Nearly 1 in 4 students are chronically absent from school – kids who feel happy and safe are less likely to be chronically absent

Close to 1 in 4 students in the U.S. do not attend school for at least 10% of the academic year. Antonio Hugo Photo/Moment via Getty Images Chronic absenteeism – referring to students who miss 10% or more days of the school year – has become one of the most urgent problems across American schools since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Before the pandemic, about 15% of students across the country missed that much school. That figure roughly doubled between 2022 and 2023 to more than…