The Los Angeles Unified School District's top goal is to lower the number of chronically absent students.

A student is considered chronically absent if they miss over 9% of the school year. The number of kids considered chronically absent rose during the pandemic.

LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho sat down with "Inside the Issues" host Amrit Singh to discuss what the school district is doing to help students be more present in schools.

"Our teachers and leaders are remarkable professionals, but one thing they can not do is teach the absent child," Carvalho said.

Carvalho highlights how schools focus on a child's education and take a holistic approach to monitoring student's physical and emotional well-being. 

"Our schools are the one place in our community where we detect, where we support, where we protect, where we provide nutrition, where we actually solve problems," Carvalho said.

To help students experiencing homelessness, the LAUSD recently opened a permanent housing facility in Sun Valley, which now houses 25 students and their families.

"The key now is can we replicate and rapidly accelerate and amplify the impact across our community," Carvalho said.

Carvalho noted a troubling trend is the number of school-aged kids in Los Angeles experiencing homelessness increased from 12,000 to over 15,000 from last year to this year.

"They are couch surfing, they are living in somebody's garage, they are in shelters. They are in conditions that children and their families should not be in," Carvalho said.

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