Attendance and Absenteeism

Every state except New Hampshire now publishes chronic absenteeism data on its department of education website, according to a report by Attendance Works released June 3. The organization noted that when it was founded in 2010, Maryland was the only state to do so.

A majority of states — 43 — had published their chronic absenteeism data for 2023-24 as of April. By comparison, only nine states had made prior-year chronic absenteeism data available by April in 2021, when chronic absenteeism awareness was on the rise due to the pandemic.

Most states provide chronic absenteeism data by district, school, school level and specific student groups. However, only 17 states break data down by grade, making it difficult to detect when chronic absenteeism levels are elevated for particular grades.

Regularly sharing chronic absenteeism and attendance rates through public dashboards and reports to stakeholders —  including educators and parents — is key to addressing absenteeism levels, which spiked during the pandemic and remain high in its wake, according to Attendance Works.  

While the effects of chronic absenteeism have impacted states across the board, only 20 states have set a measurable target for chronic absenteeism, Attendance Works data shows.

"Whether or not states adopt chronic absence as an accountability metric under ESSA [the Every Student Succeeds Act], they can hold themselves accountable by setting a measurable target for reducing chronic absence and using data to engage in continuous improvement," the Attendance Works report released June 3 said. It called states "key players" in promoting approaches to prevent chronic absenteeism.

So far, 15 states and the District of Columbia have committed to halving chronic absence. And 22 states offer guidance on how to reduce it through prevention.

“State leadership to reduce chronic absence is crucial to ensure that all schools and districts, not just a few innovators, have the tools and skills to support excellent attendance," said Hedy Chang, founder and executive director of Attendance Works, in a June 3 statement. "State level actions designed to enhance data comparability, emphasize taking a team approach and encourage a multi-tiered system of support are essential for achieving meaningful reductions in chronic absence.” 

Attendance Works suggests that states: 

• Standardize the definition of chronic absenteeism nationwide to ensure data is useful and comparable.
• Provide grade-level insights.
• Use a multi-tiered system, saving truancy court as a last resort rather than a default approach.
• Provide regularly updated dashboards and reports to everyone, including families and educators.

Both Attendance Works, which advocates for national and state initiatives to improve school

attendance, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that chronic absenteeism nearly doubled — rising from 16% before the pandemic to 30% during the 2021-22 school year.

It then dipped slightly to 28% in the 2022-23 school year, according to an analysis released by Attendance Works in January. 

Although there is no national data for the 2023-24 school year yet, the American Enterprise Institute's January update to its state-by-state tracker shows that rates declined in 29 out of 36 states and the District of Columbia compared to the previous school year.

NEW ORLEANS — Between 2020 and 2024, student attendance in Missouri’s Springfield Public Schools dipped from 94.73% to 90.63%. 

Like many other school districts nationwide, Springfield’s attendance rates took a hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Data from the American Institutes for Research shows fall 2020 attendance rates nationwide for elementary school at 92%, middle school at 90%, and high school at 89% — down from pre-pandemic averages of 95% for elementary and 92% for middle and high school.

And because of the global health crisis, the state kept Springfield at its 2019-20 attendance numbers for funding purposes, Superintendent Grenita Lathan told attendees in March at the annual conference of AASA, The School Superintendents Association, in New Orleans.

But with the state’s hold harmless order on attendance about to sunset, Lathan said, officials in the 24,500-student district knew that they needed to boost attendance during the 2023-24 school year. So they set a goal: By the end of that school year, they would raise attendance to 92%.

Announcing that charge during her annual state of the schools address in August 2023, Lathan said chamber of commerce members and the community at large needed to understand the impact that a 2 percentage-point attendance increase would have. 

“That would bring in anywhere from $3 [million] to $4 million in funding that would help us with different programs,” Lathan said.

Lathan and other district officials laid out a districtwide strategic plan that included a communication timeline, monthly updates to 300 local business leaders, and a promise that Lathan would let herself be publicly doused in Powerade if the district reached its goal. Here are the keys to how officials rallied the community to work toward the attendance goal.  

Keep it simple and be bold

“It was important that we had buy-in from everyone in the district so that the messaging would resonate with everyone in the community,” said Stephen Hall, the district’s chief communications officer.

To that end, the district prioritized making its messaging simple, direct and bold in presentation. This was reflected not only in the attendance campaign’s slogan — “Attend today, succeed forever” — but also in messaging on social media and on signage around the city. 

In their car pickup lines, each of Springfield Public Schools’ 50 elementary, middle and high school buildings displayed five 18-inch by 24-inch yard signs heralding the directive “Attend daily. On time. All day.” 

Additionally, the district used digital billboards at three major intersections to get its message out. For only $500, Hall said, the district was able to get more than 250,000 ad placements on the billboards over 20 days. 

The attendance initiative became an easy, noncontroversial message for media and business partners to get behind. District leaders asked businesses to be creative in incorporating the campaign into their own messaging and also to sponsor PSAs on local TV stations. 

Furthermore, the district sent monthly news releases to local media showing the district’s progress. One local reporter even made it his mission to try to calculate the progress on his own, because he wanted to beat the competition on getting the story out once the district hit its goal, Hall said.

On social media, the district boldly declared, “When it comes to school attendance, 90% is not an A.” The school system supplemented these posts with graphics that simplified attendance data. Visuals, for instance, demonstrated how much of an impact each successive absence could have on a student’s performance, as defined using their GPA: Where a student with four absences might average a 3.63 GPA, a student with 35 absences might have a 2.29.

Don’t sweat the pushback

Shifting a community’s mindset isn’t without its hiccups, however. If your messaging is working, you should expect to receive pushback, the Springfield officials told AASA conference attendees.

“Because it was consistent, because it was bold, and because we were holding people accountable, we heard quite a bit of feedback,” Hall said.

One negative Facebook comment shared with attendees, for instance, read in part: “The SPS attendance obsession is why everyone in our house has been sick the last month. Our kids report they have been surrounded by sick kids at school who have been bullied by administrators into thinking they cannot miss any school. The result? Our kids are getting sick because sick kids are at school.”

When concerns like this arose, Hall said the district made a point of reminding parents that it’s still important to keep their kids at home when they are ill, and that punishing sick children wasn’t the purpose of the attendance campaign.

The district used the pushback as an opportunity to have school attendance officers and liaisons talk with families to identify barriers to attendance and offer solutions and resources to help address the issue. These included six attendance advisors who provided supports for transportation and health needs, counseling referrals, home visits, phone calls and address checks.

But pushback didn’t just come from parents: Students also leveled criticism against the district using social media comment sections, the district website’s feedback platform, and even a cover story in Kickapoo High School’s quarterly KHQ Today Magazine. Among their complaints: participation in school activities like dances, art shows, and public-facing performances such as band or choir relied upon attendance staying above a certain level.

“The only way to move metrics by 2 percentage points is for people to understand that there’s accountability, that there is consistency. And so it does ruffle some feathers sometimes, because they’re hearing it from multiple levels of the organization,” Hall said.

Leverage virtual learning

Not only is Springfield Public Schools the largest school system in Missouri, but it has the state’s largest virtual learning program, which serves around 400 school districts statewide.

“We have, in-house, a really robust virtual learning program,” said Ben Hackenwerth, the district’s chief strategy and innovation officer. “In Missouri, the way we’re funded, if a student is a virtual student, they automatically receive 100% attendance as long as they are participating.”

While there are specifics on how that participation has to be monitored and reported, Hackenwerth said, this situation provided an opportunity to meet with parents of students who were struggling in the regular school environment and offer them an option that might suit their child better. 

The virtual learning program also gave Springfield a pathway to rethink suspensions. 

For students on long-term suspensions, “we would give them the option of becoming a virtual student with the expectation that they could not be on campus,” Hackenwerth said. “So instead of taking that attendance hit, they could continue learning in a virtual setting, and it didn’t impact our attendance in a negative way.”

At the high school level, leveraging virtual learning options raised attendance by 1.5 percentage points. 

It’s a small percentage of students in the grand scheme of things, "but it’s still good for kids," Hackenwerth said.

Reward progress

Of course, recognition for successes achieved is crucial to keeping morale up during an effort like Springfield's attendance campaign. So, the district each month awarded trophies to principals in categories such as largest attendance gain year over year, most improved over the past month, and 95% attendance or better.But what about Lathan’s Powerade promise? Did Springfield hit its goal?

The short answer is “yes.” At her 2024 State of the Schools address in August, Lathan announced the district’s attendance had reached 91.78%, which was rounded up to 92%.

Lathan noted that one school in particular stood out throughout the campaign: McGregor Elementary School. The 281-student, 90%-free-lunch campus led by Principal Rebekah Kirby — then a first-year principal — raised its attendance by 3.56 percentage points.

“Her children were outperforming our higher-performing campuses where attendance is not an issue,” Lathan said.

With that in mind, at Lathan’s August 2024 state of the schools address, Kirby, along with some of her building’s teachers and students, got to do the honors of dumping a bucket of Powerade over Lathan’s head. 

“It truly was worth it to be able to hit that goal and for them to be able to celebrate,” Lathan said.

For each student who is chronically absent in California schools, there's a $5,630 economic burden to the community, according to a report released May 14 by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education's Center for Benefit-Cost Studies.

Each expulsion costs $70,870 in social burdens such as increased likelihood of dropping out, said the report, which was developed with the University of California, Los Angeles' Center for the Transformation of Schools.

Using state, school and student data, researchers calculated the total economic burdens and gains resulting from factors such as graduation rates, school attendance and disciplinary infractions. To improve those factors and offset burdens, the report calls for more equitable opportunities for student success, as well as efficiency-based reforms like the use of a multi-tiered system of supports framework.

Like many other localities, California's chronic absenteeism rate rose because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2019-20 school year, the state's chronic absenteeism rate for all students was 10%, compared to 30% in 2021-22, which was the same rate nationally. The report uses a common definition of chronic absenteeism, which is when a student misses 10% of the school year, or about 18 days.

The report also calculates that each suspension costs $27,260 and each disciplinary restraint adds up to $6,040.  The economic burden for each student who does not graduate high school is $478,440.

On the other hand, a 3 percentage point increase in California's high school graduation rate would add almost $10 billion to state coffers and $3 billion in taxpayer savings.

To calculate these financial burdens and gains, researchers used an economic model that accounts for all the resources that are needed or contributed to for each educational status over an individual’s working life. 

For example, the lifetime social gain of an 18-year-old who graduates high school is $478,440, or $681,930 if the student enrolls in college, according to the report. A variety of factors are taken into consideration in this calculation, including the estimation of higher earnings with additional education and the assumption of reduced criminal activity, improved health status and less reliance on a social safety net.

A. Brooks Bowden, an associate professor of educational policy at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Center for Cost-Benefit Studies of Education, said the study's findings in California are an indication of potential economic burdens nationwide.

"Addressing these challenges can lead to substantial savings and improved educational outcomes across the country," said Bowden in a statement. 

The report also said multi-tiered system of supports holds the promise of efficiency in education, because rather than schools delivering extensive support to all students, the MTSS framework provides resource-intensive supports to students with the highest need, as well as equitable services because interventions are individualized based on data.

The MTSS framework has been used by districts across the country to address stubborn absenteeism rates. This approach — which begins with universal supports and increases the intensity of interventions based on student needs — is also promoted by Attendance Works, a nonprofit that provides school attendance resources.

One-to-one tutoring can lower absenteeism rates by fostering student-teacher relationships and a sense of belonging, making students more willing to go to school, recent research from Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator found.

The study, posted by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, looked at the High-Impact Tutoring Initiative launched in 2021 to provide math and reading tutoring across 141 Washington, D.C., public K-12 schools — with the greatest focus on serving at-risk students.

The positive effects were particularly strong for middle school students and students with extreme absenteeism rates in the prior year, who were 13.7% and 7% less likely, respectively, to be absent when tutoring sessions were scheduled, the study found.

The national chronic absenteeism rate remained persistently high at 28% for the 2022-2023 school year, although it had trended downward from 30% the previous year. Nearly a year ago, in March 2024, the U.S. Department of Education sounded an alarm, urging schools nationwide in an open letter to address and track chronic absenteeism.

Students from 141 schools participated in tutoring funded by the District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendent of Education during the 2022-2023 school year at schools and community hubs. On average, the probability of being absent was 1.2 percentage points lower on days that a student had a tutoring session scheduled, representing a 7% decrease in students’ overall likelihood of being absent, the Stanford study found.

Some factors driving absenteeism, according to researchers, include academic challenges or poor academic performance, unsafe school climates or an excessively punitive school environment. Other external factors like economic or family obligations, chronic health issues and neighborhood crime can also impact a student's ability to attend school.

Strategies to combat absenteeism include phone calls and text messages to parents. But a more intensive approach is often needed for students who feel less connected to school and have the highest absenteeism rates. One of these approaches is high-impact tutoring.

The report describes effective high-impact tutoring as characterized by small group sizes, regular and frequent sessions, well-trained and consistent tutors, high-quality instructional materials, and utilizing data to identify students’ strengths and needs.

High-impact tutoring targets many of the underlying factors that also drive absenteeism. For example, meeting with a tutor consistently throughout the school year can help develop supportive relationships, which leads to a greater sense of belonging. Also, small tutor-to-student ratios can help tutors cater to individualized academic needs — making students feel more connected to one another and to the academic content, the report found.

The report found comparatively larger decreases in absenteeism when tutoring was held during school hours or had a smaller tutor-to-student ratio.

If tutoring were scheduled as a regular part of every school week — the report suggests three days per week — this would translate into participating students attending 1.3 more days of school over the course of a school year. Embedding these tutoring opportunities into the school day also helps make tutoring more inclusive for students with challenges like after-school transportation or caretaker responsibilities for their siblings.

The report further suggests schools create supportive learning environments that effectively address ongoing academic challenges while fostering positive relationships and stronger connections to the school community.

Student chronic absenteeism dipped slightly to 28% nationally for the 2022-23 school year from a high of 30% in 2021-22, illustrating the lingering impacts from pandemic-related school closures, according to an analysis released by Attendance Works on Jan. 16.

Chronic absenteeism declined in most states in 2022-23, but some states such as Oklahoma and Oregon and the District of Columbia saw increases compared to the previous school year.

While the data is promising, several challenges remain for schools struggling with attendance, including disruptions to learning for students who are not chronically absent and adverse impacts on student social interactions, Attendance Works said. 

Attendance Works defines chronic absenteeism as when a student misses 10% or more of school days over a school year — or about 18 days — due to absence for any reason, including those that are excused, unexcused and suspensions. 

The 28% chronic absenteeism rate for the 2022-23 school year — when calculated by the average-sized school — means there were at least 88 chronically absent students in each elementary school, 113 in each middle school, and 139 students in each high school. 

By comparison, the chronic absenteeism rate prior to COVID-19 in 2018-19 was 16.2%.

Chronic absenteeism affected every student demographic but was much higher for Native American, Pacific Islander, Black and Hispanic students, students with disabilities and English learners. Elementary schools and schools serving high populations of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch had higher rates of extreme chronic absenteeism — defined as having 30% or more students chronically absent.

Since June, Attendance Works, along with the American Enterprise Institute and Education Trust, began urging states and school districts to put policies in place that would lead to a 50% reduction in chronic absenteeism over the next five years.

Despite slow progress in overall increases to school attendance, there are examples of notable improvements in student engagement and attendance in several states, including Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Rhode Island and New Mexico, that were supported by comprehensive absenteeism prevention efforts coupled with data analysis, Attendance Works said.

The organization promotes several strategies to improve attendance, including:

• Prioritizing family engagement.
• Encouraging student connections.
• Ensuring student health, wellness and safety.
• Offering relevant and engaging learning.
• Supporting access to learning.