Chronic Absenteeism Still a Struggle in 2024–2025

Key Findings

• Chronic absenteeism in the 2024–2025 school year remained above prepandemic levels.
• In roughly half of urban school districts, more than 30 percent of students were chronically absent—a far higher share of students than in rural or suburban school districts.
• One-quarter of youths in K–12 districts do not think being chronically absent from school is a problem.
• Youths’ most commonly reported reason for missing school was sickness.
• District leaders report using a combination of strategies, including family messaging and partnering with community organizations, to combat absenteeism.

Persistent high levels of absenteeism are slowing students’ academic recovery after the disruptions to schooling brought on by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (Dewey et al., 2025). Even several years after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, heightened levels of chronic absenteeism continue to be one of district leaders’ top concerns. Four in ten districts identified reducing chronic absenteeism in their schools among their top three most pressing challenges for their schools during the 2024–2025 school year, including 8 percent who ranked this issue as their top challenge. Districts’ concern about chronic absenteeism is on par with their concern about raising math and reading achievement.^[1]

Beyond being a persistent challenge, chronic absenteeism levels also continue to be a puzzle. Heightened absenteeism was perhaps not surprising during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic, which drastically upended normal schooling conditions. However, it remains unclear why increased absenteeism is still such a large problem for school districts years after the pandemic has ended and schooling routines have returned to prepandemic conditions.

There are many competing and complementary explanations for why absenteeism has remained above prepandemic levels (Mervosh and Paris, 2024). One hypothesis is that families and students became accustomed to districts’ relaxed expectations and revised instructional practices that were implemented during the pandemic; for example, schools might still be providing more-generous makeup windows or allowing students to make up more missed schoolwork online, relative to their prepandemic practices. Specifically, the availability of online materials to replace in-person instruction may have shifted at least some parents’ perceptions about the importance of their children being physically present in school (Diliberti et al., 2024; Saavedra, Polikoff, and Silver, 2024). A second is that many youths are struggling with mental health challenges after the pandemic, and increased anxiety or depression may be the reasons that students are missing more school (Stanford, 2023). Third, parents may be taking illnesses more seriously after the pandemic and keeping their children home for minor issues instead of sending them to school (Diliberti et al., 2024; Vázquez Toness, 2024). Finally, teacher absenteeism has also increased (Hansen, Aggarwal, and Wagner, 2025), which some suspect might make in-person attendance less compelling for students, although recent data have cast doubt on this theory (Jacobson, 2025).

Chronic absenteeism is defined as a student missing at least 10 percent of school days (i.e., 18 days in a typical 180-day school year or roughly three-and-a-half weeks of school) for any reason, whether excused or unexcused (U.S. Department of Education, undated).

In this report, we investigate the state of chronic absenteeism across the nation as of the 2024–2025 school year. We provide chronic absenteeism levels for the most recent school year using recollections from district leaders, updating our prior work on this topic from the 2023–2024 school year (Diliberti et al., 2024). We also investigate youths’ reasons for being absent from school and consider what strategies districts are using to get students back in school.

To address these questions, we primarily use survey and interview data collected through the American School District Panel (ASDP). The ASDP is a research partnership between RAND and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. The panel also collaborates with several other education organizations, including the Council of the Great City Schools and MGT. In particular, we use data from an ASDP survey administered to 245 K–12 public school districts between March and May 2025.

We weighted these districts’ responses to our survey to make them representative of K–12 public school districts across the country. We caution readers that this is a very small share of the roughly 13,000 school districts located across the United States. Furthermore, although we weighted our small sample of districts to make it representative of school districts across the country at least on such observable characteristics as enrollment size, region, locale, and district poverty level, even our weighted survey sample might not be entirely representative of districts nationally. It is likely that the public school districts that enroll in the ASDP and take our surveys differ from those who do not in meaningful ways that are impossible to measure. We complement these survey data with interviews of 14 leaders of these districts between March and May 2025. Although we interviewed only those who agreed to participate, these data help us better understand and extend our survey results. We also rely on results from an American Youth Panel survey of 1,551 youths, ages 12 to 21, conducted in January and February 2025, which we also weighted to be representative of youths across the nation. More details about our methods are included at the end of this report.

The full set of ASDP survey results can be viewed and user-friendly charts can be created in Bento, a free data visualization tool. To learn more about Bento, go to www.getbento.info/about or email bento@mgt.us.

Chronic Absenteeism Remains Above Prepandemic Levels

In spring 2024 and spring 2025, we asked nationally representative samples of K–12 public school districts to estimate what percentage of their students had missed 10 percent or more of school days (i.e., had been chronically absent) during the school year. We used districts’ responses to this survey item to construct a national estimate of the chronic absenteeism rate in the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 school years, as shown in Figure 1.^[2]

As reported in Diliberti et al. (2014), we estimate that roughly 19 percent of K–12 students nationally (or about 9.4 million students) were chronically absent in the 2023–2024 school year. Our updated estimate for the 2024–2025 school year is roughly 22 percent (10.8 million students). Because these estimates are derived from district leaders’ best recollections of their student absenteeism rates, they are subject to some degree of uncertainty, as represented by the confidence intervals in Figure 1.^[3]

In Figure 1, we present these survey-based national estimates alongside annual chronic absenteeism rates for the school years 2016–2017 through 2023–2024 that we obtained from Malkus (2025).^[4] Although the Malkus estimates were constructed using a different methodology than our estimates, we include them to provide the best available context to interpret our 2024–2025 estimate. Nevertheless, readers should use caution when interpreting the trendline because our estimate is both derived through a different method and imprecise because of our data limitations.^[5]

With these caveats in mind, our 2024–2025 estimate is lower than the estimated 28 percent of students who were chronically absent in the 2021–2022 school year but notably is still above the prepandemic rate of about 15 percent.

Figure 1. Chronic Absenteeism Rates by School Year

A line chart showing chronic absenteeism rates by school year from 2016 through 2025. The data from 2016–2023 is obtained from Malkus and the chart also shows estimates from RAND surveys for 2023–2025.Data from Malkus (2025)Estimate from RAND surveys2016-172017-182018-192019-202020-212021-222022-232023-242024-25051015202530%School closures due to COVID-19 pandemic. Interpret with caution due to data collection interruptions.

This line chart displays chronic absenteeism rates by school year from 2016–17 through 2024–25.

• Data from 2016–17 to 2022–23 is from Malkus (2025) and is represented by a solid blue line.
• Estimates for 2023–24 and 2024–25 are from RAND surveys and shown as a dashed purple line.

Key data points:

• 2016–17: 13.4%
• 2017–18: 15.2%
• 2018–19: 15.1%
• 2019–20: 13.3%
• 2020–21: 18.9%
• 2021–22: 28.5%
• 2022–23: 25.4%
• 2023–24 (RAND survey estimate): 19.1%
• 2024–25 (RAND survey estimate):  21.8%

A shaded region highlights the 2019–20 and 2020–21 school years, with a note indicating school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a caution to interpret data from this period carefully due to data collection interruptions.

NOTE: Data for school years 2016–2017 through 2023–2024 were obtained from Malkus (2025). Data from 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 were obtained from our nationally representative surveys of districts. The y-axis shows percentage of students who were absent, and the x-axis shows the school year.

Data collection was particularly unreliable during the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 school years because of the transition to remote instruction that occurred during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some districts stopped reporting attendance data and those that did report such data likely used differing definitions of attendance (Schwartz et al., 2021).

When we interviewed district leaders, their comments mirrored these findings. Even as their districts’ attendance rates improved, 11 of the 14 leaders reported that their districts’ chronic absenteeism rates are still “too high” or “disappointing.” As one leader from a district with more than 20 percent of students chronically absent said, “That number has actually dropped each year since we came back from COVID full-time . . . even though it still feels very high.” All of the district leaders with whom we spoke said that they are “continuing to work on” reducing absenteeism.

Extreme Chronic Absenteeism Is Highly Concentrated in Urban Districts

We categorized the severity of districts’ chronic absenteeism levels using definitions from Attendance Works (2024): low (0 to 5 percent of students chronically absent), modest (5 percent to 10 percent of students chronically absent), significant (10 percent to 20 percent of students chronically absent), high (20 to 30 percent of students chronically absent), and extreme (30 percent or more of students chronically absent). Figure 2 shows the distribution of our surveyed districts across these severity levels in the 2024–2025 school year. As shown in purple, about one in ten of our surveyed districts reported extreme chronic absenteeism levels in 2024–2025. Meanwhile, fewer than one in ten districts had low absenteeism levels, as shown in yellow. Most districts fell in the middle of the spectrum. That is, about two or three districts in ten had modest, significant, and high rates of absenteeism in the 2024–2025 school year.

However, the severity of chronic absenteeism levels varied significantly across different types of districts as shown in Figure 2. Most concerningly, nearly half of urban districts reported extreme levels of chronic absenteeism, meaning that 30 percent or more of students in urban districts were chronically absent. Urban districts were roughly five to six times more likely to report extreme chronic absenteeism levels than their rural and suburban peers did (see the purple box in Figure 2). This finding suggests that dangerously high levels of chronic absenteeism is a problem that is largely concentrated in urban districts.^[6] Of course, high levels of chronic absenteeism is not an entirely new problem for urban districts; even before the COVID-19 pandemic began, urban districts had higher absenteeism rates than their suburban and rural peers (Malkus, 2025).

We talked to two leaders in urban districts with extreme chronic absenteeism levels about why they thought their rates remained elevated. Their responses generally matched those of the district leaders in suburban and rural areas. They cited an increase in student and family disengagement, student illnesses and mental health challenges, and transportation issues, but they emphasized that the challenges they face in urban districts “are just that much more acute and concentrated.”

One-Quarter of Youths Think Being Chronically Absent Is Not a Problem

We asked about 1,300 youths, ages 12 to 21, who are enrolled in K–12 schools and are part of the RAND American Youth Panel, created in 2024, whether they thought it was a problem when children miss three or more weeks of school in a single school year. Most of the students (74 percent) said that missing three weeks of school is mostly a problem and that it is hard to catch up from that much missed school. However, one-quarter of youths (26 percent) said that missing three weeks of school is “mostly OK” and that students can make up what they missed online or in person (see Figure 3).

Youths’ perceptions about whether being chronically absent is a problem did not depend on gender, race/ethnicity, or age group. However, we did find one factor associated with youths’ beliefs about whether being absent is problematic: their parents’ highest education level. More specifically, youths whose parents’ highest education levels were high school completion (or less) were more likely than youths whose parents had higher education levels to say that they believe missing three weeks of school is mostly OK (see Figure 3). A full one-third of students whose parents did not complete further education after high school said that they felt missing three weeks of school is mostly OK.

Figure 3. Percentage of Youths Who Said They Felt It Is “Mostly OK” to Miss Three Weeks of School, by Parents’ Highest Education Level

Bar chart comparing the percentage of youth who felt it was “mostly ok” to miss three weeks of school by their parents’ highest education level: high school or less, some college or associate’s degree, or bachelor’s degree or higherAll youth26%Parents’ highest education levelHigh school or less (ref. group)33%Some college or associate’s degree*24%Bachelor’s degree or higher*23%

NOTE: This figure depicts response data from the following survey question administered to a nationally representative sample of youths ages 12 to 21: “Is it OK or is it a problem when kids miss three or more weeks of school in a school year?” (n = 1,337). Youths were asked to choose between two response options: (1) “It’s mostly OK. Kids can make up what they missed online or in person” or (2) “It’s mostly a problem. It’s hard to catch up from that much missed school.” Only youths who were enrolled in K–12 schools at the time of survey administration received this question. The y-axis shows the percentage of youths. An asterisk (*) indicates that the subgroup percentage of youths reporting that it is “mostly OK” to miss three weeks of school is statistically significantly different (p < 0.05) from the percentage of youths with a parent whose highest level of education was high school (or less) and who said the same.

By Far, Youths’ Top Reason for Missing School Was Sickness

All told, 82 percent of youths reported that they had missed at least some school in 2024–2025. Perhaps related to their beliefs about whether missing school is problematic, children of parents whose highest education level was high school completion (or less) were slightly more likely than youths whose parents completed higher levels of education to say that they had missed at least some school this year.

We asked youths to identify all the reasons why they had missed school in the 2024–2025 school year. By far, the most common reason that youths identified was sickness: 67 percent of them said that they had missed because of sickness (see Figure 4). Other reasons that youths identified for missing school were not nearly as prevalent: 10 percent said that they missed school because they felt down or anxious, 9 percent said that they missed school because they overslept, and 7 percent said that they missed school because they were uninterested. Though still not very prevalent, older youths (those 15 to 17 years old) were more likely than younger youths (those 12 to 14 years old) to identify these three things (anxiety, oversleeping, and disinterest) as reasons for having missed school. Meanwhile, less than 5 percent of youths selected the other reasons noted, including needing to care for a family member (4 percent), lack of transportation to school (3 percent), being too far behind on schoolwork (3 percent), and work conflicts (1 percent).

Figure 4. Percentage of Youths Who Selected Various Reasons for Missing School This Year

Bar chart comparing percentage of youths who selected various reasons for missing school this year.Sickness67%Felt down or anxious10%Oversleeping9%Uninterested in school7%Needed to care for a family member4%Lack of transportation to school3%Too behind on schoolwork to go3%Work hours conflict with school hours1%

NOTE: This figure depicts response data from the following survey question administered to a nationally representative sample of youths ages 12 to 21: “What are all the reasons you have missed school this year?” (n = 1,342). Only youths who were enrolled in K–12 schools at the time of survey administration received this question. Respondents were instructed to select all that apply. Eighteen percent of youths selected, “I haven’t missed any school this year.”

Taken altogether, these findings support the hypothesis that one reason absenteeism has remained above prepandemic levels is simply because youths and their families are taking sicknesses more seriously after the pandemic. What we heard from district leaders further supports this hypothesis. In interviews, some district leaders said that they believed schools and families had overcorrected when it came to dealing with children’s sicknesses by encouraging children to stay home for even mild symptoms. As one leader from a rural district expressed, “I think we had trained them during COVID.”

However, it may also be the case that youths report sickness as their reason for missing school because this reason might be more socially acceptable than others. Youths also might interpret sickness as encompassing other health and wellness reasons for missing school (e.g., “taking a mental health day”); therefore, youths’ responses may overrepresent sickness as the primary reason for school absences.

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