Detroit High Schoolers Receive $200 Gift Cards to Improve Attendance

Staff and students walk through a hallway at a California school in a file photo. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) believes consistent school attendance is so important it is willing to pay for it.

In a new incentive program, every high school student who achieves perfect attendance during a two-week cycle consisting of 10 school days will receive a $200 gift card.

According to a district announcement on Jan. 9, direct-payment incentives for perfect attendance are available during the three months of the school year when absences are highest (January-March).

In the announcement, school administrators said they found that their students are three to five times more likely to be at and above grade level on state assessment tests and be college-ready if they are absent 18 days or fewer during the 180-day school year.

The district is funding the incentive program “in an effort to provide additional support to high school students, who often have many competing priorities that can create barriers to regular attendance,” the announcement said.

Such hindrances include fear for safety, family responsibilities, lack of transportation, disabilities, student disengagement, and student or family health issues.

At the board of education’s Jan. 14 meeting, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti highlighted the scope of the attendance problem among the district’s 48,000 students, telling the school board that the district had a 56 percent chronic absenteeism rate during the last school year.

A student’s absences are deemed chronic when the pupil misses more than 10 percent of instructional days.

A National Problem

According to a report from the United States Department of Education—last reviewed in December 2024—31 percent of students nationwide were chronically absent in the 2021-22 school year. That dropped slightly to 28 percent in the 2022-23 school year.

The report noted that the national decline in school attendance was initially related to concerns over COVID-19 and must not be permitted to be the “new normal.”

Twenty states reported that more than 30 percent of their students missed at least three weeks of instruction in the 2022-23 school year, according to the DOE study.

The average absenteeism rate in Michigan during the 2022-23 school year was 33 percent.

Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, and Hawaii posted a chronic absenteeism rate of over 40 percent during the same period.

Initial Success Seen in Detroit

Vitti reported that though it was still early, the incentives appear to be working.

Vitti said that districtwide, over the first five days of the program there have been 1,800 more high school students with perfect attendance than in any given five-day period before winter break.

“Data shows it’s making a difference,” he said.

The incentive program, consisting of five two-week periods, began on Jan. 6 and will end on April 4.

To qualify for the $200 gift card reward, students must attend every hour of the 10 school days.

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona answers questions during the daily briefing at the White House on Aug. 5, 2021. Win McNamee/Getty Images

By the end of the program, a student who maintained perfect attendance throughout will earn $1,000 in gift cards.

The first of the $200 gift card payments is set to be issued on Jan. 31.

Cash payments are not an option and the system is designed to prevent the conversion of the cards into cash through electronic pay platforms, which will automatically decline such transactions.

It is unclear if effective measures are possible to prevent the students from selling their cards on the street for cash.

The money to buy the gift cards comes from interest earned on the balances of school accounts set aside in the bank for facilities development, according to Vitti.

The total cost of the attendance incentive program cannot be determined at this time.

DPSCD also pays students $2,000 each if they enroll in a literacy tutoring program.

A cash incentive for students to attend summer school was not ruled out by Vitti.

DPSCD officials did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.