Chronic absenteeism has affected a significant percentage of California’s K-12 student population and is likely to continue to do so over the coming years due to the lasting impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. School absences negatively affect academic and socioemotional outcomes for all students – especially youth of color and other vulnerable student groups – making improving attendance a top priority for school systems.

A workgroup of educational partners convened by the CCEE identified 80 school districts that had made significant progress in addressing chronic absenteeism in California over the past five years and interviewed teams from nine districts across the state, varying in size and grade spans. In 2022, the workgroup published an attendance brief that aims to better understand how the issue of chronic absenteeism has been addressed by districts and what improvements could yield better student outcomes. It highlights insights and best practices collected from districts that were able to decrease their chronic absenteeism rate in the past five years and offers recommendations on how local educational agencies (LEAs) could help increase student attendance.

With the launch of CCEE’s Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) initiative, the Monterey County Office of Education, in collaboration with CCEE, is facilitating a network of four district teams to understand and test how their systems and policies might better support student attendance through data examination, root cause analyses, and questioning of mental models.