Present, Engaged, and Accounted For The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades

1 At the core of school improvement and education reform is an assumption so widely understood that it is rarely invoked: students have to be present and engaged in order to learn. That is why the discovery that thousands of our youngest students are academically at-risk — because of extended absences when they first embark upon their school careers — is as remarkable as it is consequential. Growing evidence indicates that chronic absence (missing 10% or more of a school year, nearly one month) is a hidden or underidentified problem. And, it can start in the early elementary years — a time when it is most critical for children to be in school so they can build the necessary foundational academic and social skills needed for later school success.