We missed you and we want you here.” That statement can have a dramatic impact, says Darrell Sampson.

As executive director of student services for Arlington (VA) Public Schools (APS), Sampson oversees social services for roughly 28,000 students. He says that Arlington favors compassion in its long-haul effort to recover chronically absent students.

Kids need to feel seen and supported by their local education systems, Sampson says. It’s what keeps them coming back. And families of chronically absent students respond to strong communication and a sense of community—not truancy court summons.

Many student absences this school year were excused, Sampson says; truancy didn’t drive the district’s record-low attendance rates.

“That’s really telling, because there’s a different perception in many people’s minds that chronically absent students are the ones who are skipping school,” he adds. “And for us, that’s not the reality.”

March marks five years since COVID-19 closed school doors and drastically changed learning in districts nationwide. Student academic performance, social skills, and attendance rates all suffered during that time. It will be years before we have a clear image of the pandemic’s long-term ramifications on education.

Arlington’s chronic absenteeism rate—the percentage of students missing 10 percent or more of the school year—nearly doubled in the 2022–23 year, compared to its last pre-pandemic school year. It’s one of thousands of public school districts to observe a surge in chronically absent students since 2018–19.

Although Arlington, like school districts across the map, saw attendance improve since COVID-19’s early aftermath, it hasn’t achieved full recovery. School libraries and their services play a key role in keeping students engaged and willing to come to school, Sampson says.

For many students, the school library may be their only way to explore new worlds and lives, he adds. Arlington’s libraries continue to allow a space for students to connect with literature and one another. He says the school library provides resources and a safe space that incentivizes some children to make it to class with frequency.

The national chronic absenteeism rate, calculated using 40 states’ available data, increased from roughly 15 to 28 percent between the 2018–19 and 2021–22 school years, projecting a 6.5 million increase in the country’s number of chronically absent students, according to a Stanford University study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year.

Numerous school districts and state education departments are implementing grassroots efforts—including community-oriented administration, messaging campaigns, adjusted educational settings, and diversified communication—to get kids back to the classroom. At the pandemic’s five-year mark, educators with varied experiences tackling absenteeism in Arizona; Colorado; Virginia; San Diego; and Washington, DC, weighed in on their challenges and beacons of hope.
 

Marley Park Elementary School students celebrate their win for most improved attendance in Arizona’s Dysart school district. Courtesy of Dysart Unified School District

Understanding the issue

Chronic absenteeism poses myriad issues to the public education system. Students miss out on opportunities for social skills development and learning. In 2023, the National Center for Education Statistics linked increased school absenteeism with nationally declining test scores across grade levels in the years since the pandemic.

But problems don’t stop in the classroom. Decreased attendance, declining state investment in the public education system, and high inflation rates have all contributed to school districts across the map adopting deficit budgets in recent school years, putting strain on the public resources—transportation, qualified staff, social services—that so often keep children in the educational orbit.

Children of color and students with disabilities, those experiencing poverty, or students in rural communities with limited public transportation are at an increased risk of missing school—excused or otherwise. Whether students feel emotionally or physically safe in an environment and whether they feel their basic needs are met in that space also affect their attendance.

And although the pandemic was a clear driving force for spikes in chronic absenteeism, educators like Sampson see the issue as more complex. He thinks COVID-19 amplified contributing factors, including nationally worsening student mental health.

“I don’t think we can ever just point to one thing and say it was the pandemic,” he says. “We were seeing increases in student mental health concerns prior to the pandemic. I think it really just exacerbated it.”

Children don’t come to school for several reasons, Sampson says. The district recently underwent revolving outbreaks of RSV, influenza, and COVID-19 within its campuses. He has also seen an uptick in parents excusing their children due to mental health concerns. And families call in to take their students on vacations during the school year, which also affects attendance rates.

Janet Damon, a high school teacher and librarian at Delta High School, an alternative pathway school in Denver Public Schools, says her students are juggling economic stressors and schoolwork in a time when roughly half of the district’s students, and many of Delta’s, are considered economically disadvantaged. COVID-19 closures cost many students’ parents their jobs, transferring responsibility of supporting households onto students.

“There are structural drivers of chronic absenteeism, and one is that we now have high cost of living, high cost of rent, high cost of food,” Damon says. “So, in some cases, children are being asked to contribute to the household income so they can have a place to live.”

Transportation is another barrier to attendance, Damon says. Although Denver students may utilize public transit, Damon says they are better served when they have a regular school bus route and don’t have to navigate the local—sometimes confusing—transportation system alone. She wants to see school districts and local governments work more closely together to make the education system more accessible for the most vulnerable learners.

Jonathan Hunt, library media services coordinator for the San Diego County Office of Education, is concerned by early indications that students across the county may attend school less due to fear of the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations. Hunt hopes to see learning resources directed toward those students and families in the same way they’ve been for other students in the pandemic’s aftermath. San Diego Unified School District launched a web page with resources for immigrant students and families.

Hunt thinks library programming—such as clubs, tutoring, or after-school classes—in some schools contributes to a culture of belonging. “The library is first and foremost probably the only place on campus where [students are] allowed the widest possible range of intellectual freedom,” he says.

Administrators in Dysart Unified School District, northwest of Phoenix, AZ, attributed the district’s uptick in absences to families keeping students home for minor illnesses. The district says families have been more aware and concerned about health conditions since the pandemic.

District of Columbia Public Schools’ (DCPS) chronic absenteeism rate was 36.9 percent by the end of 2023–24, which was 6.5 points higher than in the 2018–19 school year, but a 4.4-point improvement from 2022–23. A spokesperson says families initially overcorrected when it came to medical concerns shortly after in-person classes resumed following pandemic closures. Parents working from home were also more likely to allow mildly sick students to stay home for a day or two than when they were working elsewhere and there wasn’t adult supervision at home.

Compassion, understanding, problem-solving

The Dysart district, which serves roughly 24,000 students across 140 miles, saw its overall attendance rate rise by nearly 1 percent from 2022–23 to 2023–24. Twenty of its twenty-four campuses increased their rates between the two years.

The district also began working more closely with families by informing guardians that their children were late or absent from school via its messaging system. This school year, the district is preparing to move its mailed-home absence letters to its messaging system, which sends automated email and phone messages to guardians when a student starts missing classes more regularly.

Dysart also launched an attendance contest and a messaging campaign titled “Attendance Matters” to reduce its absenteeism rates. Playing off the “March Madness” basketball tournament, the district in its first year of the contest held a tournament in which campuses competed for the title of district champion. During the contest, two schools per week competed to bring as many students as possible to campus. Schools held spirit days, classroom and campus activities, and prizes to encourage attendance. The district determined winners not by which campus had the highest overall attendance, but by which one showed the larger improvement from the week before the competition.

Lewis Ferebee, chancellor of DCPS, says his district believes children need to feel connected to their school system to become the best versions of themselves, which goes hand in hand with attendance and academic performance.

A proud son of a librarian, Ferebee says that school library programming in the pandemic’s aftermath has offered a haven for students that has played into school staffs’ daily efforts to keep students engaged. They help students identify trusted adults in the school system.

DCPS also developed sixth and ninth grade academies that support students through their transitions into middle and high school, both critical developmental moves in adolescence and young adulthood. Through these groups, students get to know their campuses, staff, and peers in more intimate environments. They include trips and extracurricular incentives during the summer and school year to establish peer bonding. The academies, specifically the sixth grade groups, have been successful in raising attendance in tandem with other efforts, Ferebee says.

DCPS also gathers and monitors data on how students feel about school and tries to adjust campus services accordingly. It distributes information on community resources that address community needs like food insecurity and transportation. Although DCPS doesn’t have its own bus route, the city allows students free public transportation cards. District volunteers monitor common student pickup points in the area as an added safety measure.

“The key to the strategy is building relationships early, being more intentional about the adults assigned to those grades, and making sure they’re dedicated and have oversight and monitoring of their performance,” Ferebee says.

Sampson says that APS, whose chronic absenteeism rose from the 7 to 8 percent range in 2018–19 to about 13.5 percent in 2022–23, saw success through relationship building.

Arlington tries to identify existing needs among families, such as whether they have reliable transportation to school, access to mental health care, and consistent access to food. The district believes that connecting families to resources, consistent campus-level communication, campus-family partnerships, and reminding children they’re cared for pays off. Sampson says addressing the situation with understanding and early intervention supersedes schools waiting until a student is considered truant and taking a punitive approach.

“What I think has worked better is this approach of compassion, understanding, problem-solving with the family and with the student as part of that process,” he says.

Damon, Colorado’s 2025 teacher of the year, tries to keep her students engaged by letting them explore their creativity. Last year, she turned her classroom into a lunchtime dance club where kids expressed themselves through movement. This year, they’re learning TikTok dances. “Having that space where they could laugh, be kids, be young, and have fun was a pull factor to come to school,” Damon says.

Delta High School also works closely among its students, social worker, staff, and families to track individual students’ attendance rates and offer intervention services as needed. The school’s overall attendance rate climbed from the high-60-percent range to 71 percent recently. The campus hopes to reach 80 percent in coming years.

Improving communication

Honing communication systems has been key to schools’ efforts. DCPS closely monitors student data and reports back to families of students who are chronically absent or on track to be. It notifies families not only when their child isn’t attending school, but also provides comparison data among peers’ attendance. In addition, it tries to visualize for parents how much instruction time their child is missing.

“The recovery for us has been strong, but it is not a straight line. It is a squiggly line where we have to continue to provide support for our students who missed valuable in-person learning,” Ferebee says.

Dysart USD gave its schools monthly sample messages and announcements to distribute on social media and on campus. It asked schools to use marquees, socials, announcements, and other methods to share messaging about the benefits of coming to school, according to a district spokesperson. The district recommended campuses incorporate pro-attendance rhetoric in their 100th day of school celebrations and use #EveryDayCounts for social media posts about attendance.

The district also tries to involve parent organizations and offer campuses resources and ideas, given that efforts have been typically most effective at the campus level.

Arlington Public Schools tried to diversify how it communicates the importance of coming to school to families through various social media posts, sharing district-level data, publishing videos featuring local educators, and sending notes home at the central office and campus levels. The district encourages teachers to let kids and their guardians know they’re missed when they don’t come to class.

Damon says it takes an entire school staff, students’ willingness to grow, and communal dedication to make schools safe, comfortable places where students want to be. That, and “having a strong relationship where kids crave that connection and know that a supportive and loving presence is there for them at school.”

Sofi Zeman is an award-winning journalist.