September 4, 2024
The study's authors conducted a survey of school districts and interviewed leaders of districts who are members of the American School District Panel (ASDP), which is a research partnership between RAND and the CRPE.
Key findings from the study include:
- 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.
- 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 for district leaders include:
- Fine tuning 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, and tracking how and when these interventions are most effective and for which student populations.
- Increasing families' perceived salience of school attendance for their child's academic success and impressing on parents the importance of daily attendance.
- Trying different approaches to improve students' relationships with adults and other students at school. Many of the leaders interviewed highlighted approaches that increased students' social connectedness at school as being most effective.
