INTRO: Student absences are on the rise. Nationally, the number of students missing school, all the way from K to 12 has doubled since the pandemic began. That’s according to the U.S. Department of Education. There can be a lot of contributing factors for absences, but as Fahima Degia (Day-gi-ya) reports, some New York City public school students are choosing other pathways to develop their careers.


Degia 1 46th Street in Flatbush is a long block. In the middle is a brown house. walk into the backyard there and the first thing you see is a white shed. And… It's filled with birds.

Malik 1 This is a yellow headed Amazon. This comes from the Amazon Rainforest. They cost about $2,500 and they live up to like 50 to 60 years.

Degia 2 That's Kizir Malik, he’s18 years old and a senior at Clinton High School, in the Bronx. But, He has other things on his mind besides school. He’s the co-owner of a small business selling exotic animals - like these birds.

Degia 3 Omg a bird just landed on my head.

Degia 4 Do you prefer you small business over school?
Malik 2 laughing, That’s a hard question ? That uhh it depends



Degia 3 Malik started his business out of boredom when he was stuck at home during COVID. Now he has a business partner, a grownup.That’s who owns the property here. And they breed cats, like Persians, in the basement.

Degia 6 When I asked Malik how much he makes, he won’t tell me, but he says they sell a couple of birds every day. The types of birds he sells can go for up to twenty thousand dollars. And they have an instagram account with ten thousand followers. But he has an hour commute from his home in the Bronx to his partner’s house here in Brooklyn And all of this means he misses a lot of days of school.

Malik 3 You know, sometimes school is not everything. But yeah, there are some days that you have to sacrifice either school or work, because work work will give you money now, you know, school will give you money later. So a couple of days won't do any harm.

Degia 7 In my reporting I’ve seen a lot of high school students like Malik who run their own businesses - selling fake eyelashes, doing nails - some even have their own clothing brands. In NYC, just over a third of students all the way from K to grade 12 were absent in 2022. Of course they don’t all have their own small businesses, but they did miss 10% of the school year. And students' prioritizing work can lead them to miss a lot of school. So how do schools fix this? Nat Malkus researches education policy at the American Enterprise Institute - a conservative leaning think tank.

Malkus 1 What can schools do, I mean, schools can do a number of things,

Degia 8


Malkus 2 they can provide supports, they can share transportation has met, they can actually have consequences. If students don't come back, like they could not get credits, if they don't attend enough in high school, they could have some consequences for students who don't show up


Degia 9 Malkus says Chronic absenteeism harms student’s ability to stay engaged and learn. He says schools should work closely with parents to ensure their kids get to school.




Malkus 3 you could argue about the moral obligation, but there's a legal obligation to get your kids to school and all 50 states up to a certain age.


He says students are already behind from the pandemic. So Malkus says There is substantial learning loss from the pandemic, and to catch up they have to learn faster. Being absent
Won’t help. Malik who has school tomorrow will definitely be present.



Degia 10 He says students having businesses is okay. But he says chronic absenteeism is the most pressing post-pandemic problem in public schools. Because students are already behind after COVID.




Fahima Degia, Uptown Radio.

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