Student Absences Soared Above 30% In Some Hawaii Schools … The omicron variant has not only led to a large number of staff being out so far this year, but students, raising concerns in the DOE community.
Each of Hawaii’s 15 geographic complex areas saw a double-digit percentage of students absent earlier this month amid a surge in coronavirus cases, according to information shared Thursday at a Board of Education meeting.
In some areas of the state, as many as a third of all students were not present at school between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7. The highest percentages were seen in rural areas of the state including the islands of Lanai with 33.9% of the student body out and Molokai with 29.1% out in that period. On Oahu, the percentage of absences reached up to 25% in Kahuku near the North Shore and 19% in Campbell-Kapolei.
In the first semester of the school year, from Aug. 3 to Dec. 17, the overall student absence rate ranged from 5% to 13%. In comparison, the first semester of the pre-pandemic 2019-2020 school year saw the percentage of student absences ranging from 3% to 7% across the complex areas, according to data from the state Department of Education.
