When Staying Home Works: Understanding School Refusal and Chronic Absenteeism

*Featuring Dr. Paul "Paulie" Gavoni and Matt Cicoria* What happens when staying home from school becomes more reinforcing than attending? And how can educators, behavior analysts, and school leaders help students return without inadvertently making the problem worse? In this special episode of the Behavioral Observations Podcast, I'm sharing a conversation I recently had with my good friend and colleague, Dr. Paul "Paulie" Gavoni, on his podcast, The Heart & Science of Leadership. We tackled a topic that's increasingly challenging schools across the country: **chronic absenteeism and school refusal**. While attendance problems are often discussed in terms of percentages, policies, and accountability, those numbers don't necessarily tell us why an individual student isn't coming to school. From a behavior-analytic perspective, we need to understand the conditions influencing attendance—and how our responses might be helping or inadvertently making matters worse. Paulie and I discuss how avoidance can be negatively reinforced, how preferred activities and attention at home may influence attendance, and why well-intentioned adult responses can sometimes strengthen the very patterns we're trying to change. We also explore the importance of school climate, bullying, housing instability, family circumstances, and building collaborative relationships with caregivers. After all, not every attendance problem is simply a matter of escape-maintained behavior. And importantly, we discuss practical strategies for helping students return to school, including identifying early warning signs, developing individualized plans, and gradually building successful attendance. ### In this episode, we discuss: - **The functions of school refusal:** Understanding what students may be escaping at school and accessing when they stay home. - **The avoidance cycle:** How immediate relief from uncomfortable situations can make future attendance more difficult. - **Early warning signs:** Morning struggles, tardiness, avoiding particular classes, and leaving school early. - **The role of caregivers:** Why difficult mornings can create reinforcement contingencies for both students and parents—and why blame is counterproductive. - **Looking beyond attendance numbers:** Identifying individual circumstances, including bullying, unsafe environments, and housing instability. - **Gradual reentry strategies:** Building achievable steps toward returning to school rather than expecting immediate full-day attendance. - **Making schools more reinforcing:** The importance of safety, relationships, engaging instruction, and supportive environments. - **Alternatives to exclusionary discipline:** Including a discussion of the Compass Room and whether sending students home can inadvertently reinforce problem behavior. - **Building rapport with families:** Listening and understanding before recommending interventions. ### Rethinking Resilience: November 10, 2026 This conversation is especially timely because Paulie and I are both participating in RETHINKING RESILIENCE: Building Schools Where Students and Staff Can Adapt, Recover, and Keep Going, a one-day virtual conference taking place on November 10, 2026. The conference brings together experts in behavior analysis and education to explore how schools can create the conditions that help students and staff adapt, recover, and persist through challenges. Rather than treating resilience as something people either have or don't have, we'll examine how environments, skills, and systems can support more successful responding to difficult circumstances. **Conference details:** - **Date:** November 10, 2026 - **Format:** Virtual, with live and on-demand access for one year - **Continuing education:** 7 BACB CEUs (1 Ethics, 3 Supervision, and 3 General) - **Discount code:** BEHAVIORNAV15 **Register here:** https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/thebehaviortoolbox265/home If you're unable to attend live, you can watch the recordings afterward and earn the same CEUs. ### Resources mentioned - Session 300 of the BOP **-** Chronic Absenteeism and School Refusal with Kristen McNeely. - Kristen McNeely's website and Instagram. - The Heart & Science of Leadership — Dr. Paulie Gavoni's podcast, where this conversation originally appeared. - The School Refusal Assessment Scale (SRAS) — A framework for assessing the functions of school refusal behavior. - RETHINKING RESILIENCE Virtual Conference — November 10, 2026. - Motivational Interviewing: Getting Educator Buy-In — An online course addressing a person-centered approach to helping educators explore and resolve ambivalence toward behavioral interventions and change. ### Share this episode If you work with students who struggle to attend school—or support the educators and families working to help them—consider sharing this episode with your colleagues. Understanding why students aren't attending is an important step toward helping them return and stay connected.