Updated 10/6/2026
FutureEd has developed a tracker monitoring chronic absenteeism rates from the last pre-pandemic school year, 2018–19, through 2021–22, 2022–23, 2023–24, 2024–25, and now 2025-26.
Chronic absenteeism—defined as students missing 10 percent or more of the school year—rates improved in all of the 18 states that have reported data for the 2025-26 school year. But they remain above pre-pandemic levels in each state, which was already high in many places.
Declines ranged from 2.5 percent in Michigan (27.9 percent to 27.2 percent) to 10.9 percent (22.1 percent to 19.7 percent) in Rhode Island. Among reporting states, Idaho had the lowest proportion of chronically absent students in 2025-26, at 13.8 percent, while Colorado had the highest, at 27.5 percent.
Longer-term trends are similar. Since the pandemic-era high point in 2021-22, most states have posted year-over-year improvements. For 2025-26, five states (Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, and Rhode Island) have reported rates at least 10 percentage points below the pandemic peak, a decline of roughly one-third in the share of chronically absent students in these states.
Still, only one state—Rhode Island—is within 1 percentage point of its pre-pandemic rate. Others are as far as 13.4 percentage points away from that baseline.