Absenteeism in Iowa schools

You may have seen a few articles or heard of the issue of Iowa’s chronic absenteeism.

But what is it?

Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10 or more of school days for any reason, excused or unexcused — for vacation, health conditions, suspensions, etc. The Iowa School Performance Profiles tracks chronic absenteeism totals, as well as by district, with the most recent numbers from the 2021-2022 Spring Student Reporting in Iowa (SRI) collection. The percentage of all students who are chronically absent in Iowa based off that data was 25.6%, which equates to 125,750 out of 491,977 students.

You can also view the data by district by searching your district here: https://www. iaschoolperformance.gov/ECPHome/Index.

In August, KCRG released an article that discusses why schools are seeing an increase in student absences. “Even with the pandemic officially over — more students are missing school more often.”

The reasons stated in the article could be a variety of factors from keeping kids home more if they are sick, to issues going on at home, and just a tough transition for students who feel like they are behind already and trying to catch up seems very difficult. Data from the Department of Education says that 13% of Iowa students were chronically absent in 2018-2019, which was the last full year prior to COVID, compared to 25.6% of students in 2021-2022.

Nationally, research shows that many states are seeing some progress in reducing their chronic absenteeism rates post-COVID, although many are not at pre-COVID levels. However, Iowa is not one of them. Five states actually reported increases in chronic absenteeism from 2021-2022 to 2022-2023. These states are Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Oregon and South Carolina. Iowa had an increase of nearly five percentage points.