Reducing chronic absence rates requires the entire community united in the effort - families and caregivers, schools, districts, and the state. When students miss too much school, they lose out on critical opportunities to learn, grow and succeed. Consistent school attendance is critical to unlocking a student's potential.
Still Missing Too Much School
Students across the country and in Arizona continue to miss too much school. After chronic absence rates spiked nationally during the pandemic, they have been slow to improve and remain well above pre-pandemic levels. This is true even though schooling has normalized, and the severe and widespread disruptions that we saw during the pandemic have largely disappeared.
In Arizona, new research by Helios Education Foundation and WestEd reveals that 29% of public school students in grades 1-8 were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year. That’s an improvement from the 34% spike in 2021-22 but still more than double that of pre-pandemic levels.
Students are considered chronically absent in Arizona if they miss at least 10% of the school year. However, the state’s chronic absence definition does not fully account for students who change schools mid-year – those students have some of the highest chronic absence rates. For example, the chronic absence rate among mobile 8th graders reached a staggering 55% in 2022-23.
These high rates of chronic absence in Arizona have significant consequences for teaching, learning, and student achievement. Chronic absence is associated with poor learning outcomes, patterns of subsequent absence in later grades, higher school dropout rates, and harmful impacts on school culture.
The data behind Arizona's chronic absence issue
