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Middle and high school attendance still matters enormously post-COVID, and schools can do a lot to improve it, according to a new report from the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research.
In Chicago and across the country, student absenteeism surged during the pandemic. In Chicago Public Schools, the increase has been especially significant and unabated in the high school grades, where a 2025 Chalkbeat and WBEZ investigation showed a quarter of students missed 35 or more days the previous year. Nevertheless, the graduation rate has continued to inch up in the district, where leaders say CPS has rightfully moved away from penalizing students for missing school and instead gives them more opportunities to make up work or submit assignments virtually.
But the Consortium on School Research study released Tuesday found absenteeism has a clear impact on learning: The more school days students missed, the lower their test scores and grades. And, even as the authors acknowledge that many factors outside schools’ control affect attendance, they stress that schools can make a big difference. Campuses with similar student demographics and in similar neighborhoods have had markedly different post-pandemic attendance, the report notes.
At schools that maintained strong attendance, students reported feeling safer, more connected to their teachers and peers, and more challenged and engaged in their classes, the study found.
“Post-pandemic, we were hearing all these questions: Does attendance matter as much any more? And can schools really do anything about it?” said Elaine Allensworth, one of the report’s authors. “All the studies we do suggest that attendance is still vitally important at all grade levels.”
Next, Allensworth and her fellow researchers plan to dig deeper into the practices that help schools improve attendance despite serving high-needs student bodies.
The report compared attendance and other metrics during three pre-pandemic and three post-COVID schools years through 2023-24. It found chronic absenteeism rose dramatically across all grades, by 20 percentage points overall. Students are considered chronically absent when they miss 10% or more days in a school year.
Last school year, 40% of the district’s students were chronically absent, CPS data shows.
More widespread absences took a toll. In fact, the study suggests that attendance had an even stronger impact on test scores and grades than it did before the pandemic.
At the same time, the researchers noted that grades post-COVID were higher both for students with high attendance and for those who miss a lot of school — a development they said calls for further study. For instance, sixth graders who were absent 10% of the time had an average GPA of 2.9 before COVID and 3.2 in the more recent years. Possible explanations the study offers are changes in grading practices and standards, or technology use that enables students to complete assignments even when missing class.
These findings echo those of Chalkbeat and WBEZ’s recent series, which found a districtwide push to give students more grace that intensified during the pandemic and more lenient grading scales at some high schools. In response to that reporting, former CEO Pedro Martinez told Chalkbeat that while he was greatly concerned about absenteeism in the early grades, he was less worried about high school absence, where he said students are eager to use technology to give them more flexibility.
But Allensworth said being in school still matters, noting previous research linking high school attendance to college going and performance.
“The more students are in class, the stronger their learning gains and their later outcomes,” she said.
In a statement in response to the study, the district said attendance at all grade levels is a key focus. It pointed to school-level work to closely monitor student data so teachers and staff can intervene promptly if attendance or other metrics start lagging. It also noted stepped-up outreach to families and efforts to increase participation in after-school and other enrichment programs, which has been shown to improve attendance.
The University of Chicago research affirms the district’s “commitment to creating schools where every student feels seen, safe, and connected,” the statement said.
The study notes schools alone are “neither the cause nor the solution to increases in chronic absenteeism rates,” noting that neighborhood safety, transportation options, and economic instability affect attendance. But schools have considerable power to boost attendance, and in fact the study found a school’s neighborhood did not appear to be a major factor in the COVID-era absenteeism increases. As previous research has suggested, school climate was key — even more so post-pandemic.
The researchers looked at the connection between attendance and schools’ scores on 5Essentials, a student and staff survey designed by the University of Chicago. One influential factor that stood out to Allensworth was the strength of the relationships between teachers and parents. Studies have suggested that those relationships are really important for attendance at the elementary level, but Allensworth was surprised to see the key role they appeared to play in high schools as well.
“It’s much harder for some students to get to school every day than for others — we have to acknowledge that,” she said. “But you can’t just say there’s nothing we can do about it. If you don’t do anything, the students who have the most barriers will be the ones who will miss the most school.”
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.
