Joining the Challenge to Cut Chronic Absence in Half!
Chronic absence — missing 10% of the school year — almost doubled during the pandemic, affecting nearly one in three students. While chronic absence levels have decreased, they are still well above levels before the pandemic. This isn't just a problem for one type of community: it's a nationwide crisis impacting students from all backgrounds.
High rates of student absenteeism can harm everyone. Research shows that students who are chronically absent are less likely to read on grade level, stay engaged and graduate on time. Teachers in classrooms with frequent absences must reteach content, adjust lesson plans and rebuild relationships, making it much harder to sustain momentum and ensure every student feels seen and supported. Students who attend consistently also experience negative impacts because the churn affects the quality of collaborative learning opportunities and makes classroom routines that promote belonging and achievement less predictable.
We want to thank Denise Forte, CEO of EdTrust and Nat Malkus, senior fellow with American Enterprise Institute, for their partnership and support of the national chronic absence challenge.
Turning around the nation’s attendance crisis requires ambitious goals, strategic plans and perseverance. In this spirit, we challenge state and local leaders to embrace a bold yet achievable goal: cut chronic absence rates from pandemic highs in half over five years.
A Direct Call for State Leaders
State leaders are uniquely positioned to reverse the attendance crisis. They can develop attendance guidance, provide publicly available actionable data, enact policy solutions, mobilize financial resources, share effective messaging, provide technical assistance and promote cross-sector collaboration to help local education agencies (LEAs) advance these key ingredients for systemic change to successfully reduce chronic absence. While districts are a cornerstone for sustainable change, states are essential for ensuring efforts to improve attendance go to scale. Attendance Works has developed resources and supports specifically designed for state education agencies (SEAs) to take on this challenge.
Halving the chronic absence rate requires all-hands-on-deck. Join us and make addressing chronic absence a priority in every state, district and school. Find the list of states that have joined The 50% Challenge Network.
January 2026