More than half of public high school students in the nation’s capital were chronically absent in 2023-24, a new report shows.
In an annual analysis of government data released Wednesday, the D.C. Policy Center found that 56% of teens missed at least 10% of the academic year. That’s down only slightly from 60% in 2022-23, the first full year of in-person learning after D.C. Public Schools ended pandemic virtual learning arrangements.
Overall, the nonpartisan center’s analysis of government data found that 40% of all K-12 students were chronically absent from schools. That’s down from a high of 48% in 2022-23, but still 11 percentage points higher than the last pre-pandemic rate of 29% in 2018-19…