The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has released data for the 2024-25 school year showing that statewide student attendance and chronic absenteeism rates remain largely unchanged from the previous year. The average daily attendance rate dropped slightly by 0.1% to 91.4%, while chronic absenteeism increased by 0.7% to reach 28.4%. Despite these overall trends, 60% of school districts and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) reported improved attendance, and 59% saw declines in chronic absenteeism.
Education Commissioner Susana Córdova stated: “Good attendance is a critical component for school and life success. We are concerned to see attendance and chronic absenteeism rates moving in the wrong direction, particularly for our students of color.”
Data from the department indicates that students of color continue to experience higher rates of chronic absenteeism compared to their white peers, with differences ranging from 6.2% to as much as 30.1%. Latino students had a chronic absenteeism rate of 38.4%, which is about 10 percentage points above the state average.
Cordova added: “In 2024-25, Colorado added 3,500 more chronically absent students compared to the year prior. These are more than data points. These are young people who are disengaged, disconnected, and missing out on the critical learning experiences that they need to be successful.
“This is a call to action for every single Coloradan: the future of our great state is created in our schools and classrooms today. We need everyone – students, parents, teachers, community partners, civic leaders – focused on keeping students engaged in learning and attending school regularly.”
The department noted some improvement among younger students; kindergarten through second grade saw small decreases in chronic absenteeism between 0.2% and 0.6%. However, grades three through twelve experienced increases.
More than one in four Colorado students were chronically absent during the past year—a factor associated with ongoing learning loss and an increased risk of falling behind or dropping out before graduation. In total, there were approximately 244,622 chronically absent students statewide in 2024-25—the third-highest number since data collection began in 2016.
For comparison, before the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2018-19 academic year, Colorado’s average daily attendance was higher at 92.3%, while its chronic absentee rate was lower at 22.5%.
To address these challenges, CDE launched the Every School Day Matters! campaign in early 2024 with a goal to cut chronic absenteeism by half from its pandemic peak by supporting schools across Colorado with resources aimed at improving attendance rates by https://www.cdeinfo.org/attendance . Commissioner Córdova said that reducing statewide chronic absenteeism to below https://www.cdeinfo.org/attendance is targeted for the upcoming years; specifically aiming for a rate of just under eighteen percent by the end of school year https://www.cdeinfo.org/attendance . So far forty-five schools and districts have joined this initiative.
Statewide information on student attendance trends as well as district-level truancy statistics can be found on CDE’s website at https://www.cdeinfo.org/attendance .
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