The Minnesota Department of Education recently released data for the 2023-2024 school year, showing that the number of chronically absent students remains high in Minnesota.
A student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10 percent or more of the academic year. (Minnesota data shows that a chronically absent student can, and often does, miss much more than 10 percent of the academic year.) Chronic absenteeism often ensures that a student will have lower test scores and lower graduation rates. It disrupts the classroom, strongly negatively affecting classmates’ learning.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Minnesota’s rates of chronic absenteeism in 2018 and 2019 were high (14 percent) but not far off from the national average. Data collection on chronic absenteeism was suspended during the 2020 and 2021 school years due to the pandemic. During the 2021-2022 school year, just after the pandemic, chronic absenteeism was at a shocking 30.2 percent. The following school year, the number dropped five percentage points to 25.5%. In the newly released 2024 data, it appears that any previous gains have stagnated.
In the 2023-2024 school year, 24.5 percent of students were chronically absent. Put another way — one out of four students missed ten percent or more of the academic year.
The norms of widespread school attendance, it seems, were wiped away during the pandemic. Educators, policymakers, and community members will have a difficult time restoring them. Researcher Nat Malkus has predicted that the United States’ current trajectory of chronic absenteeism will see rates decline slightly (to 20 percent) and then stall out by 2030. The national average for chronic absenteeism in the 2023-2024 school year was 23.5 percent, placing Minnesota just barely above the national average at 24.5 percent.
Specific Minnesota school district information regarding chronic absenteeism can be easily found on the Minnesota Report Card or the Return to Learn data tracker.
Who is absent?
Chronic absenteeism strongly affects all types of school districts, from affluent districts to impoverished districts. Yet, while researchers disagree about the root causes of chronic absenteeism, data shows — both in Minnesota and in America — that disadvantaged students are absent most frequently.
In Minnesota, some demographics miss more school than others. The Minnesota Report Card supplies data by demographic. In 2024, students who qualified for free or reduced lunches had a 32.2 percent chronic absenteeism rating. 32 percent of special education students were chronically absent, and 28 percent of English Learner students were chronically absent.
By race, white students had a chronically absent rating of 20 percent, black students of 33.4 percent, and Hispanic students of 34.1 percent. Compared to 2022 and 2023 data, these percentages represent slight gains.
Chronic absenteeism represents a significant threat to the integrity of Minnesota’s school systems. While the rate of chronic absenteeism decreased across all demographics in the last school year, in all cases the rate decreased by only a few points. Chronic absenteeism is widening the achievement gap in Minnesota’s schools, ensuring worse outcomes for underprivileged students in the future.
When the rate of chronic absenteeism remains so cripplingly high, it is no wonder that policymakers and educators across the state are worrying. Recently, 12 school districts in Minnesota received grant money as part of a pilot program to workshop solutions to combat truancy. After their findings are published, strong action will need to be taken by lawmakers and educators in order to reshape these new norms.
Nationally, policymakers and researchers are searching for solutions. To this end, 17 states and the District of Columbia have made a public commitment to reduce chronic absenteeism by 50 percent in five years. Minnesota has not yet joined the challenge.
