School Hurt: A Personal Reflection for Attendance Awareness Month

By: Shelneka A. Marsalone September 2, 2026

There is a phrase commonly used in faith communities: church hurt.

Church hurt describes something many people understand all too well. The building didn't hurt you. The pews didn't hurt you. The sanctuary didn't hurt you.

The people you encountered within that space did.

And sometimes, after enough hurt, walking back through those doors becomes difficult.

I believe there is such a thing as school hurt, too.

The school building may not have harmed a student. The textbooks didn't do it. The desks didn't do it. Sometimes the hurt comes from the people inside the building…the words spoken, the assumptions made, the relationships never formed, the humiliation remembered, or simply the feeling that no adult really saw you.

And eventually, showing up becomes hard.

There's an old church saying: “I don't look like what I've been through.”

Well, when it comes to school attendance, I certainly don't.

Look at me now.

I'm the founder of an education consultancy whose work includes helping schools improve attendance. I'm the executive director of a national organization dedicated to school attendance and chronic absenteeism.

But as a child? I couldn't stand school. As a matter of fact, I tried to miss a lot of days.

And before we start reaching for all of the reasons we typically associate with absenteeism, let me tell you what wasn't happening.

I didn't have a bad home life. My parents were together. I was told I was loved every day. I lived a comfortable life.

The schoolwork wasn't too hard. The work wasn't the problem. The people were.

I remember one day in elementary school when my mother was working toward her cosmetology license. That meant every style she learned, she came home and practiced on me.

One day, I went to school looking like Salt-N-Pepa. Stacks. Asymmetrical cut. Everything but the gold bamboo hoop earrings.

And I remember overhearing a teacher say to another teacher, while looking at me:

“She thinks she's grown.”

That cut me more deeply than anything another student or some stranger could have said. Because this was a teacher. An adult. Someone I admired in a way.

She probably doesn't remember saying it.

I have remembered it for decades.

And something changed for me after that. I started paying attention to how the other adults in the building treated me. The classrooms were full. There were teachers everywhere. But I soon realized there weren't many real connections there for me.

And there is a difference between being surrounded and being connected.

A student can sit in a classroom full of people every single day and still feel completely alone.

Then I Started Running

It wasn't until middle school that I started liking school. Why?

Track.

I started running track, and if I wanted to compete, I had to be at school. Simple as that. But looking back through the lens of the work I do today, I understand that something much bigger happened.

Track gave me a reason to belong.

I had teammates. I had coaches. I had something I enjoyed. I had a place within the school community where I felt connected. Suddenly, showing up had meaning.

Today, we would talk about school connectedness, engagement, belonging, protective factors and attendance.

Back then?

I just knew I wanted to run. And I had to show up to do it.

That's why when people ask, “How do we get these kids to come to school?” I sometimes think we're starting with the wrong question. Maybe we also need to ask:

What are they coming to when they get here?

It's Attendance Awareness Month. Let's Talk About It.

September is Attendance Awareness Month. Schools will launch campaigns. There will be posters, attendance challenges, incentives, spirit days, social media graphics and plenty of reminders that Every Day Counts.

And yes, attendance matters. You won't get an argument from me about that. But I want us to do something harder than create another attendance campaign.

I want us to examine the relationships inside our buildings.

Do students have adults who know them? Do students believe the adults in their school actually like them? How do we speak about children when we think they aren't listening? Are we making assumptions about their clothes, their hair, their behavior, their families or the way they communicate? Do some children experience correction far more often than they experience connection?

And here's the question that may make us uncomfortable:

Could something we are doing be contributing to why a child doesn't want to come back tomorrow?

That's not an attack on educators.

It's a challenge to all of us who work with children, including me, to recognize the enormous power adults hold in shaping a child's experience of school. Good intentions don't make any of us incapable of causing harm.

There Is Something Else About September

September is also Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. I don't think we should ignore the irony, or perhaps the opportunity, in those two observances happening at the same time.

I'm not suggesting that a bad interaction with an educator causes suicide. Mental health and self-harm are far more complex than that. But both conversations should make us pay attention to some of the same things:

Connection. Belonging. Isolation. Disengagement. Whether young people believe they matter to the people around them.

When students begin disconnecting from school, attendance may be one of the first places we see it. An absence is a number in an attendance system. But that number represents a child. And sometimes that child may be telling us something through their absence that they haven't figured out how to say with words.

That's why I believe so strongly that attendance can't only be treated as compliance. Sometimes we have to stop asking, “What's wrong with this child?” And start asking:

“What is this child experiencing?”

And every once in a while, we need enough humility to add:

“Could it be us?”

School Hurt Is Real

We recognize that people can experience church hurt because relationships within a place that was supposed to feel safe caused them pain. Why wouldn't we recognize the same possibility in schools? Children spend an enormous portion of their lives inside our buildings.

Our words matter.

Our looks matter.

Our assumptions matter.

Our relationships matter.

And here's what I've learned from being on both sides of this equation:

The adults who contribute to school hurt may never know they did it.

That teacher probably forgot her comment about my Salt-N-Pepa haircut before the school day ended…I carried it into adulthood.

But there is another side to this. The adults who create belonging may never fully know what they did either.

A coach may think they're simply coaching.

A teacher may think they're simply greeting a student every morning.

A secretary may think they're simply learning a child's name.

A custodian may think they're simply asking, “How are you doing today?”

But to the right child, that relationship might become part of the reason they show up tomorrow.

Adults can contribute to school hurt. But adults can also contribute to school healing. So during Attendance Awareness Month, absolutely tell students that showing up matters.

Celebrate attendance.

Study the data.

Recognize improvement.

Run the campaigns.

But please don't stop there.

Before we ask children why they aren't showing up, maybe we should sometimes ask ourselves:

What happens to them when they do show up?

Because sometimes improving attendance doesn't begin with changing the child. Sometimes it begins with changing the experience waiting for them when they walk through our doors. And that is something every adult in a school has the power to influence.

Think back to your own childhood. Did you have any experiences with school hurt? What was that like for you? Can you remember an adult in your past that provided school healing? Let's talk about it.

At We Got Goals, LLC, we believe attendance is not simply about getting students into classrooms, it is about creating the conditions that allow every student to thrive. Through consulting, professional learning, and technical assistance, we help schools and organizations move beyond compliance and toward relationship-centered, evidence-informed practices that strengthen educational participation.