According to a presentation given at the Dec. 4 PWCS School Board meeting, 15.4% of students are considered chronically absent as of Oct. 31, which marked the end of the first quarter. In the 2023-24 school year at the same time, only 14.7% of students were considered chronically absent.
Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more or 18 days of school for an enrolled student by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). Excused and unexcused absences count toward the chronic absenteeism rate.
VDOE data shows that chronically absent students performed 19 percentage points below peers in reading and 26 percentage points in math in the 2023-24 school year. In the same year, 16.1% of all Commonwealth students were considered chronically absent.
In PWCS, the highest rates of chronic absenteeism are at the high school level with 20.6% of students meeting this threshold. But, at the middle school level, there was the sharpest increase over the school years. In 2023-24, 11.7% were marked chronically absent, while in 2024-25 so far, 12.9% meet this threshold.
“Due to the variability and the low number of days, it’s not an area of concern yet,” Michael Tim Neall, Ph.D., the director of research, accountability and strategic planning for PWCS, said at the meeting. “But it should remain a consistent focus, similar to how we’ve approached this in the prior years.”
In an interview with the PWCS Student Health and Wellness team, they said they plan to establish a task force to decrease chronic absenteeism rates in the remaining three quarters of the school year.
“PWCS has improved its chronic absenteeism efforts this year by providing in-person, one-on-one coaching to increase collaboration, share expectations and build knowledge of ‘in-the-field’ practices, successes and barriers for implementing strategies to support chronic absenteeism and truancy,” the team said.
Another quarterly update will be given around the start of the third quarter, which begins Jan. 23. The second quarter started on Nov. 6 and will last until Jan. 17.
