States / Alaska

Chronic absence in Alaska

Where things stand, what state rules ask of each role, and what is changing. For school and district leaders.

School year 2024-25

41%

of students were chronically absent¹

Chronically absent means miss 10 percent or more of the school year.¹

U.S. rate: 22.6% (2024-25)²

Alaska chronic absence by school year
School year	Chronically absent
2019-20	17%
2020-21	22%
2021-22	46%
2022-23	43%
2023-24	41%
2024-25	41%

Alaska chronic absence by school year

School year

Chronically absent

2019-20

17%

2020-21

22%

2021-22

46%

2022-23

43%

2023-24

41%

2024-25

41%

The numbers

By AEI's compilation of state-reported data, 41% of Alaska students were chronically absent in 2024-25, the same rate as in 2023-24¹.
That is down from a peak of 46% in 2021-22, but well above the 28% reported for 2018-19, before the pandemic¹.
News reporting of the state education department's own data puts the peak a little higher, at over 48% of students in the 2021 to 2022 school year, and says the rate has since dropped only slightly, to nearly 43%³.
State data cited in that reporting counted more than 44,000 students chronically absent from public schools in the prior school year³.
Gaps are wide: over 56% of Alaska Native/American Indian students were chronically absent, compared to nearly 35% of white students, and nearly 46% of students with disabilities and 51% of English language learners were chronically absent³.
Nationally, 22.6% of students were chronically absent in 2024-25, which AEI labels 2025; AEI lists Alaska among four states at 30 percent or higher that year².

What state rules ask of each role

Teachers

Each district must keep a cumulative record for every student that includes, at a minimum, attendance records⁷.
For the state's school ratings, a student is chronically absent after missing at least 10 percent of the days the student was enrolled in the school; the state education commissioner has described this as missing 17 days or more^6,3.

Counselors

The compulsory attendance rule does not apply to a child who has a physical or mental condition that a competent medical authority determines will make attendance impractical, or who is temporarily ill or injured⁴.
If a parent or guardian chooses to enroll a child who is six years of age in first grade at a public school, the child is subject to compulsory attendance after enrollment⁴.
If the parent or guardian determines, within 60 days after the child is enrolled, that the child's best interests are not being served by enrollment in the first grade, the child may be withdrawn from school, and the attendance rule does not apply until the child is seven years of age⁴.

Attendance team

Every child between seven and 16 years of age must attend public school in the district where the child lives during each school term, and parents must keep the child in attendance for the entire term, unless a listed exception applies⁴.
A person who knowingly fails to comply with the compulsory attendance law is guilty of a violation, and each five days of unlawful absence is a separate violation⁴.
Compulsory attendance does not apply to a child excused by action of the school board at a regular meeting, or by the district superintendent subject to approval by the school board at its next regular meeting⁴.

Principals & districts

Each school district's governing body, including a regional educational attendance area, must establish procedures to prevent and reduce truancy⁴.
A child is excused from compulsory attendance if equally well-served by an educational experience the school board approves as serving the child's educational interests, the parents or guardian request the excuse in writing, and the principal or administrator of the child's school approves it⁴.
Local school boards must adopt parent-involvement policies in consultation with parents, teachers and school administrators. The policies must include procedures ensuring that when a child is absent from an activity, class, program, or state-required standards-based assessment or test, the absence is not unlawful if the parent withdrew the child or gave permission for the absence. The policies may not allow a parent categorically to object to or withdraw a child from all activities, classes, programs, or standards-based assessments or tests required by the state, and must require a parent to object each time the parent wishes to withdraw the child⁵.
Each year, before a date the district sets, each public school must deliver to the state education department, for posting on its website, a report on the school's performance, including a description of its attendance, retention, dropout and graduation rates as specified by the state board, and present it in a public meeting of parents, students and community members⁵.
Each school must give that report, with a summary of public comments, to the district's governing body by a date the district sets, and by July 1 of each year each district must send the department its School District Report Card to the Public^5,6.

What changed lately

In January 2026, the Legislature's task force on education funding heard a presentation on chronic absence that used state education department data³.
Not law: the joint bipartisan task force is considering how to support districts in tackling chronic absenteeism, and a co-chair said she expects actionable recommendations by the start of the next legislative session in 2027³.

How the state holds schools to it

Chronic absenteeism is an indicator of school quality or student success in the Alaska school performance system for every school where attendance can be measured; correspondence schools and facilities where students are incarcerated are left out⁶.
An indicator is included in a school's score only if it meets the minimum number of students, which is ten. When a school does not meet it in the current school year in one or more indicators, the department will aggregate up to three years of available data to reach it, and the weighting of indicators that are not included is redistributed proportionally among the indicators with enough students⁶.
A school earns between zero and 100 points for the percentage of its students who are not chronically absent, counting students enrolled at the same school for at least half of the school term⁶.
School and district report cards show, for all students and each subgroup, the percentage not chronically absent for accountability, and for reporting the number and percentage chronically absent among students enrolled at least ten days in the school term. A report may not include this information if the number of students in a category is so small that the results would reveal personally identifiable information about an individual student⁶.
Report cards also show the attendance rate for all students and for each subgroup, subject to the same rule for categories too small to report without revealing personally identifiable information about an individual student, and each district must make sure parents know where to find the school and district report cards⁶.