A new poll released by EdTrust on Wednesday finds that parents of Latino students, multilingual learners and students with disabilities are more likely to report challenges with school safety, bullying, mental health and regular attendance.
The poll also finds that Black families are the least likely to say their children feel "very safe" at school, while Black students were more likely to miss school because of bullying.
"Really, I think these aren't peripheral issues," said Jennie Williamson, state director of EdTrust-Massachusetts. "They're central to whether kids can engage and succeed."
The survey, which was conducted by The MassINC Polling Group, are based on results from 1,069 Massachusetts parents of K-12 children, including oversamples of Black, Latino and Asian parents.
The poll also comes as chronic absenteeism — when a student misses 10% of the school year, roughly 18 days — remains above pre-pandemic levels.
During the 2024-2025 school year, more than 18% of Massachusetts students were chronically absent, according to the poll. That's compared to 12.9% in 2018-2019, with rates particularly high among Latino students, multilingual learners, students with disabilities and students from low-income backgrounds.
While 28% of parents reported physical illness as the primary barrier to school attendance, mental health and anxiety are not far behind.
The survey finds that 23% of parents of students with an individualized education program, or IEP, and a quarter of parents of multilingual learners say mental health affects their child's attendance. That's compared to 17% of parents overall.
"It speaks to the need for schools to really be addressing mental health challenges with more counselors, more guidance, more support to creating a safe and supportive school climate for our students," said Williamson.
Roughly 42% of parents also reported concerns about their child's mental health. That's an improvement from 60% during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the poll.
But Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, said the continued high percentage of parents who say they are concerned about their child's mental health is part of a "longer historical trend" going back over two decades.
"There's certainly a lot of back and forth about what's causing that, and we saw a spike in that right around the time that COVID kicked off," he said. "But the level that it's come down to is still not baseline from the year 2000."
Parents of multilingual learners and families where Spanish is spoken at home are also three times as likely to report that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity near schools affects attendance.
Williamson said the fact that Massachusetts recently passed the PROTECT Act, which restricts ICE arrests in sensitive locations, helps address those concerns of multilingual learners. But she said there is still more to be done.
"But I think this poll shows the next step is really making sure families actually know their rights and that school and state agencies are consistently upholding them in practice so that students who are particularly concerned about this, or families who are concerned about this, know that the school is a safe place for their child," she said.
Jennifer Herring, executive director of Worcester Education Collaborative, said students continue to lose learning when they're not in school.
"So by losing learning, it continues to widen the opportunity gap for students," she said. "It's really important to think about the ways in which we're engaging students. What are some ways we can think strategically about re-engaging those families and having two-way communication?"
While ICE activity presents a new set of challenges, Herring said it's important to think about "the ways that we can work together as a community to make sure that all of our governmental forces are working together to ensure that all students are accessing their learning."
The survey also found transportation challenges, work schedules, conflicts, family stress and bullying as contributors to chronic absenteeism.
Specifically, bullying's impact on attendance is more common among students who are English language learners and Spanish-speaking students.
Nearly 15% of Black and Latino families were more likely to say their child missed school because of bullying compared to 9% of white families.
Black parents are also least likely to say their children feel "very safe" at school, while parents who are Asian American and Pacific Islander are less likely to see their children as "very safe" from discrimination.
"When students do not feel genuinely safe or experience a true sense of belonging at school, academic success becomes unattainable," Herring said in a press release. "If Massachusetts is committed to closing opportunity gaps, we must also address the safety and belonging gaps that continue to deny too many students the essential conditions for success."
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