What Can Schools Do About Absenteeism?

Chronic absenteeism skyrocketed during the pandemic, creating major challenges for teachers and school administrators eager to bring students back to regular classroom routines. But for many schools, elevated levels of chronic absenteeism have persisted well past the reopening of school buildings, and schools across America are continuing their work to reduce the amount of missed class time and address its far-reaching consequences.

Chronic absenteeism has been associated with a slew of problems, including lower reading achievement and engagement in school, and ultimately a higher risk of dropping out. The students already facing some of the biggest challenges—homeless and foster students, those in poverty, and those with chronic medical conditions like asthma—are also the students most likely to miss school repeatedly.

The research is clear: The more time students spend in school, the better. So, avoiding unnecessary absences is a key piece of academic recovery. Here are some things we now know about chronic absenteeism and ways to successfully address it based on a collection of newly published research and surveys of parents, students, and educators.

Absenteeism affects all students, even those who show up. 

Chronic absences affect students who miss classes, hurting their grades, how connected they feel to their peers and school communities, and their chances of completing high school. Frequent absences by a large segment of the student body also hurt students who attend regularly.

That could be because constant missed school days force teachers into a cycle of remediating and reviewing missed content when absent students return, slowing progress for other students, researchers speculate. It can also be difficult to establish classroom routines and a culture amid a constant churn of students. Some research has found that in classrooms with poorer overall attendance, students exhibited lower reading, math, and executive function skills. Chronic absenteeism can also be self-perpetuating, as research has shown that students’ absences can make peers more likely to miss school.

The empty desks also affect teachers’ morale as well. Teacher satisfaction drops steadily as absenteeism increases, according to a study published last November in Education Researcher. Researchers found teachers whose classes had higher absenteeism in the fall semester rated significantly lower on measures of job satisfaction, feelings of usefulness, and belief in the teaching profession. Mounting absences can hurt teachers’ ability to feel close to students, and make-up work can add to teachers’ already long to-do lists.

Absenteeism spiked after pandemic school closures and remains high, but is trending down.

Chronic absenteeism was already on the rise before COVID hit. Federal data in 2018 showed nearly 8 million students (16%) nationwide were chronically absent in the 2015-16 school year, and the rate had been slowly but steadily rising beforehand. In the 2021-22 school year, after the pandemic shuttered school buildings, approximately 30% of students were chronically absent—missing at least 10 percent of the school year—almost double the pre-pandemic figure. More recently, research suggests that the chronic absenteeism rate is trending downward, but remains well above pre-pandemic norms.

One report in August from the RAND Corp.—among the first to examine absences for the most recent academic year—estimated that about 22% of students across the United States were chronically absent in 2024-25. Another recent report from FutureEd estimated a similar figure, 23% nationwide, for the 2023-24 school year. That figure also lined up with data from the American Enterprise Institute, which showed a 23.5% rate of chronic absenteeism in 2024, down from 25.4% in 2023 and 28.5% in 2022.

Parents know absenteeism is a problem, but often underestimate their kids’ absences

Fifty-eight percent of parents of school-aged children identified chronic absenteeism as a major problem, according to the June 2024 NPR/Ipsos poll. Though most parents agreed it was a problem, most also failed to correctly define it. Thirty-two percent of parent respondents identified the correct definition: missing 10 percent or more of school days. Fifty-one percent of parents set the bar higher, defining chronic absenteeism as missing at least 20 percent of the school year. That’s a problem, because a March 2024 study by researchers at the University of Southern California found parents often undercount their own child’s absences. Among those whose children were chronically absent, just 47 percent said they were concerned, that study found.

Allison Green
Boston Tutoring Services