New Mid-Year Attendance Data: What’s Shaping Student Engagement in 2026
March 11 at 11 AM PT/2 PM ET
Nationally, progress on chronic absenteeism has stalled at roughly 22-23%, still about 50% higher than pre-pandemic levels. For most districts, the easy gains are over.
These districts are a different story.
SchoolStatus analyzed real-time 2025-26 attendance data from 146 partner districts serving 1.17 million students. Their chronic absenteeism rate is 18.98% this year, more than three points below the national average, and still falling.
Attendance Works has spent two decades as the nation’s leading voice on chronic absenteeism, working directly with 18 states to understand what drives students away from school and what brings them back. Together, we’ll translate what this year’s data is actually telling us into clear benchmarks and targeted actions district leaders can take right now, before patterns become permanent.
New Mid-Year Attendance Data: What’s Shaping Student Engagement in 2026
Join Attendance Works and SchoolStatus to learn:
- What 2025-26 mid-year trends reveal about student engagement and year-end risk
- The benchmarks that show whether your strategies are working or falling short
- How to identify at-risk students before absence becomes chronic
- Interventions you can still launch before the year ends
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.