Attendance Works’ Hedy Chang and the GRAD Partnership’s Robert Balfanz team up on this NASBEE webinar to explore the national data, root causes of the spike in absences, variation in states’ rates, and ways to bring disengaged students back to class.

New data for the 2022–23 school year show that the sharp jump in students’ chronic absence in 2021–22 was no anomaly: Rates decreased only slightly during the last school year. The stakes are high, as chronic absence threatens academic achievement, positive school climate, and the likelihood of students graduating ready to find good jobs and attend postsecondary schools. Efforts to address chronic absence will require education leaders, schools, and families to work together to address root causes.

During the session, Chang and Balfanz will also lead participants through a set of policies that can build a virtuous cycle of boosting students’ attendance and their feelings of connectedness in school, which keeps them coming back.