Chronic absenteeism is falling, and the schools improving fastest are doing something unglamorous: stacking several strategies that fit the reasons students stay home.
Superintendents like to find the one program that solves the problem. A new pair of attendance reports suggests that for chronic absenteeism, that program does not exist, and that the districts making progress already know it.
The good news comes first. Chronic absenteeism, meaning missing about 10 percent of the school year for any reason, was 15.4 percent in 2019. It rose to 28.3 percent in 2022 and fell to 22.6 percent in 2025, according to a 45-state analysis from the American Enterprise Institute that K-12 Dive cited on October 26. Most schools still have more absences than before the pandemic, and the data does not cover every state. But the direction is right.
Four Strategies Beat One
An analysis of principal surveys from the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, the Partnership for Student Success, and the GRAD Partnership found that schools using four or more effective strategies aligned to the causes of absence reported substantial reductions 77 percent of the time. Schools using one strategy reported them 41 percent of the time.
A caution belongs here. Those results are self-reported by principals, and the coverage does not give sample sizes. They show association, not proof of cause. Strong leaders may be better at both attendance and execution. Still, the pattern fits what school people see every day: students miss school for different reasons, and a single fix covers only some of them.
A bus route will not help a student who has stopped believing school is for them.
Start With Connection
School connectedness topped the principals’ list of what works. That means a student has an adult who notices when they are gone, friends who expect them, and a reason to walk in. It is also the cheapest lever on the list. A greeting at the door, a mentor for every student who has missed several days, a club that meets before school, and a phone call from someone the family knows all cost far less than a new software contract.
The companion report, the 2026 Attendance Playbook from FutureEd and Attendance Works, organizes more than 30 strategies into tiers. The first tier is prevention for every student: engagement, relevant instruction, clear communication, and reliable transportation. The top tier is intensive help, such as support with housing and health. The tiers matter because a school that jumps straight to the top without building the base will be overwhelmed by cases.
What to Do Less Of
According to the article’s summary, aggressive truancy enforcement and surveys asking why students are chronically absent were among the less effective approaches. The coverage does not show the evidence behind that finding, so leaders should read it as a signal and not a rule. The sensible reading is not that districts should stop learning why students are absent. It is that learning must lead to action. A short conversation with a family followed by a concrete change builds trust. A long questionnaire that goes nowhere erodes it.
A 60-Day Plan
A district can start now. In the first two weeks, pull chronic absenteeism by school, grade, and student group. In weeks three and four, talk with families at the highest-need schools, in person or by phone. In weeks five and six, choose at least four strategies tied to the causes you found, for example a family outreach team, a transportation fix, a mentor program, and a health partnership. In weeks seven and eight, name an owner for each, set monthly targets, and brief the board. The point is to make attendance a managed priority, not a slogan.
Early warning helps. A weekly list of students who have missed two or three days, with a clear owner for each name, often prevents a pattern from hardening. It does not need an expensive dashboard. It needs a Monday habit.
Who Needs to Be at the Table
Attendance spans departments. Principals run the daily work. Student services directors and attendance coordinators manage teams and data. Family engagement leaders build relationships with parents. The superintendent and board set priorities and funding. For a closer look at who holds which job, see the 25 K-12 decision-maker job titles every education marketer should know.
Companies that serve schools have a role too, if they are honest about it. Attendance data tools, family communication platforms, transportation providers, mentoring and tutoring programs, and health partners all connect to the strategies above. The best offers slot into a multi-strategy plan and help a district measure results, instead of promising to be the whole answer.
The full breakdown, with the caveats and a longer plan, is in our blog on the two reports.
Author Bio
Charlie Isham is the Founder and CEO of K12 Data, Inc., which operates K12 Data, College Leads, and K12 Talent. He has spent more than 15 years building education data infrastructure and has watched how schools, colleges, and the companies that serve them buy for over a decade. He is based in Encinitas, California.
