The pandemic has triggered a wave of record high chronic absenteeism across the nation. This has led to large increases in the number of students missing a month, or more, of the school year and even greater increases in the number of schools where 30 percent, or more, of students are chronically absent. Many schools have seen their number of chronically absent students double. At this magnitude, the whole school is impacted, and traditional responses are inadequate.

The good news is that there are proven strategies to address large numbers of chronically absent students.

Our new resource lays out a core set of evidence-based practices that schools have successfully used to address chronic absenteeism, including strategies for fostering school connectedness.