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Teachers might be saying “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?” more these days as school absences rise nationwide.
The proportion of students who go to schools with high or extreme levels of chronic absenteeism jumped from 26% in the 2017-2018 school year to 66% in 2021-22 school year, according to an analysis of government data from Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and Attendance Works. It’s not just one day of pretending to be sick while watching Judge Judy; to be considered chronically absent, a student has to miss at least 10% of school days. During the most recent surveyed year, about 14.7 million students (or 29.7%) fell into this category.
