students in our online school, MNSync Online.
So why are families keeping their children home? It is not because immigration enforcement suddenly arrived in Rochester this month. Immigration enforcement has affected our community for decades. But historically, those actions were more targeted, and federal agencies often took steps—on their own or in coordination with local authorities—to minimize disruption to children and schools.
The current surge is different. Not only has the volume of enforcement activity increased dramatically, but its indiscriminate nature has created widespread fear. When people who appear to be immigrants, refugees, or people of color are stopped at random and asked to prove their legal status, that fear spreads quickly and freezes families in place.
That climate affects everyone in our schools. Students who stay home lose access to learning and support. Students who continue to attend school lose classmates, relationships, and the richness that comes from learning alongside peers from different backgrounds.
And the students most affected—students of color, Indigenous students, and students whose first language is not English—are the very students who, on average, have the most academic ground to gain.
I know these students want to be in school, and Minnesota needs them back in school — soon. Our shared future depends on it.”