Chronic Absenteeism

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empty chair next to desk Chronic absenteeism is generally defined as missing 10% or more of days during the school year (approximately 18 days) for any reason including suspensions, changing schools, and excused absences due to illness. Missing just two days of school each month in a traditional school year can result in a student being considered chronically absent.

Resources for Absenteeism & Attendance

Reasons for Chronic Absenteeism

Chronic physical health issues
Mental health conditions
Lack of accessible transportation to school
Safeness of the community environment
Economic and housing instability – Lack of access to essential resources such as food, housing and healthcare can cause excessive absences due to negative impacts on health and wellness of the students and families.
Cultural context – Language barriers and negative interactions at school due to a student’s race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, or sexual orientation can create an unhealthy school climate leading to aversion to school attendance.
And more – other individual, social, and community impacts can cause a student to miss school days.

Impact of Chronic Absenteeism

Students who are chronically absent are at risk for falling behind and dropping out of school. Chronic absenteeism can start as early as preschool.

Missing too many days of preschool, kindergarten, and first grade can set students back in their reading abilities. As seen in Who Can Read on Grade Level After 3rd Grade? by AttendanceWorks, studies show that the inability to read at grade-level by third grade is a critical marker for students' future success - putting them at risk for faltering in later grades and more likely to drop out of high school.

Attendance in the Early Grades: Why it Matters for Reading

Students who dropout of high school are also at an increased risk of experiencing health and social problems into adulthood, negatively impacting a student’s life-long success.

High rates of chronically absent students in a class can hinder other students’ learning when teachers must provide remedial instruction.
Loss of school funding, determined by Average Daily Attendance, from the cumulative missed school days can result in a significant loss of funding for districts.
Research shows that student attendance is critical to the attainment of higher education and positive life outcomes that includes social, mental, and physical health.
Chronic absenteeism can impact the education and workforce development and subsequently limit the future of communities.

Chronic absenteeism can cascade and affect peers, staff, schools and the larger community.

Chronic Absenteeism in San Diego County

Analysis by Live Well Schools shows that while overall chronic absenteeism rates have improved over the past two school years, the rates are still much higher than the 11% of students identified as chronically absent in SY 2017-2018. The rates are consistently higher for students who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and from minority groups.

In San Diego County, 23.3% of all students were chronically absent in SY 2022-2023; that is 114,366 students chronically absent for the county.
In California, 24.9% of all students were chronically absent in that same school year; that is 1,486,302 students chronically absent students statewide.
82,288 (71.9%) of San Diego County’s 114,366 chronically absent students are socioeconomically disadvantaged.
The highest rates of chronic absenteeism in San Diego County schools are in migrant students and students with homelessness, as depicted below for SY 2022-23.
Students with homelessness also had the highest increase in chronic absenteeism rates since the start of data collection in SY 2016-17, while rates for migrant students are just beginning to increase.

SY 22-23 CA graph!

CA graph SY21-22

1 in Every 5 Students in San Diego County is Chronically Absent

When disaggregating by student subgroups, we can see that a disproportionate number of chronically absent students are from under-resourced groups including youth in foster care, youth experiencing homelessness, and students with disabilities.

Specific supports and programs for these student populations can be found in the Tools for Schools searchable database with the key terms such as "foster", "homeless", "chronic absenteeism" and "attendance."

One of the best strategies to address chronic absenteeism is for schools to closely track student attendance in order to discover barriers individual students face before the issue becomes chronic. Addressing chronic absenteeism as early as possible can increase the academic and health outcomes of the students as they advance through the grades.

Supporting Student Health through Programs, Policies and Partnerships

Chronic absenteeism is a complex and challenging issue. Supporting student health to improve attendance requires an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach that includes students, families, schools, and community partners.

Students, families, schools, and community partners can address and improve the physical and social environment around students through targeted wellness interventions, including safe routes to school.
Students can often be their own best advocates on how to improve the safety and positivity of the school climate.
Schools can collaborate with families and students on strategies to monitor attendance and personalize early outreach to prevent patterns of absences.
Recognizing improved attendance at school can increase student self-esteem and reward students in reaching their goals.

Identifying the reasons for student absences from a regional perspective to a student-level view is a key step towards understanding the type of Programs, Policies, and Partnerships needed to improve student attendance and academic success. So what's your role in improving attendance?

What's your role in improving attendance? Programs, Policies & Partnerships upheld by Schools, Families, Students & Community

To learn more about your district-specific data and trends please email Live Well Schools for your school district's individual Healthy Schools report.

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