Post Pandemic, Millions of US Kids Still Absent From Schools

Thought Question: Why do you think some students might find it hard to go to school regularly, and what can be done to help them?

The COVID-19 pandemic turned much of the US school system upside down. But perhaps nothing was more altered than a student’s desire to attend school in person. Even now, years beyond school shutdowns and home learning, chronic absences remain a crucial problem for schools.  

Roughly 25% of US students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year. It's the most recent school year of available data. The findings were revealed by The Associated Press and subject expert Thomas Dee. Dee works at Stanford University. The findings mean nearly 12 million students in Washington DC and the 42 states where data exists were chronically absent, defined as missing 10% of classes, roughly three and a half weeks during a school year.    

That’s a jump of nearly 17 percentage points from 2019, expert Rick Hess told EdWeek magazine. He works at the American Enterprise Institute. He's the Education Policy Studies director. The numbers are even more alarming for children of color, and even more so in urban districts. There, 41% of Hispanic students and 49% of Black students were chronically absent in 2022-23, Hess said.   

These numbers are cause for alarm, Hess told EdWeek. He said it's hard to reverse learning loss and to shrink learning gaps when so many kids don’t attend school.

The reasons for chronic absenteeism? They're varied. Some teens have taken jobs to help support their family. Others face transportation issues getting to school. Some suffer from mild illness. Others face mental health issues. Studies have found that children with poor mental health are more likely to miss a lot of school. For instance, emotional symptoms in teen girls were linked to missing school, a University of Southern California study found.