Overview:
Chronic absenteeism among students has risen to nearly 30% in the 2022-2023 school year, with Black students being the most affected. This crisis is exacerbated by systemic issues such as housing instability, lack of transportation, and disciplinary measures that disproportionately target Black students. To address this, parent leader and educator advocate Yasmina White emphasizes the importance of parent engagement and greater accountability at the legislative level to ensure schools have enough resources to tackle absenteeism effectively.
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic transformed K-12 education, ushering in Zoom classrooms and disrupting daily routines, research shows a new kind of crisis has taken root: students in general — and Black students in particular — simply aren’t showing up.
Department of Education data shows that nearly 30% of all public school students were chronically absent between 2022–2023, missing at least 10% of the school year. That’s nearly double the pre-pandemic average of 15%.
Among Black students, the numbers are even more alarming: around four in ten Black K-12 students were chronically absent in the last academic year, compared to 24% of white students and 16% of Asian students. Along with exacerbating the Black-white education gap, the crisis could worsen Black high school graduation rates even further, as well as put college or a well-paying job out of reach.
“Our kids miss so much when they don’t show up to school,” says Yasmina White, a parent leader and educator advocate in Jacksonville, Florida. “And the real problem is that there’s no one reason — it’s a whole village of barriers.”
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A Symptom of Something Deeper
To White, chronic absenteeism is about far more than just students not wanting to go to school. She sees it as a reflection of what she calls the “post-COVID mindset shift.”
“COVID changed a lot,” she says. “We normalized remote work and flexible routines, but in doing that, it also disconnected us from the importance of showing up, and that kind of trickled down into how we viewed showing up for school.”
Ethan Hutt, an associate education professor at the University of North Carolina, told The 74 that missing school post-COVID has changed the outlook on student engagement and relationships with teachers. While technology, he says, has made it easier for students to keep up, “there may be other harms we want to think about and grapple with.”
We need more conversations about what makes students feel seen — not just whether they show up.
YASMINA WHITE, FLORIDA PARENT ADVOCATE AND EDUCATION LEADER
That change, White notes, coincided with rising political attacks on public education — book bans, anti-DEI mandates, and school closures — that made students feel even more disconnected from school.
“We’re living in a time where daily school attendance isn’t automatically valued,” she adds. “And we haven’t done nearly enough to reset that expectation.”
Beyond COVID, White also highlights a range of systemic issues, including housing instability, lack of transportation, disproportionate disciplining of Black students, and even basic hygiene needs as factors in chronic absenteeism. Additionally, research has consistently found that Black students are more likely to be suspended, attend underfunded schools, and face structural barriers that make school attendance difficult.
“We have students who miss school because they don’t have clean clothes or transportation,” White says. “We have kids who are embarrassed to attend school because they can’t read. These are real barriers. And we should be treating them as such.”
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Despite the alarming rise in numbers, chronic absenteeism remains underreported or misreported in a way that White says makes matters worse.
“Education has become so politicized,” she says. “Our schools are underfunded and under attack, yet it’s rarely covered in the media. And because of that, communities haven’t fully grasped how urgent this issue has become.”
White argues that this leads to more educational inequities and negative outcomes, such as lower literacy rates, more students at risk of dropping out, and a diminished range of future opportunities.
“When children stop attending school, lawmakers use that as justification to pull resources away from public education even more,” she says.
Rebuilding a System That Cares
When asked how schools can better address chronic absenteeism, White emphasizes parent engagement as the “heart and soul” of student success.
“It’s about structure and connection,” she says. “Families need routines and support. Schools need to make students feel more valued and safe. And we need more conversations about what makes them feel seen — not just whether they show up.”
White also calls on communities to advocate for greater accountability at the legislative level to ensure schools have enough resources to tackle absenteeism effectively.
“Everyone should care because our children’s right to free education is on the line,” she adds. “We owe them a system that deserves their presence and one that they want to show up for.”
The post Chronically Absent: Why Black Kids Are Still Missing From Classrooms first appeared on Word in Black.