Persistently high chronic absenteeism rates have left educators and policymakers across the United States wondering what they can do to get students back in school. The authors of this report surveyed school districts and interviewed leaders of districts to get the latest information on the ongoing problem of chronic absenteeism.

Districts Try with Limited Success to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism

Selected Findings from the Spring 2024 American School District Panel Survey and Interviews

Melissa Kay Diliberti, Lydia R. Rainey, Lisa Chu, Heather L. Schwartz

ResearchPublished Aug 27, 2024

In the year following the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic-related school closures in March 2020, educators began to sound the alarm about increasing chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is defined as a student missing at least 10 percent of school days (i.e., 18 days in a typical 180-day school year) for any reason, whether excused or unexcused. Data suggest that chronic absenteeism skyrocketed in the aftermath of pandemic-induced school closures. But despite rates improving modestly in the 2022–2023 school year, persistently high chronic absenteeism rates have left educators and policymakers across the United States wondering what they can do to get students back in school.

To get the latest information on the ongoing problem of chronic absenteeism, the authors conducted a survey of school districts and interviewed leaders of districts who are members of the American School District Panel (ASDP). The ASDP is a research partnership between RAND and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. The findings estimate the proportion of districts with elevated levels of chronic absenteeism during the most recent school year (2023–2024), provide national prevalence estimates of the approaches that districts are employing to reduce absenteeism, and highlight perspectives from district leaders about why a greater share of children are missing school now than in the past. This report is intended for school district leaders, organizations focused on school attendance, and state policymakers.

Key Findings

  • About one in ten districts reported chronic absenteeism levels of 30 percent or more and another two in ten districts reported rates between 20 and 30 percent in the 2023–2024 school year. Although high, these rates were lower than the pandemic peak.
  • In the 2023–2024 school year, nearly all districts (93 percent) tried at least one approach to combat chronic absenteeism. The most common approach was the adoption of an early warning system to flag students who are at risk of being chronically absent.
  • One-quarter of districts reported that none of the approaches they have tried to reduce chronic absenteeism have been particularly effective.
  • In interviews, 11 of 12 district leaders with whom the authors spoke speculated that a cultural shift has occurred, whereby more students and families see school as optional and of less importance.
  • These district leaders hypothesized that chronic absenteeism will not improve without new approaches to make school more engaging.

Recommendations

  • School districts should fine tune established approaches to combatting chronic absenteeism (e.g., calling and visiting students' homes, home visits, and hiring dedicated staff) to work better in a post-pandemic context. Districts should track how and when these interventions are most effective and for which student populations.
  • School districts should increase families' perceived salience of school attendance for their child's academic success. Surveys of parents have found that students' top reasons for missing multiple days of school include such things as oversleeping and not wanting to attend because of anxiety, which suggests that there is room to further impress on parents the importance of daily attendance.
  • School districts should try more and new approaches to improve students' relationships with adults and students at school. Although no silver bullet can improve attendance, a throughline in the approaches that interviewed leaders did perceive as helpful was increasing students' social connectedness at school.

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Diliberti, Melissa Kay, Lydia R. Rainey, Lisa Chu, and Heather L. Schwartz, Districts Try with Limited Success to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism: Selected Findings from the Spring 2024 American School District Panel Survey and Interviews, RAND Corporation, RR-A956-26, 2024. As of September 11, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA956-26.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Diliberti, Melissa Kay, Lydia R. Rainey, Lisa Chu, and Heather L. Schwartz, Districts Try with Limited Success to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism: Selected Findings from the Spring 2024 American School District Panel Survey and Interviews. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2024. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA956-26.html.
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This research was sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted by RAND Education and Labor.

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