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Can School Districts Bounce Back from Large Pandemic-Era Chronic Absenteeism Increases?

This new analysis from researchers at the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University identifies how many districts experienced substantial pandemic-era increases in chronic absenteeism, which types of districts were most affected, and how many returned to close to pre-pandemic levels by the 2023–2024 or 2024–2025 school years. The report pays special attention to districts nationwide that had at least a 10 percentage point increase in chronic absenteeism from pre- to post-pandemic.

Landscape Analysis of Effective Chronic Absenteeism Interventions

A Better Chicago: Addressing Chronic Absenteeism in Chicago (September, 2025) summarizes what is known about reducing chronic absenteeism, and notes that student success systems are an effective solution and a core part of any comprehensive intervention. Findings also highlight the critical role of school connectedness, and collaboration across an ecosystem of schools, partners, and communities working together to support students.

Delivering Success: The GRAD Partnership Year Two Results

Schools implementing student success systems with GRAD Partnership support continue to achieve substantial progress in reducing chronic absenteeism and course failure rates — two strong predictors of high school graduation and postsecondary success. After two years of implementation work, schools, on average, experienced a 32% decline in the percent of students failing one or more courses, and a 28% decline in chronically absent students.

Colorado Dropout Prevention Framework

This robust resource for district and school teams is grounded in the four core components of student success systems, and outlines five foundational practices and four strategies to reduce dropout rates and increase student engagement in learning, graduation rates, credit attainment, and preparation for postsecondary options.

How to Improve Your School’s Response to Chronic Absenteeism

This action planning tool from the GRAD Partnership includes guiding questions for school-based teams to use for understanding chronic absenteeism in their local context and strategizing for designing interventions to meet their specific needs. It also includes a Discovery Protocol to guide an optional team activity to foster insights and empathy. Use a printable version or an electronic fillable version. Tips for using this resource: Watch the webinar below to learn more about the tool

Attendance Plan Reflection Tools for State & Local Education Agencies (Student Engagement and Attendance Center)

The Student Engagement and Attendance Center developed these tools to guide SEA and LEA staff in a review of existing attendance plans and approaches to identify opportunities to strengthen those plans across instructional settings. This tool comprises considerations and reflection questions to help identify areas in which attendance guidance and supports can be strengthened. Additional student engagement and attendance tools created by Student Engagement and Attendance Technical Assistance Center (SEAC) can be found on the U.S. Department of Education website.

Equity Discussion Guide (Student Engagement and Attendance Center)

This guide is designed by Westat Insight (formerly Insight Policy Research) and American Institutes for Research to help state education agencies (SEAs), local education agencies (LEAs) identify and reflect on changes to attendance policies and practices to better align them with equity considerations. The guide invites teams to explicitly focus on one or more groups of students as part of increasing equity in attendance-related work. In addition to consideration of family income or socioeconomic status of student groups, the guide encourages consideration of other student groups that chronic absenteeism may disproportionately affect, such as students grouped by racial/ethnic identity,…

Planning Tool for Youth Engagement (Student Engagement and Attendance Center)

This tool is designed by Westat Insight (formerly Insight Policy Research) and American Institutes for Research to help state education agencies (SEAs), local education agencies (LEAs), and other educators work as a team to leverage relationships with young people and establish meaningful engagement. By using a continuous improvement process, teams at local, district, and state levels will collaboratively assess current youth engagement practices, identify gaps, determine improvement practices that align with the components of authentic engagement, and prioritize practices to implement. Teams will then create an actionable plan to monitor and adjust practices for continuous improvement with the goal…

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