Strategic StudentAre we on pace to hit our attendance goal?
Chronic absenteeism peaked in 2021-22 and most schools set a goal to bring it down. This tool compares the pace you need against the pace you're on, then translates the gap into the number that matters: how many students it represents. No PII. No login. Everything runs in your browser.
Enter your rates and your goal
No PIIThe national peak year. If you don't know yours, the U.S. average was 28%.
Your latest full-year rate and the school year it comes from.
Turns percentage points into actual students.
Your pace check will appear here
Fill in your peak rate, your most recent rate, and your enrollment above. We'll compare the pace you need against the pace you're on.
The road to the goal
Solid teal is the road you've traveled since the 2022 peak. From today, dashed gold is the pace the goal demands, and the dotted line is where your current pace lands.
The human number
Keep in mind
How this works
Chronic absenteeism means a student missed 10% or more of their enrolled days, which is about 18 days in a typical 180-day year. It counts absences of every kind: excused, unexcused, and suspensions. A student out for two days a month all year is chronically absent, even if every absence had a note.
The halve-by-2027 goal comes from the national response to the post-pandemic spike. The U.S. rate roughly doubled to 28% in 2021-22, and researchers and advocates rallied around a clear target: cut chronic absenteeism to half its 2022 level by 2027. Eighteen states have formally adopted it.
The pace math is simple on purpose. The pace you need is the distance from your current rate to your target, divided by the school years you have left. The pace you're on is how far you've come down from your 2022 peak, divided by the years since. If the pace you're on matches or beats the pace you need, you're on track. Sources: Attendance Works, The Problem; AEI, From Attendance Crisis to Chronic Condition (2025); Return to Learn Tracker.
A pace chart moves when students feel noticed, welcomed, and needed at school. The math just tells you how many students are waiting for that to happen.