Before the bell rings, before a single test is taken or a lesson begins, one question is crucial to the school day: Who’s not here today?
In classrooms from small towns to big cities, chronic absenteeism is quietly eroding student success. It’s a challenge most states face, yet one often overshadowed by test scores and graduation rates. But experts say the problem runs deeper, and fixing it takes a mutual relationship between schools and parents.
A national issue hiding in plain sight
“Chronic absence is not a new problem,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works. “It nearly doubled during the pandemic, from 16 to 30% of all kids.”
Chang’s organization partners with schools across the country to help reverse the effects of the pandemic and other barriers to attendance, impacting about 8 million students.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, about 28% of schools had at least one in five students, or 20%, considered chronically absent. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of the school year. Post-pandemic, that number jumped dramatically.
“It was two-thirds of all schools having 20% or more,” Chang said. “When a kid misses school, it means they’re less likely to read by the end of third grade.”
What chronic absence means for student success
The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, from the 2022–23 school year, shows chronic absenteeism dropped to 28%, down from about 31% in 2021–22. But the agency warns this level of absenteeism cannot become the new normal for schools and students.
“Every single community should both build a culture of attendance. How do they talk about the value of showing up to school? How do they build those relationships so kids and families feel connected to school?” Chang said.
Attendance Works notes that the current numbers represent a sharp contrast to 2019, when just over a quarter of U.S. schools reported high levels of chronic absenteeism. The nonprofit partnered with Johns Hopkins University’s Everyone Graduates Center to further analyze federal data from the Department of Education.
Their findings show the issue has become widespread. In 2022–23, the average elementary school had 88 chronically absent students, while the average middle school had 113 and the average high school had 139.
Research shows that the negative outcomes only escalate. Students who miss more school are more likely to face suspension and less likely to graduate by senior year.
“The impact of missing school when you have a lot of kids missing school isn’t just the kids who’ve missed too much school –– it’s the entire classroom, because it makes it harder for teachers to teach, set classroom norms, kids complete their projects,” Chang said.
Barriers go beyond the classroom
Chang said many chronically absent students face barriers rooted in poverty, including a lack of reliable transportation, unstable housing, limited access to health care and lower levels of safety in their communities.
“Those communities have historically had higher levels of chronic absence and during the pandemic, things got worse because they were more likely even to have deaths in their family and illness, which then even further compromised the economic security of those communities,“ she said.
For some states, less attendance = less funding
Chronic absenteeism doesn’t just affect students’ learning, it can directly influence school funding and shape education policy. In many states, including California, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas, school funding is tied to average daily attendance (ADA).
The U.S. Department of Education has several grants that incorporate student attendance into their funding formulas. This means that when students miss school, districts lose funding.
For instance, in California, a 1% increase in attendance could generate an additional $40 million in funding for schools statewide.
In 2024, Mississippi replaced its decades-old formula for the average net enrollment, which provides a count at each school within the state. According to Mississippi First, the new policy accounts for absences.
“Due to student absences, net enrollment yields a high number than ADA, meaning that counting students using net enrollment will yield a higher count.”
The role of digital tools in recovery
Digital learning tools, which surged in use during the pandemic when students were attending class from their kitchen tables, can still play a valuable role, but only if used in moderation, said Chang.
“I think you really have to balance helping folks use digital tools to make up with not conveying that that means, then you don’t have to show up regularly to school,” she said.
Building relationships to keep kids in school
Chronic absenteeism tends to follow a U-shaped curve: high in kindergarten, gradually improving through elementary school, then rising again during high school. Chang said the key to breaking that pattern is focusing on transitional periods, like the shift from elementary to middle school, when students are most at risk of disconnecting.
“Make sure that schools are forming those personal relationships with kids and families, and then as chronic absence rates get higher, then you’re engaging in more intensive outreach to families to provide them with additional supports so they can get to school,” Chang said.
One example emerged from Connecticut during the pandemic. The state identified a sharp rise in chronic absenteeism and partnered with Attendance Works to launch the Learner Engagement and Attendance Partnership.
The program sent school staff into communities over the summer to build relationships with families of students who had missed a lot of school, without labeling them as such. The outreach was framed around summer learning opportunities, upcoming school plans and available support. As a result, schools saw attendance improve by an average of 15 percentage points.
How 50 states are approaching the issue
Attendance Works recently reviewed attendance policies in all 50 states to understand how chronic absence is tracked and reported. The goal, Chang said, is to make data more consistent and transparent so communities can identify where attendance issues are most severe. The number of states publicly reporting chronic absenteeism has surged from just one in 2010 to 49 in 2025. New Hampshire is currently the only exception not reporting data.
Nearly a decade after the Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law, most states continue to hold schools accountable for high rates of missed instructional time.
She noted that 22 states now encourage schools to take a prevention-first approach, focusing on early outreach, building relationships with families, and connecting them with the support they need to keep students in class.
contributed to this report.