The number of middle school and high school students in Chicago missing an astronomical 18 days or more of school shot up during the pandemic and has remained stubbornly high, but a new study finds that some city schools are more successful than others in getting teens to show up.
The University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research finds students attend more when they feel safe, have friends at their school and have strong relationships with teachers.
Marisa de la Torre, one of the study’s authors, said the causes of absenteeism are complex, but this study shows the way schools interact with students and their experiences matter when it comes to attendance.
Oftentimes, the continued elevated level of absenteeism is attributed to things outside of a school’s control, like student struggles with mental health, homelessness and lack of transportation.
But “the research shows that schools can and do influence attendance, and we are showing that the school climate is strongly associated with that,” said de la Torre, a managing director and senior research associate at the consortium.
The findings come as Chicago Public Schools leaders recently acknowledged that too many students are missing too much school and that they need to do something about it.
In a statement, CPS officials said they will continue to reflect on the findings.
The study released Tuesday looks at the scope of the absenteeism problem, comparing the years before the pandemic with the years during and after, and whether attending school matters at a time when students can access lessons online. It also examines the correlation between how students feel about school and whether they show up.
The scope of the problem cannot be underestimated. Last year, about 30% of middle school students were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more days of school, according to CPS data. Before the pandemic, only about 10% of middle schoolers were chronically absent.
The same trend is true for high school students. Before the pandemic, about 37% of students in ninth through 12th grades were chronically absent, but post-pandemic it has stayed at about 57%.
A WBEZ and Chalkbeat Chicago report from last spring found similarly high rates of chronic absenteeism. Some school leaders told reporters that, in addition to trying to make sure students felt connected to school, they were increasing expectations so that there were clear consequences to missing classes.
The study’s researchers point out that during and after the pandemic more students were what they call “very chronically absent,” meaning they missed more than 36 days of school, or almost two months of classes. At the same time, fewer students had low rates of absenteeism, which the study defines as missing nine or fewer days.
School district leaders say student attendance is a top concern. At a recent school board meeting, district officials presented information that showed chronic absenteeism was a bit worse so far this school year compared with last year. District officials and board members noted that the aggressive immigration enforcement this past fall might be hampering efforts to get students to attend.
CPS Interim Superintendent/CEO Macquline King pointed out that some schools were more successful in getting students to school, even when families felt threatened by federal agents.
Some schools “were vigorously fighting to make sure they had systems in place to bring students to school,” she said. “And then there were others that leaned in the other direction.”
She said the district does not have an overall strategy to improve attendance, but that she is in talks with a foundation to potentially fund the creation of such a plan. The school district’s five-year plan, which was approved in September 2024, calls for reducing the share of students missing more than 18 days. The goal is to get the chronic absenteeism rate down to about 25%.
In-person attendance now even more crucial for academics
The new study also shows how important it is that students physically come to school. It has long been the case that the more school days students miss, the lower they score on standardized tests.
“We have repeatedly heard questions about whether the pre-pandemic connections between attendance, grades and test scores hold for today’s students in today’s schools,” the authors write in the report.
But the study finds that the correlation between attendance and test scores is even stronger now, compared to before the pandemic. As de la Torre says: “You need to be present in a school to really acquire the knowledge that is being tested in these exams.”
Grades were also lower among students who were absent a lot, but overall, students are getting better grades post-pandemic than they were before.
De la Torre said some other research has shown that just making parents aware of the strong connection between attendance and academic performance can get them to insist their children go to school regularly.
“I think sometimes these simple messages, or just having the communication over and over again, so that people realize how important attendance is [is] simple, but at the same time, very powerful,” she said.
De la Torre, though, said the most surprising finding was how strongly school climate influenced whether students showed up. Attendance was better in schools where students had strong relationships with teachers and their peers, and when teachers reported having good relationships with parents.
CPS officials said in a statement that the findings from the consortium underscore why the district is committed “to creating schools where every student feels seen, safe and connected.”
“The results validate the District’s focus on building systems of relational trust with the goal that every student has a meaningful connection with a trusted adult in their learning community,” district officials wrote.
CPS also pointed to the many ways the school district is trying to get students to school, including identifying early on students who are having problems getting to school and making sure that someone is reaching out to them and working to remove barriers.
This story has been corrected to reflect that fewer students had low rates of absenteeism according to the study.