15 MILLION Children Were ‘Chronically Absent’ from School Last Year

Approximately 14.7 million public school students in the United States, representing around 30% of all enrollees, were chronically absent during the last school year, according to a study by Attendance Works. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing at least 10% of the academic year, amounting to a minimum of 18 school days, data shows.

The study reported that 66% of all public school children, from California to New York, attended a school with high or extreme levels of chronic absenteeism during the 2021-2022 school year. This widespread absenteeism, attributed in part to the challenges of adjusting to in-person learning after the COVID-19 pandemic, is causing significant learning loss among American public school students.

The study found that 43% of schools had at least 30% of students who were chronically absent during the 2021-2022 school year, a sharp increase from 14% in 2017-2018. The long-term consequences of disengagement from school are deemed devastating, with the pandemic exacerbating the situation for many students. The crisis has prompted one Florida school district to introduce several four-day weekends to encourage families to plan trips and vacations during these breaks while ensuring consistent school attendance on scheduled contact days.

In New York state, around 950,000 students across all grades were chronically absent during the 2021-2022 academic year, data shows.

California reported 1.9 million students missing at least 18 days of school, while Texas had 1.5 million. Florida had 30% of kids, approximately 950,000, identified as chronically absent. The study highlighted that these increases in chronic absence are associated with significant declines in student achievement, posing a threat to efforts to recover from the pandemic.

The crisis has led over 900 public school districts in the U.S. to adopt four-day school weeks to address various challenges, including teacher shortages, low retention rates, and declining enrollment, which have plagued public schools since the onset of the pandemic.