The Georgia Department of Education on Tuesday highlighted data from the 2024-2025 school year that show the state has made some advancements in tackling its high chronic absenteeism rate.
State officials have been battling to reduce chronic absenteeism, which surged following the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns shut down the education system and disrupted academic norms.
This week, Georgia became one of the first states to release data from the latest school year on chronic absenteeism rates, which is when students miss 10% or more of a school year. The data show that rates dropped nearly 2% since the 2023-2024 school year rate, from 21.3% to 19.5%.
“It’s our responsibility to remove the barriers that are keeping students out of school buildings, and we’re working to equip schools and districts with the resources to do just that,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said in a press release. “When absences add up, it limits their opportunities and puts their futures at risk. I’m encouraged to see four consecutive years of progress, with chronic absenteeism at its lowest level since the pandemic.”
Chronic absenteeism rates remain at record highs compared to pre-pandemic rates despite recent declines, leading Woods to acknowledge that further work needs to be done to tackle the education crisis.
“Students cannot learn when they are not in school,” Woods said. “19.5% is still too high. We won’t stop working until every student has the consistent, daily access to learning they need to thrive.”
Georgia’s 2024-2025 rates remain 6.5% higher than pre-COVID-19 chronic absenteeism rates, although they have fallen from a peak of 23.9% during the 2021-2022 school year. The Peach State struggled with problems even before the pandemic, when absenteeism rates stood at 13% in the 2018-2019 academic year.
Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) shut down schools for the rest of the school year when the pandemic hit in 2020, is not alone in its struggle to rebound from similar academic lockdowns that were instituted across the country.
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The Council of State Governments Southern Office, a nonpartisan organization that provides policy analysis and other resources to 15 southern states, including Georgia, found that absenteeism rates increased by an average of 10% in those states since the 2018-2019 school year. The rates increased from a regional average of slightly under 15% to more than 24% in the 2022-2023 academic year, according to CGS South.
Nationally, chronic absenteeism rates nearly doubled between 2018 and 2023, according to data collected by the American Enterprise Institute.
