Over a quarter of Ohio students regularly miss school — and education leaders say that’s a problem.
According to the 2024-2025 Ohio Department of Education and Workforce state report card, the statewide average for chronic absenteeism was 25.1%, a half of a percent improvement from 25.6% the previous year. Chronic absenteeism in Ohio is defined as a student missing 10% or more of a school year for any reason.
Last year, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced he was making the issue a priority, and said the state was aiming to cut the absenteeism rate in half over the next five years. The chronic absenteeism rate spiked during the pandemic, when more than 30% of Ohio students were chronically absent during the 2020-2021 school year — the rate was around 17% before the pandemic.
Hedy Chang, executive director of national policy group Attendance Matters, said that when students are missing school, rather than blaming the child or family it needs to be a “sign that we need to do more engagement and outreach.”
“Then we can move the needle,” Chang said. “When we start with blame, then we’re going to alienate and push kids farther away from school at the moment when they most need to be connected.”
So why is it so hard to bring that number down?
Why is it so hard to bring chronic absenteeism down?
Absenteeism has a direct correlation with student outcomes and academic success, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Low-income and minority students tend to have higher rates of absenteeism, often due to challenges related to transportation, caregiving, housing and other factors.
Research shows that many parents don’t understand the connection between chronic absenteeism and poor academic performance, according to 2024 research from the Brookings Institute. Less than half of caretakers with children at risk of being chronically absent report being concerned with their child’s attendance, and only 8% report being “very concerned” about it, according to Brookings’ research.
Chris Woolard, chief integration officer at ODEW, said that people need to understand the importance of of having kids in school.
“Obviously there’s still work to do when basically one in four Ohio students is chronically absent,” Woolard said.
While the rate of chronic absenteeism has fallen in Ohio, it mirrors a national trend for the challenges states are facing in getting kids in classrooms, Chang said.
Hedy said that when a state begins to take steps to address chronic absenteeism through messaging about the importance of attendance, it will often see an immediate dip. The hard part, she said, is addressing the challenges that have caused the rate to be so high.
“This is not going to be solved by a social worker — it’s not — it means all of us work together to engage and support kids, make sure that school is a meaningful experience, and then we can use our data to target action,” Chang said.
Chang said that often, challenges in attendance are related to transportation and health care — but just as often they revolve around school climate issues and whether the student feels safe or valued at school. In a report published in September, Chang and University of Chicago research professor Elaine Allensworth found that schools with strong climates had better overall attendance than those with poor climates.
“If school is a place where you really want to show up, where you really want to engage, even when things are tough in the neighborhood, you’ll likely find a way to show up more,” Chang said.
What is Ohio doing?
As part of the state’s two-year budget bill, the Ohio General Assembly is requiring districts to adopt preventative policies for chronic absence by Aug. 2026.
The law, which takes effect on Oct.1, also removes the term “excessively absent” from the law, which calculated the number of hours missed by a student before family notification was required, and replaced it with “chronically absent” to facilitate earlier intervention.
Under the state law, districts should notify parents when they miss 5% of the school year.
Another key component of Ohio’s strategy to reduce chronic absenteeism is the Stay in the Game! attendance network (SITG), a public-private initiative supported by the Cleveland Browns Foundation, Battelle, Harvard Proving Ground and the ODEW.
Woolard said the Stay in the Game! initiative was working to bring “a lot of attention and positive messaging around the importance of being in school.”
Suan Bodary, Stay in the Game network director, said over 220 of Ohio’s 611 districts now participate in the network, representing nearly 600,000 students. Districts that participate in the network, she said, saw a decrease in the chronic absenteeism rate higher than the state average, with SITG schools seeing an average drop of 1.1%.
“Which is consistent with what we’ve seen over the past three years, that folks in the network who are really focused on this, not just implementing campaigns but implementing lots of interventions across their districts are having greater results,” Bodary said.
One of the most visible efforts of SITG is local professional sports teams, including the Cleveland Browns, Columbus Crew and FC Cincinnati joining students for “clap ins,” pep rallies or a “gym class takeover.” She said this lets children know they’re valued.
“What we’re finding is students respond beautifully when it’s this positive interaction with either exciting mascots for little ones,” Bodary said. “Or for athletes who are saying ‘We show up for practice every day because it makes a difference in how we play and you showing up for school every day makes a difference in how you learn.'”
The initiative also helps districts work together to collaborate on strategies for driving down chronic absenteeism. She said one thing districts can do right now to start to address the problem is to “make attendance a clear and visible priority.”
“The pandemic really exacerbated challenges in the school and family community, (it) kind of broke a lot of trust,” Bodary said. “I think what we need to do is rebuild those communities of trust and work with parents as allies. If we give families the information, they’ll act on it.”
Cole Behrens covers K-12 education and school districts in central Ohio. Have a tip? Contact Cole at cbehrens@dispatch.com or connect with him on X at @Colebehr_report.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: One in four Ohio students is chronically absent. How can we fix that?
