Chronic absenteeism remains at crisis levels in both America and Minnesota. Escalated by the pandemic, the 2023-2024 school year saw a national chronic absentee rating of 23.5 percent. In the 2022-2023 school year, Minnesota had a chronic absentee rating of 25 percent. (Minnesota has not yet released more recent data regarding chronic absenteeism.)
A National Public Radio (NPR) poll suggests that many parents don’t fully understand the chronic absenteeism crisis. Only about one in three parents could correctly define chronic absenteeism.
What is chronic absenteeism? A student is defined as chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of the academic year.
Chronic absenteeism is linked to low test scores, high dropout rates, and poor school performance.
However, most parents don’t connect high absentee rates with their own home. Only 6% of the parents surveyed responded that their child was considered chronically absent, and only 5% of parents believe that it is a major concern for the field of education in general.
Data regarding chronic absenteeism in particular Minnesota school districts is easily searchable in the American Enterprise Institute’s Return To Learn data tracker.
School districts struggle to draw chronically absent students back to school. Individualized reconnection presents a logistical challenge — if a school had, say, 150 absences on any given day, it would take an employee an entire working day to call every family and inquire about their child.
Once the situation escalates to truancy, families often reject intervention. In Hennepin County, 9 of 10 Minneapolis families declined the truancy-related social services being offered in 2023-24.
Some schools have pivoted to informing students instead of parents about the dangers of chronic absenteeism. Roosevelt High school created a student team that educated their fellow students about the importance of staying in school. Roosevelt High is part of a $4.7 million pilot program designed to test potential administrative responses to chronic absenteeism across the state.
