Issue Brief by Senior Policy Analyst, Cody Allen | callen@csg.org

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Since 2018, the rate of chronic absenteeism nationwide has nearly doubled, rising to 26 percent in 2023, according to data collected by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). While AEI reported a decline from pandemic highs, it still represents a dramatic increase and failure to return to pre-COVID levels. Among researchers and policy leaders, chronic absenteeism is defined as when students miss 10 percent or more of a school year, or 18 days out of the standard 180-day school calendar.¹ While this crisis predates the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it has been exacerbated in recent years. Unfortunately, the lag in recent and current data makes an “on-the-ground” accounting of student attendance quite difficult. For example, by September 22, 2023, only 12 states — including Louisiana, Virginia, and West Virginia in the South — had released the chronic absenteeism data for the 2022-2023 academic school year.²

FIGURE 1. Comparison of Pre- and Post-Pandemic State Chronic Absenteeism Rates
FIGURE 2. Reported State Chronic Absenteeism Rates for Most Recent School Year

As Table 1 illustrates below, no state in the South realized a return to pre-pandemic levels of absenteeism by the end of the 2023 school year. Unfortunately, the 2023-2024 academic year data is not yet publicly available for all states in the region. However, CSG South member states saw absenteeism rates increase by nearly 10 percent, on average, since the 2018-2019 school year — increasing from a regional average of slightly under 15 percent to more than 24 percent in the 2022-2023 academic year.

TABLE 1. Comparison of Southern State Pre- and Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism Rates

While a plethora of publicly available data illustrate the depth of the problem, this CSG South Issue Alert highlights a few state approaches to address the nationwide problem in innovative and effective ways to address the root causes and extenuating factors that have worsened this crisis. So, what can state policymakers do? Examining suggested best practices from advocacy groups — such as Attendance Works — and policy organizations — such as FutureEd — and states from across the country provide a few key policy options.

Highlighted State Policy Approaches

Shifting from a Punitive to an Intervention-Based Approach

A review of state statutes and regulations shows that approximately 16 states — including Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia in the South — have adopted policies or legislation to prohibit suspending students solely for truancy or chronic absences. An early adopter, lawmakers in the Sunshine State enacted Florida Senate Bill 20 during the First Extraordinary Session of 2002 First Extraordinary Session, an omnibus education bill including provisions on student discipline. Specifically, the bill prohibited school principals from suspending or expelling a student solely due to unexcused absences, tardiness, or truancy.⁸

Arkansas enacted Senate Bill 1147 (2013), which, among other things, noted that research illustrates that suspensions or expulsions do not improve student outcomes and are ineffective deterrents for truancy. It also prohibited the use of out-of-school punishments, such as suspensions, for students solely accused of chronic absenteeism or truancy.⁹ Later, Arkansas lawmakers passed House Bill 1398 (2019), which required school boards to create and offer programs, measures, and alternative means and methods to continue student learning and engagement during periods of suspension or expulsion — for students who are expelled or suspended for additional violation beyond truancy.¹⁰

In 2021, Tennessee lawmakers enacted House Bill 206, which revised existing statutes governing punishments for student truancy or chronic absences. It also allows for the first stage of truancy interventions and support to be available schoolwide before a student surpasses the five or more unexcused absence triggers previously in the code. It also requires schools to implement an intervention plan for any student with five or more unexcused absences, including an individualized assessment by a school employee of the reasons a student has been absent from school and, if necessary, referral of the child to counseling, community-based services, or other in-school or out-of-school services aimed at addressing the student’s attendance problems.¹¹

Likewise, both Virginia and West Virginia implemented similar laws more than a decade apart, in 2009 and 2023, respectively, updating outdated chronic absenteeism language. Another early adopter, lawmakers in the Commonwealth, enacted Virginia House Bill 1794 in 2009 to require schools not to suspend students primarily or solely based on truancy.¹² In comparison, West Virginia House Bill 2890 (2023) explicitly states that school suspensions related exclusively to a student’s absenteeism are not conducive to improving student outcomes. Instead, legislators implemented requirements for schools to address the issue’s root causes and switch to alternatives such as extended class times, on-campus detentions and counseling, and alternative classroom settings.¹³

Adopting a Teamwide Approach for Identification and Intervention

Outside the South, states such as Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, and New Mexico have passed legislation to establish guidelines for implementing a collaborative approach when certain schools or districts reach a high level of overall absenteeism. Connecticut Senate Bill 186 (2018) expanded “attendance review teams” — previously comprising school administrators, educators, and community representatives — to include mental and behavioral health professionals, such as school counselors, to engage with parents, families, and students to address the causes of truancy or absenteeism before becoming chronic or severely impacting a student’s academic performance.¹⁴

More recently, Maine House Paper 1191 (2023) added statutory definitions for absenteeism and chronic absenteeism into the state code for the first time while establishing a procedure for schools with high rates. Specifically, schools with an absenteeism rate of 10 percent or higher must create a committee to review each school or administrative unit’s absentee rates for causes, possible interventions, and policy changes that may assuage the issue. An attendance review team, which may include school administrators, guidance counselors, school counselors, school social workers, and teachers, is responsible for reviewing the cases of truant and chronically absent students. The team discusses school interventions and community referrals for these students and makes recommendations for them and their parents or guardians. The team is required to meet at least once a month.¹⁵ Likewise, both New Jersey and New Mexico enacted measures in 2018 and 2019, respectively, establishing a process for identifying and assessing schools or districts with higher-than-average rates of absenteeism.¹⁶,¹⁷

Creating Statewide Awareness Campaigns and “Real-Time” Data Tracking Systems

In November 2023, the Ocean State became the first (and currently) only state to feature a publicly available, real-time data dashboard for chronic absenteeism statewide. The Rhode Island Department of Education’s (RIDE) Student Attendance Leaderboard is designed to address the most common barrier to addressing chronic absenteeism — a lack of actionable and current data. The dashboard, updated daily, is among a suite of tools used in combination to address the cracks widened during the height of the pandemic.¹⁸ When combined with the myriad other tracking sites implemented by RIDE, examining historical trends in attendance and links between achievement outcomes and attendance provides educators, parents, communities, and policymakers with actionable data. Notably, this measure came about with the Commissioner of Education’s partnership with community and business leaders as part of the governor’s working group. It required no additional appropriations or enacting legislation — it simply publicizes existing internal data in a readily accessible format and legible data source.¹⁹

While not updated daily or as extensively as Rhode Island’s, both Indiana and Connecticut have recently made public dashboards available and announced plans to implement similar comprehensive tracking or risk assessment dashboards for students who are chronically absent or are at risk of becoming so. In response to a 2024 Interim Study Committee on Education, the Indiana Department of Education launched an attendance dashboard that delineates weekly summaries and statistics for all public and charter schools.²⁰ It also includes an interactive map, distinguishing between habitual truancy and chronic absences, to display which schools feature the highest percentage of students in each category.²¹ An early warning dashboard identifying those students most at risk of not graduating on time due to excessive absences is under development. Designed to assist schools in allocating additional resources and interventions toward the most at-risk students, the department anticipates launching it after the completion of the 2024-2025 school year.²² Similarly, the Nutmeg State’s Attendance Dashboard — updated monthly — includes data on chronically absent students, distinguishing among various subgroups and levels.²³ This more timely dashboard was revised to include monthly updates in the 2021-2022 school year to avoid the issues arising from stagnant year-end data collections. Notably, only the yearly data is used as an accountability metric; the monthly updates are designed to assist with targeted interventions and monitoring purposes.²⁴

Conclusion

In 2025, Georgia lawmakers took a crucial first step in addressing this issue with the passage of Senate Bill 123 to monitor progress on absenteeism and consider further solutions to increase attendance rates.²⁵ The legislation focuses on prohibiting expulsion solely due to attendance issues, directing school climate committees to adopt interventions and policies responding to chronic absences, and establishing a threshold which — if districts or schools in their jurisdiction exceed — requires the creation of an attendance review team comprised of school staff and parents to discuss intervention plans for any students at-risk of or chronically absent.²⁶

In addition to the recent Peach State measure, a couple of components may warrant exploration when examining what policies states may not already have in place. The first is collecting data on students who are designated truant or habitually truant. Adopting a model such as the one utilized by Iowa’s House File 2507 (2022) may allow better evidence-based interventions as students are identified and observed longitudinally to determine which supports and interventions do (or do not) work to address truancy — by requiring collaboration between juvenile courts and schools to increase access to school-based early identification and truancy interventions for youth aged 12 to 17.²⁷ The second is adopting a statewide policy to remove suspensions as a punishment for truancy, excused, or unexcused absences — such as the aforementioned Tennessee’s House Bill 206 (2021) — and instead implement a policy to seek interventions more designed to keep students in the classroom.²⁸ While this report and the included state policy models are not exhaustive, this problem transcends state or regional boundaries. It, therefore, requires a multipronged series of adopted policies or legislation to alleviate the problem.

End Notes

1. Nat Malkus, “Long COVID for Public Schools: Chronic Absenteeism Before and After the Pandemic,” American Enterprise Institute, January 31, 2024, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/long-covid-for-public-schools-chronic-absenteeism-before-and-after-the-pandemic.
2. Liz Cohen, “Outdated Absenteeism Data is Slowing Pandemic School Recovery,” FutureEd, September 25, 2023, https://www.future-ed.org/outdated-absenteeism-data-is-slowing-pandemic-school-recovery/?mc_cid=29b8148d31.
3. Bella DiMarco, “Tracking State Trends in Chronic Absenteeism,” FutureEd, updated February 7, 2025, https://www.future-ed.org/tracking-state-trends-in-chronic-absenteeism/?mc_cid=29b8148d31.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. “Chronically Absent Students,” U.S. Department of Education, https://eddataexpress.ed.gov/download/data-library.
7. “What’s the Difference Between Chronic Absence and Truancy?” Attendance Works, January 11, 2016, https://www.attendanceworks.org/whats-the-difference-between-chronic-absence-and-truancy.
8. Florida Senate Bill 20-E (2002E), https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2002E/20E/BillText/er/HTML.
9. Arkansas Senate Bill 1147 (2013), https://arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/Detail?id=SB1147&ddBienniumSession=2013%2F2013R.
10. Arkansas House Bill 1398 (2019), https://arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/Detail?tbType=&id=HB1398&ddBienniumSession=2019%2F2019R.
11. Tennessee House Bill 206 (2021), https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/acts/112/pub/pc0223.pdf.
12. Virginia House Bill 1794 (2009), https://legacylis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?091+sum+HB1794.
13. West Virginia House Bill 2890 (2023), https://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Status/bills_history.cfm?year=2023&sessiontype=RS&input=2890.
14. Connecticut Senate Bill 186 (2018), https://www.cga.ct.gov/2018/act/pa/pdf/2018PA-00015-R00SB-00186-PA.pdf.
15. Maine House Paper 1191 (2023), https://legislature.maine.gov/billtracker/#Paper/HP1191?legislature=131.
16. New Jersey Senate Bill 1876 (2018), https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bill-search/2018/S1876.
17. New Mexico Laws Ch. 223, § 8 (2019), https://nmonesource.com/nmos/nmsl/en/item/15084/index.do#c223s8.
18. “Student Attendance Leaderboard: 2024-2025 School Year,” RIDE, https://www3.ride.ri.gov/attendance/public.
19. “Governor McKee, Commissioner Infante-Green Announce New Collaborative Efforts, Incentives, and Enhanced Data Tools to Address Chronic Absenteeism and Foster Community Engagement,” RIDE, November 2, 2023, https://ride.ri.gov/press-releases/governormckee-commissioner-infante-green-announce-new-collaborative-efforts-incentives-and-enhanced-data-tools-address-chronic.
20. “Interim Study Committee on Education,” Indiana Legislative Services Agency, October 25, 2024, https://iga.in.gov/publications/committee_report/isc_on_education_final_report_2024.pdf.
21. “Attendance Insights – Public,” Indiana Department of Education, 2025, https://eddata.doe.in.gov/PublicHome.
22. “Indiana’s Attendance Dashboard,” Presentation to Attendance Works, 2024, https://www.attendanceworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Indianas-Attendance-Dashboard_2024.pptx.
23. “Attendance Dashboard: Chronic Absenteeism,” Connecticut Department of Education, https://public-edsight.ct.gov/students/attendance-dashboard.
24. “Attendance Report Notes,” Connecticut Department of Education, https://edsight.ct.gov/relatedreports/ReportNotes_AttendanceDashboard.pdf.
25. Emily Leonard, “President Pro Tempore John F. Kennedy Celebrates Final Passage of Legislation to Combat Absenteeism,” Georgia Senate Press Office, March 26, 2025, https://senatepress.net/president-pro-tempore-john-f-kennedy-celebrates-final-passage-of-legislation-to-combat-absenteeism.html.
26. Georgia Senate Bill 123 (2025), https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/70077.
27. Iowa House File 2507 (2022), https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/iactc/89.2/CH1098.pdf.
28. TN HB 206 (2021).