In June, OSSE released another mid-year attendance update for D.C.’s public schools (including DCPS and public charter) as of March 2024, sharing good news: Compared to the same period in the previous school year, chronic absenteeism decreased by 4.3 percentage points.1
Chronic absenteeism, which rose to 48 percent in the first year of in-person school after the pandemic, decreased to 44 percent in school year 2022-23. If the chronic absenteeism rate as of March persists through the end of the school year, it could mean a similar annual decrease in chronic absenteeism for school year 2023-24.
These systems-level improvements are present across schools as well. At the school level, a majority of schools (75 percent) are still poised to reduce chronic absenteeism by at least one percentage point, and 51 percent do so by at least 5 percentage points.
However, compared to the previous year, fewer schools are continuing to see a decline in chronic absenteeism over the school year. From November to March of school year 2023-24, 39 schools decreased chronic absenteeism over the school year compared to 88 schools who did so in the previous year.2
OSSE will publish chronic absenteeism data for full school year in its 2023-24 Attendance Annual Report, available November 2024.