Ever since schools were shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic absenteeism among American schoolchildren has skyrocketed. Nearly 15 million schoolchildren (almost 30 percent of all K-12 students) were still missing at least 10 percent of school days during the 2021–22 school year—more than a year after most schools had returned to in-person learning. Most troubling, 6.5 million students were chronically absent before the pandemic started, indicating that absenteeism is an endemic problem in American schools.
According to the Education Department, students are chronically absent when they miss over 15 days in a school year. But according to Attendance Works, an educational nonprofit focused on absenteeism, the typical chronically absent student misses slightly more—about 18 school days per year.
