DENVER — Chronic absenteeism is dropping in schools across Colorado.
The state Department of Education's 2025-2026 annual attendance report showed a 27.5% chronic absenteeism rate for the state, a less than 1% drop from the prior year.
You can see the full story in the video below
Still, officials say it’s a positive sign of continued progress from the 2021-2022 rate of 34.5%.
Chronic absenteeism is when a student misses 10% or more of enrolled school days— counting both excused and unexcused absences. CDE estimates that more than one out of every four Colorado students can be considered chronically absent.
In 2024, the CDE launched their Every School Day Matters! Attendance Campaign which encourages schools and districts to sign up for their attendance challenge, allowing schools to share ideas on reducing absenteeism and giving access to educational resources.
The goal is to cut absenteeism to 50% of pandemic-era rates, and state officials say they’re seeing progress.
Boulder Valley School District is part of the campaign. District Director of Student Support Services Travis Durocher says the district joined in 2024.
“At that point we kind of really dove in and started looking at attendance and engagement and just having a better eye over students' attendance each day,” Durocher said.
The district has tracked that data, sending a team of attendance and engagement advocates to work with students that are chronically absent or headed that way.
“They will look at that data, identify the students,” Durocher explained. “They'll work directly with those families on understanding what's the root cause of that absenteeism, why are you not coming to school, and then looking at are there other ways that we can engage you.”
He said the reasons range from illness, to bullying, to students having to work cited as reasons for absenteeism.
“We've got a couple of different campuses like our alternative education campus where students can come for half a day and then work,” Durocher said. “So they look at different aspects of that and how they can get them re-engaged.”
While Boulder Valley School District’s chronic absenteeism rate actually rose 1.9% this year, it is still down from their 2021-2022 rate of 23.1%.
More than 60% of districts had steady rates or saw improvement in their chronic absenteeism rates this past year.
Still, there are a few problem areas: while every grade saw improvement in their absenteeism rates, high school students still boast highest rates. 30% of 7th through 10th graders are still considered chronically absent. 12th graders still have a rate over 40%.
CDE’s report also pointed out some student groups with a higher rate than the statewide average.
Multilingual students have a 37% rate, students with IEPs—or Individualized Education Programs— have a 34.9% rate and students who qualify for free and reduced lunch have a 38.6% rate.
Homeless students have the highest absenteeism rate of those vulnerable groups, sitting at 57.5%.
See the full report and find your school’s statistics here.
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what's right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.