Across the nation, chronic absenteeism rates nearly doubled between 2018-2019 and 2021-22 school years. The pandemic affected all communities, leading to sharp increases in chronic absenteeism across most school districts. Significant increases occurred in urban and rural areas, in both low-income and affluent communities, in districts with historically high rates of chronic absenteeism, and in districts where few students had been chronically absent before the pandemic (Chang et al., 2023; Chang et al., 2024). As a result, reducing chronic absenteeism has become a major priority for most school districts.

This analysis addresses this question by identifying how many districts experienced substantial pandemic-era increases in chronic absenteeism, which types of districts were most affected, and how many returned to close to pre-pandemic levels by the 2023–2024 or 2024–2025 school years.