Vermont’s education officials have once again declared a crisis in chronic absenteeism, blaming parents and students for missing too much school. But the reality is that Vermont’s absenteeism crisis is based on misleading and incomplete data, built on flawed attendance policies and a refusal to acknowledge the basic medical realities of childhood illness.
For years, Vermont schools operated under a coercive attendance model that pressured parents into sending sick kids to school. Truancy threats, arbitrary absence limits, and excessive doctor’s note requirements created a system where parents felt they had no choice but to comply. Vermont’s attendance numbers weren’t high because kids weren’t sick—they were high because sick kids were forced into classrooms anyway.
Now, as more parents keep their children home when they are actually sick—something that should be encouraged—the state is panicking. Instead of adapting to the reality that kids get sick far more often than the school system allows, Vermont officials are doubling down on outdated policies, ignoring public health, and punishing families for doing the right thing.
A Convenient Relationship with CDC Guidelines
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Vermont’s absenteeism policies is its wildly inconsistent approach to public health recommendations.
Before COVID, schools routinely ignored CDC guidance when it came to contagious illnesses. If a child had the flu, RSV, or strep throat, they were still expected to show up unless they were visibly too ill to function. No structured policies existed to reduce transmission, and schools made no effort to prevent the spread of disease.
Then, the pandemic hit, and suddenly, CDC recommendations became the ultimate authority. Schools enforced strict quarantine rules, remote learning, symptom screenings, and multi-week exclusions for even mild symptoms. Parents were explicitly told to keep kids home at the first sign of illness, all in the name of protecting public health.
But now that COVID is no longer the dominant issue, Vermont has abandoned those same CDC recommendations—this time, demanding that children show up no matter what.
It is a complete reversal. The same schools that forced healthy kids to stay home in 2021 now punish families for keeping genuinely sick kids out of class in 2024. If Vermont officials truly believed in CDC guidance, why has it suddenly become irrelevant? The answer is clear: they enforce public health rules when it benefits them and ignore them when it doesn’t.
The Fake Absenteeism Crisis
Vermont school officials claim that absenteeism is at record highs, but their numbers fail to acknowledge that past attendance rates were never accurate in the first place.
For years, parents who wanted to avoid trouble with the school system sent their kids in sick—not because it was the right thing to do, but because the alternative was truancy threats and bureaucratic punishment.
Now that more parents are prioritizing their children’s health, Vermont’s attendance rates are returning to what they should have been all along. Instead of admitting that their past numbers were built on coerced attendance, officials are manufacturing a crisis to justify more control over families.
How Often Are Kids Actually Sick?
The biggest flaw in Vermont’s absenteeism policies is that they fail to acknowledge how often kids actually get sick in a given year.
Medical research is clear: children are symptomatic from contagious illnesses far more often than school attendance policies allow.
| Illness | Cases Per Year (Avg.) | Duration (Days Sick/Symptomatic) | Total Days Sick Per Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common Cold | 6–8 times | 7–10 days | 42–80 days |
| Flu | 1 time | 5–7 days | 5–7 days |
| Stomach Bugs (Norovirus, Rotavirus, etc.) | 1–2 times | 2–5 days | 2–10 days |
| RSV (Young Kids More Likely) | 1 time | 3–8 days | 3–8 days |
| Strep Throat | 1 time | 3–7 days | 3–7 days |
| Ear Infections | 1–2 times | 3–5 days | 3–10 days |
Graph: Days Kids Are Actually Sick vs. Vermont’s Absence Limits
Despite fever being one of the primary reasons children stay home from school, there are no definitive studies on exactly how many days per year children experience fevers across different age groups. We know that young children experience multiple viral infections per year, many of which include fever and last several days—but Vermont’s policies ignore this entirely.
The 10–15 day absence limit is completely arbitrary. There is no CDC, NIH, or pediatric study to support it. Instead of using real-world medical data, Vermont has set an attendance cap based on nothing—except historical attendance rates that were inflated by coerced attendance.
If Vermont were actually interested in science-based policy, it would conduct real studies on childhood illness rates and fever frequency before setting arbitrary limits. But they haven’t. And until they do, their entire absenteeism policy lacks legitimacy.
Why Vermont’s Absenteeism Policies Don’t Make Sense
If Vermont’s education officials are serious about addressing absenteeism, one simple reform could dramatically improve the accuracy of their data: separating illness-related absences from truancy.
Right now, the state lumps sick children in with students who are skipping school without cause. The result is inflated absenteeism numbers that don’t differentiate between a child with a contagious illness and a student who simply refuses to attend class.
This failure raises an obvious question: Why hasn’t Vermont taken this basic step?
If officials truly wanted a clearer picture of absenteeism, they would create separate reporting categories—one for unavoidable, illness-based absences and another for unexcused truancy. Yet they continue to treat all absences as the same problem.
And the result? Families with sick kids are treated as if they’re doing something wrong. Parents who make responsible decisions—keeping their children home to recover and prevent spreading illness—find themselves under suspicion, forced to justify every absence, often with unnecessary doctor’s visits.
Maybe it’s bureaucratic inertia. Maybe it’s a lack of attention to detail. Maybe, as some suspect, tying all absences together makes the problem appear worse than it actually is—justifying Vermont’s aggressive approach to attendance enforcement.
Whatever the reason, this failure undermines the legitimacy of the state’s absenteeism claims. Until Vermont schools start making basic distinctions between legitimate illness and truancy, their crisis narrative should be treated with skepticism.
Dave Soulia | FYIVT
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