As Ohio grapples with a continued high rate of chronic absenteeism, are large numbers of students missing a large number of school days the new norm?
On the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce report cards released Sept. 15, the 2025-2026, the chronic absenteeism rate was 23.9%, down from 25.1% the previous year. Chronic absenteeism in Ohio is defined as a student missing 10% or more of the minimum required instructional hours or days year for any reason.
This marks the third consecutive year of declining chronic absenteeism, and the lowest mark since before the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2025-2026 number represents an eight percentage point drop from the state's high-water mark of over 30% chronic absenteeism in 2021-2022, but is still well
above pre-pandemic levels, when the rate was around 17%.
It's also well off the mark of the goal put forward by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who announced in 2024 that he was aiming to cut the absenteeism rate in half over the five years from around 25%.
ODEW Director Stephen Dackin said that he is cautiously optimistic that the state is seeing a positive trend toward addressing high chronic absenteeism.
"Obviously I would have liked to cut chronic absenteeism in half, which is what we kind of set the goal at in the beginning," Dackin said. "But we're going to persist and work with our partners."
Is high chronic absenteeism here to stay?
Dackin said that he wants to reject the notion that "things aren't like they used to be" when it comes to expectations around attendance.
"I don't think this is just a school problem, I think it's a community issue that needs to be addressed as a community, and the community is going to have the answers," Dackin said. "
Dackin also pointed to a new state dashboard that launched this year, which will help school districts more effectively track attendance and chronic absenteeism.
Nationally, the issue of chronic absenteeism has been challenging to manage for many schools.
According to a 2026 report from the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University studying national chronic absenteeism trends, only 13% of schools that had significant increases in pandemic chronic absenteeism had returned to a pre-pandemic rate by 2024–2025, and the rate was around half of that amount when looking at large urban districts.
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.
Columbus City Schools, which led Ohio's large urban districts in reducing chronic absenteeism in recent years, actually trended upward in 2025-2026, registering a chronic absenteeism rate 53.8%, which is higher than the 52.6% recorded in 2024-2025.
Russell Brown, CCS chief of strategy and performance, told The Dispatch that for 75% of the school year, the district was on track to have a lower chronic absenteeism rate but then in the spring it ticked back up again.
"We're all trying to figure out what was going on in the spring that maybe contributed to the that," Brown said.
Janet Walton, executive director of Stay In the Game! attendance network, which focuses on reducing chronic absenteeism, said that some families may have lost sight of the importance of high attendance for academic success.
"We need to get back to the idea that students need learning time to be successful," Walton said. "It takes presence and engagement, the families have a role in that, the schools and the whole community have a role in that."
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 the research.
Rather than focusing on punitive measures like truancy charges to manage chronic absenteeism, many districts instead focus on positive reinforcement to manage the issue. Walton said that the truancy and court system has not historically been an effective solution for getting kids back in class.
"Using that positive approach and engaging the entire community around this, because it's a community issue, that's really Stay In the Game's approach," Walton said.
Stay in the Game!" attendance network is a public-private initiative supported by the Cleveland Browns Foundation, Battelle, Harvard Proving Ground and the ODEW. 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."
Jamie Lusher, deputy superintendent at South Western Schools, said the district has been working on building a comprehensive plan on communicating and partnering with families on the importance of attendance and creating an environment "where every student matters."
"(The pandemic) has been a seismic shift for families, and now working professionals that aren't working traditional nine to fives, getting back into that structure and providing that predictability for students," Lusher said.
South Western Schools had a chronic absenteeism rate of 32% in 2025-2026. Part of the district's plan to drive the rate down is building "care teams" in the district's school buildings, which includes an attendance lead and social workers, which provides outreach and support to families to address the causes of absenteeism.
"It's a direct link between what's happening at home and preparing to come to school and getting a schedule that works," Lusher said.
This also comes as new state laws around attendance have taken effect, changing the definition of chronic absenteeism, which required districts to adopt preventative policies for chronic absence by the start of the 2026-2027 school year.
The law also removes the term “excessively absent” from the state's classifications, 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, public school districts should notify parents when their children miss 5% of the school year. Dackin said he thinks the new law is beneficial because it informs parents when attendance starts being a problem.
"That gives parents some opportunity to intervene," Dackin said. "And it places the absolute emphasis of young people being in school."
Lusher said one of the challenges with the new law is explaining to parents that while absences lead to learning loss, it is still important to keep your kid at home if they are sick.
"We're trying to make sure that parents aren't (reacting to) the sticker shock, if you will, of what the initiative is," Lusher said. "Those (attendance) thresholds, to me, are trigger points that now responding, and we're moving into action to provide support for families."
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: Ohio chronic absenteeism lags well behind state goal. Can it be fixed?
