Kids these days just aren’t getting perfect attendance like they used to. We can add that to the list of things that COVID got its grubby hands on. Before the pandemic, student attendance was at an all-time high in Washington. In the 2019-20 school year, fewer than 10% of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year, which translates to about two days a month or 18 days a year.