A new report by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli details how chronic absenteeism rates among New York public and charter school students increased sharply as schools transitioned back to in-person learning after the COVID-19 pandemic subsided and remained high with nearly one in three students chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year (SY). The rates were highest for high school students at 34.1%, 7.6 percentage points higher than elementary and middle school students.

“Chronic absenteeism has been linked to lower grades, lower standardized test scores, and increased risk of dropout,” DiNapoli said. “Students who chronically miss classroom time often fall behind. Reducing chronic absenteeism will be essential for turning around pandemic-era learning loss. School districts need to engage students, families, and their communities to address this troubling issue.”

Chronic absenteeism is defined by the U.S. Department of Education as the share of students who miss at least 10% of days (typically 18) in a school year for any reason, excused, unexcused, or for disciplinary reasons. New York state excludes suspensions and extended medical absences from the state’s chronic absenteeism calculation.

DiNapoli’s report found during SY 2022-23:

• Large city public schools (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers) and charter schools had the greatest high school chronic absenteeism rates: 64.2% and 52.1%, respectively. These high schools also had the greatest increase in chronic absenteeism between SYs 2018-2019 and 2022-2023. New York City high schools had a 43.1% chronic absenteeism rate in SY 2022-2023.
• Chronic absenteeism rates are higher in high-need school districts than in low-need districts. High schools in high-need rural districts had a chronic absenteeism rate of 33%, a 10.1 point increase from SY 2018-2019, and high-need urban-suburban districts had a rate of 40.9%, an 8.6 point increase from SY 2018-2019. Low-need districts had a high school chronic absenteeism rate of 13.4%, a 4.9 point increase from SY 2018-2019.
• Racial disparities also impact chronic absenteeism rates. Asian or Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander (21.3%) and White (24.7%) high school students have much lower chronic absenteeism rates than Hispanic or Latino students (43.7%) and Black or African American students (46.4%).
• Absenteeism rates are also higher among economically disadvantaged students, English language learners and students with disabilities. In the large city high schools, the SY 2022-2023 rate for these students was an alarming 71.2%.

Pandemic’s Impact

New York’s public and charter schools were forced to quickly shift to remote learning when the pandemic affected daily life in March 2020, and through SY 2020-21. As a result, these school districts continued to utilize a mixture of remote, in-person and hybrid formats: 61% of students were fully remote, 38% were in-person, and 1% were hybrid. As parents, students and school personnel contended with the effects of the virus and its impact on learning, chronic absenteeism increased to 24.1% in SY 2020-2021 from 18.6% in SY 2018-19. When fully in-person instruction returned in SY 2021-22, chronic absenteeism spiked further with 32.6% of students chronically absent—an increase of 14 percentage points from SY 2018-19.

While the public health emergency remained in effect, many school districts implemented restrictions preventing students who tested positive for COVID-19 from returning to school for a period of time. These restrictions likely had a significant bearing on the increase of chronic absenteeism rates. Rates improved in SY 2022-23 but remained significantly above pre-pandemic rates.

Policy Efforts

Chronic absenteeism rates vary significantly between student subgroups. The New York State Education Department (SED) reports chronic absenteeism rates by race and ethnicity, as well as for students that are economically disadvantaged, English language learners and with disabilities. Though New York had initially set the long-term goal of reducing chronic absenteeism rates to no more than 5% of students statewide in each subgroup, the state paused that goal in SYs 2022-23 and 2023-24 in response to the post-pandemic heightened absentee rates.

SED has proposed eliminating the chronic absenteeism metric altogether in SY 2025-26 in favor of an attendance index rank metric. SED has also engaged as a partner with the Council on Children and Families, who launched the Every Student Present initiative, a public awareness campaign to help parents, school staff and communities understand the impact of chronic absence. SED has recommended that school districts reduce chronic absenteeism with expanding school breakfast programs as a means of getting students to school each day and on time, engaging in frequent and positive communications with parents and caregivers and recognizing good attendance and improvements in attendance, among other initiatives.

School districts like Buffalo and Syracuse have also launched their own efforts, and federal funding provided through the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) can also be used to address chronic absenteeism.

DiNapoli’s report highlighted the need for the state to continue its tracking and public reporting of chronic absenteeism on a school, district and state level to provide transparency and the ability to measure the state’s progress in addressing this persistent problem. Chronic absenteeism is one of the key factors impacting the ability of some students to overcome pandemic-era learning losses.

Report
Missing School: New York’s Stubbornly High Rates of Chronic Absenteeism