New Mid-Year Attendance Data: What’s Shaping Student Engagement in 2026
Your peers are getting results. Here’s how.
While chronic absenteeism nationally sits at 22-23%, 146 districts using SchoolStatus cut their rate to 18.98% this year. Watch Attendance Works and SchoolStatus break down what’s working and what you can still do before the year ends.
Take a Sneak Peek:
New Mid-Year Attendance Data: What’s Shaping Student Engagement in 2026
Join Attendance Works and SchoolStatus to learn:
- What 2025-26 mid-year data reveals about student engagement and year-end risk
- The benchmarks that show whether your strategies are working or falling short
- Interventions you can still implement before chronic absence is cemented
Meet the Speakers
Cecelia Leong is the Vice President of Programs at Attendance Works. Since joining Attendance Works in 2011, she has helped expand the technical assistance resources available to communities across the country. In addition to providing high quality professional development through webinars and online learning, Cecelia works closely with the Attendance Works team to identify emerging technical assistance needs in reducing chronic absence and creating innovative tools to address those needs.
Dr. Kara Stern has seen school from just about every angle: high school English teacher, middle school principal, fellowship director for math and science teachers across New York City, and head of school at a rural N-12 school. That breadth is what she brings to her work at SchoolStatus, where she writes, speaks, and challenges educators to build the kinds of school communities where every student thrives. She holds a Master’s in Education Leadership from Teachers College and a Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning from NYU.
Dr. Joy Smithson is a Data Scientist at SchoolStatus, where she works with districts all over the country to help educators use data to inform decisions and support student success. Dr. Smithson sees her role as a dual mission: understanding educators’ pressing research questions, and translating vast datasets into actionable insights to address those queries. Dr. Smithson leverages her expertise in analyzing, interpreting, summarizing, visualizing, and wrangling data to support educators and create better outcomes for students.