BATON ROUGE - Getting students into the classroom is becoming a statewide issue, but the problem is particularly troubling in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Since the pandemic, unexcused absences have been on the rise, and leaders say the problem is that students aren’t in the classroom, they could be causing trouble.

President of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Ronnie Morris emphasized the issue in the state.

"Whether it's unexcused or excused, you're missing the instructional minutes, and that's the whole point of going to school," Morris said.

There are about 177 school days in the year, with each day lasting six hours. In Louisiana, about 40% of students are missing more than 10% of required time without an excuse.

In East Baton Rouge, 55%, roughly 24,000 students were considered truant, according to data from last school year.

"There's a proactive component. There's a reactive component. We want to address both sides," Morris said.

He says it’s stayed that way for the past five years.

On Thursday, BESE, alongside judges from the EBR juvenile court, discussed how the students are falling through the cracks. Judge Gail Grover says there are hundreds of referrals from school systems, but not enough Families in Need Services officers to process students.

FIN is a process to intervene before a child heads down the wrong path. Morris says the kids who don’t get to class and therefore don’t finish school often wind up being the people committing violent crimes.

"Forty-six percent are chronically absent in eighth grade. in between absenteeism and crime, and that's unfortunately apart of our dilemma," Morris said.