Attendance Awareness Month– Understanding Chronic Absenteeism and Truancy

While Attendance Awareness Month is coming to an end, the importance of attendance will remain throughout your student’s academic career. Pleasanton Unified School District prioritizes attendance as it is a key indicator to student achievement.  In doing so, PUSD is closely monitoring chronic absenteeism and truancy. Chronic absenteeism, which is affecting students nationwide, refers to missing too much school—for any reason—excused or unexcused, and is defined as missing 10% (or around 18 days) during a school year. In 2023, PUSD had a Chronic absenteeism rate of 13.1%, up 0.5% from the previous year.  Chronic absenteeism occurs for many reasons and understanding the reason why is essential to removing barriers and promoting academic success. Please take any notification regarding attendance that you receive seriously and discuss the absences with your student and your student’s school site team so you can address the root cause of the absences and find a path forward. 

While chronic absenteeism addresses all absences (excused and unexcused), truancy measures only unexcused absences. Truancy notifications are sent to families at three, six, and nine instances of unexcused absences. Whether excused or unexcused, all absences impact student success and need to be addressed. For awareness, the district will begin notifying families regarding truancy as of September 20th, dependent upon if and when the above absence thresholds are met. Please visit Pleasanton Unified School District’s attendance page for more information and review PUSD attendance policies  here. Additional information regarding PUSD’s truancy process can be found here. 

We look forward to working with you to promote positive attendance for your student!