More than a quarter of Colorado students were chronically absent from school last year
More than 1 in 4 Colorado students missed more than 10% of school during the last school year, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Education.
The findings — which point to close to 270,000 students being chronically absent during the school year — are a worrisome trend for state education officials and teachers, particularly as students largely continue to trail behind in academic performance coming out of the height of the pandemic.
“It’s likely that this is going to have some pretty major, significant long-term impacts on kids and learning,” said Van Schoales, a senior policy director at the nonpartisan Keystone Policy Center. “We’re just adding to the number of years that kids are not getting what they need. It’s a crisis.”