The Drivers of the Absenteeism Crisis: New Evidence from the Understanding America Study

Amie Rapaport, Morgan Polikoff, and Anna Saavedra

Editors’ Note: We are interrupting our series on the major challenges in California to share some new original research from Hub-affiliated researchers. We will return with our scheduled posts next week.

The absenteeism crisis in today’s schools continues to lead national headlines. Students are missing more school than they did before the pandemic, when absenteeism was already described as a national crisis. Absences predict lower grades, higher drop-out rates, and long-term social and economic consequences. Districts have responded with various interventions: improving messaging systems, increasing mental health services, conducting informational campaigns, and helping to overcome transportation barriers. While some show promise, the share of students missing 10 percent or more of the school year remains stubbornly high.

One major barrier to progress is straightforward: there is simply no nationwide, systematic data detailed enough to understand what is actually driving chronic absenteeism at the population level. Until now.

Using our Understanding America Study, a probability-based national panel of adults and the teens in their households, we asked respondents to account for each missed day of school during the 2024–25 school year. We wanted to know about root causes, not just “excused” versus “unexcused” categorizations. We included 23 specific absence reasons clustered under six categories: physical health, mental health, fun reasons, logistical barriers, family or personal reasons, and school-related factors.

Responses from over 1,000 adults reporting on a teen-aged child and nearly 400 teens themselves—weighted to reflect the nation by race/ethnicity, income, and education—sheds light on why absenteeism has proven so difficult to solve. Below are several key takeaways; more results are available in our full report.

Illness is universal

Nearly all students report missing school at least occasionally for physical health reasons. No other reason approaches this level of prevalence. Roughly half as many students ever miss school for “fun reasons” like family vacations or traveling for a non-school related event. All other categories of absence reasons were much less common.

But illness doesn’t drive chronic absenteeism: less common reasons like taking care of family members, disengagement, suspension, and mental health account for as many or more missed days among students experiencing those challenges.

Complicating matters, the highest-impact causes, those accounting for the most missed days for an individual student, affect relatively small groups of students. As can be seen below, taking care of family members, students “just not wanting to go,” suspensions, mental health, and transportation barriers account for many missed days among the students who miss for those reasons. In some cases, these uncommon reasons account for two to three times as many missed days as physical health reasons do (roughly three days for mild and contagious illness each, and three days for doctor’s appointments).

These less common causes of many missed days may go unnoticed given the small numbers of students affected, or schools may feel ill-equipped to address these less common types of absence causes. The policy challenge is not simply what is most common, but what accumulates.

Caring about school keeps students in school.

Student engagement measures proved to be key predictors of absence patterns. Teens who say they care “a lot” about how they do in school or who report getting As/Bs miss about ten fewer days than peers who care less or earn lower grades (27 versus 37 days). Among school-related reasons—disengagement, feeling unsafe, suspension—and family-related reasons, students who care less or earn lower scores miss two or three times more school than their peers for those reasons.

Norms also matter. We asked parents how many days were acceptable for students to miss, and households with chronically absent teens report a much higher threshold—17 days—compared to an average of ten days in households where students are not chronically absent.

Mental health is a common thread

Mental health remains deeply connected to attendance. Teens who report struggling with their emotional or psychological well-being will miss an average of 12 more days than peers who do not. Teens flagged by a validated mental health screener miss more than twice as many days as those with typical scores.

What have we learned?

First, school systems need to overhaul their absence tracking systems, which currently are focused on tracking “excused” versus “unexcused” categorizations for various state and federally required reasons. These categorizations do not help fight the absenteeism battle. Schools need systematic information about why students miss school: are they ill, attending a funeral, just don’t want to come, suffering from anxiety or depression, missed the bus? Documenting this level of specificity will enable interventions to be aligned to actual causes.

Second, disengagement and diminished valuing of in-person schooling are key drivers of absenteeism. Those students who miss because they don’t care or don’t want to go accumulate substantial missed days layered on top of illness absences. Households with chronically absent teens consider missing roughly 10% of the school year acceptable. These norms shifted during the pandemic and warrant deliberate attention.

Third, students’ mental health remains a serious concern. While there are many issues inside and outside of school that impact students’ well-being, investments in counseling, attention to school climate, and policies such as phone-free schools may hold promise. Improvements in mental health are likely to yield improvements in engagement and attendance.

Chronic absenteeism is not a single problem with a single solution. It reflects illness, yes, but also disengagement, school climate, mental health, caregiving responsibilities, and shifting social norms. Effective responses will require data systems and policy strategies calibrated to that complexity.

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Focus on California

In 2024, California passed AB 1955: the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth Act (SAFETY Act). The law prohibited and invalidated any adopted school board policy, rule, or administrative regulation that requires teachers to notify parents if a student requested to change their name, pronouns, or gender identity at school. In July, a lawsuit to overturn the law was filed on behalf of a coalition of parents, arguing that the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments and FERPA. Last week, the Supreme Court blocked implementation of AB 1955 while the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals conducts a full review. Carolyn Jones of CalMatters reports on the detrimental effects the Supreme Court’s ruling will have on transgender youth.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any affiliated institutions or organizations.