This is a guest blog post by Elaine M. Allensworth, Meril Antony, William Delgado, and Marisa de la Torre of the UChicago Consortium on School Research. They share key insights from their January 2026 report, Connection, Trust, and Learning: Student Attendance in the Middle and High School Grades Following the COVID-19 Pandemic
There is tremendous concern across the country about students’ attendance and learning. Absence rates remain much higher than they were before the Covid-19 pandemic: Nationally, 23% of students still miss more than 10% of school days. That adds up to missing over three weeks of school.
So much has changed in the last few years, and we’ve heard questions about whether the old standards for attendance are still relevant and reasonable. Do young people still need to go to school every day? Can schools have much influence on attendance when so many barriers exist outside of school?
In partnership with Chicago Public Schools, we looked at the data three years before the pandemic, and three years after. Not only did we find that attendance still matters a great deal for student achievement, we also saw that schools with a positive school climate had lower levels of chronic absence. While the data is from Chicago, the findings are relevant to schools and families everywhere:
1. Absence rates remain high, with one in three students in middle and one in two students in high school missing more than 10% of school days. There are also many more students missing 20% of school days, and fewer students have very low absence rates.
2. Attendance matters as much as ever for students’ learning. Achievement levels were not the same as before the pandemic, but higher absence rates were associated with lower levels of achievement in all years. Grades, standardized test scores, and year-to-year test gains go up with higher attendance, and down with lower attendance. Each day of absence is associated with a similar decrease in achievement as in prepandemic years. But families may not be fully aware of the negative impact of absences on students’ learning.
3. Schools serving similar students from similar neighborhoods have very different absence rates. Furthermore, schools varied considerably in how much their absence rates changed from pre- to post-pandemic years. We were careful to make apples-to-apples comparisons so that differences we saw across schools could be attributed to the schools themselves, not differences in which students they serve. Many have much higher rates of absenteeism today than prepandemic. But, importantly, some had very small changes in absenteeism rates postpandemic, and some did not show increases at all.
We looked at what might be driving very different absence rates in very similar schools.
4. Attendance was higher in schools where students and teachers reported a strong school climate. Using data from the 5Essentials Survey, and comparing similar students in similar schools, we found that attendance was higher when students said they felt safe in and around their school, safe from bullying, felt connected to the school and to their peers, had rigorous work in their classrooms, and when teachers reported more trust and collaboration with parents.
This makes sense. In our January 20, 2026 webinar discussing the report, Hubbard principal Angélica Altamirano emphasized the importance of students feeling safe, engaged, and connected with their school, saying, “We’re not just managing a building. We’re curating a community where every single student feels like this school was built specifically for them. If we can do that, we can get students through the door.” Not surprisingly, Principal Altamirano also shared that Hubbard’s attendance rate is just a few points shy of their prepandemic high. (You can see key takeaways and view the recorded webinar here.)
These analyses provide further evidence that improving students’ experiences in their school is an effective way to improve their attendance, their learning, and their well-being.
Research done prior to the pandemic showed that schools that were able to improve their climate in a given year showed improvements in attendance and other student outcomes in that year. The current study suggests that school climate matters even more today than it did before the pandemic. Districts and schools that focus on student voice and students’ daily experiences are well-situated for this work.
We do need to acknowledge that schools cannot shoulder the role of supporting students and families alone. Many factors in the broader society influence students’ and families’ ability to get to school every day. And a community-wide local approach is crucial to establishing attendance norms and securing the resources to overcome barriers to getting to school.
This study shows that there are strategies and practices that schools enact that do make a difference, even in these postpandemic years. It is important to recognize and learn from effective leaders and practices like those shared by Principal Altamirano.
About the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research: With the goal of supporting stronger and more equitable educational outcomes for students, the UChicago Consortium conducts research of high technical quality that informs and assesses policy and practice in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). We seek to expand communication among researchers, policymakers, practitioners, families, and communities as we support the search for solutions to the challenges of school improvement. The UChicago Consortium encourages the use of research in policy action and practice but does not advocate for particular policies or programs. Rather, we help to build capacity for school improvement by identifying what matters most for student success, creating critical indicators to chart progress, and conducting theory-driven evaluation to identify how programs and policies are working.
The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research is part of the Kersten Institute for Urban Education, within the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice.