Attendance & Truancy

1. Absenteeism in the first month of school can predict poor attendance throughout the school year. Half the students who miss 2-4 days in September go on to miss nearly a month of school. Read more...
2. Chronic absence appears to have doubled by the end of the 2021-22 school year. We estimate that it now affects nearly one out of three students (or 16 million vs. 8 million students in the 2018-19 school year). Read more...
3. Absenteeism and its ill effects start early. Read more... 
4. Poor attendance can influence whether children read proficiently by the end of third grade or be held back. Read more...
5. By 6th grade, chronic absence becomes a leading indicator that a student will drop out of high school. Read more...
6. Research shows that missing 10 percent of the school, or about 18 days in most school districts, negatively affects a student’s academic performance. That’s just two days a month and that’s known as chronic absence. Read more...
7. Students who live in communities with high levels of poverty are four times more likely to be chronically absent than others often for reasons beyond their control, such as unstable housing, unreliable transportation and a lack of access to health care. Read more...
8. When students improve their attendance rates, they improve their academic prospects and chances for graduating. Read more...
9. Attendance improves when schools engage students and parents in positive ways and when schools provide mentors for chronically absent students. Read more...
10. Most school districts and states don’t look at all the right data to improve school attendance. They track how many students show up every day and how many are skipping school without an excuse, but not how many are missing so many days in excused and unexcused absence that they are headed off track academically. Read more...

According to the Illinois Report Card website, Illinois law defines “chronic absentee” as a student who misses 10 percent of school days within an academic year with or without a valid excuse. That’s 18 days of an average 180-day school year. Excused absences include illness, suspension, need to care for a family member, etc. Students need daily instruction in order to succeed. Chronic absentees are at risk of academic and social problems.

• Finding effective solutions to truancy (University of Wisconsin – Madison)

• Truancy Reduction: Keeping Kids in School (Department of Justice)

According to the Illinois Report Card website, Illinois law defines “chronic truant” as a student who misses 5 percent of school days within an academic year without a valid excuse. That’s nine days of an average 180-day school year. The count of chronically truant students does not include students with excused absences. Chronic truants are at risk of academic and behavioral problems. Research shows that chronic truancy has been linked to serious delinquent activity in youth and to significant negative behavior and characteristics in adults.

• Finding effective solutions to truancy (University of Wisconsin – Madison)

• Truancy Reduction: Keeping Kids in School (Department of Justice)

105 ILCS 5/26-2a states, "A "truant" is defined as a child who is subject to compulsory school attendance and who is absent without valid cause, as defined under this Section, from such attendance for more than 1% but less than 5% of the past 180 school days." Read more...