States / Connecticut

Chronic absence in Connecticut

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

School year 2025-26

16.4%

of students were chronically absent¹

Chronically absent means missing 10 percent or greater of the total number of days enrolled in the school year, for any reason.²

U.S. rate: 22.6% (2024-25)⁴

Five-year trend

Connecticut, year by year

Connecticut chronic absence by school year
School year	Chronically absent
2018-19	10.4%
2021-22	23.7%
2022-23	20.0%
2023-24	17.7%
2024-25	17.2%
2025-26	16.4%

Dashed bars mark years the state did not publish a rate.

Where things stand

The numbers

In 2025-26, 16.4% of Connecticut students were chronically absent, the fourth straight yearly decline from a high of 23.7% in 2021-22^1,3.
The state says that means nearly 35,000 more students are attending school regularly¹.
The rate is still well above the pre-pandemic 2018-19 level of 10.4%².
In 2025-26, Grades 3, 4 and 5 had the lowest rates, each under 12%. Grade 9 improved most, falling from 20.7% to 19.1%, but rates remain highest among high school students¹.
Gaps are large: in 2024-25, 28.1% of students eligible for free lunch, 26.7% of students with disabilities and 23.8% of English learners/multilingual learners were chronically absent².
Connecticut's 2024-25 rate of 17.2% was below the 22.6% that AEI reports across reporting states for 2024-25, which AEI labels 2025^2,4.

Requirements by role

What state rules ask of each role

Teachers

Under State Board policy, a student is in attendance if present at the assigned school, or a school-sponsored activity such as a field trip, for at least half of the regular school day. A student serving an out-of-school suspension or expulsion should always be considered absent¹³.
Under the State Board's definitions, absences one through nine are excused when the parent or guardian approves the absence and submits appropriate documentation. The written documentation must come within ten school days of the student's return, or in accordance with the school health law on disease notices and exclusions (§ 10-210). State guidance lets schools extend that window, but only for absences with some documentation received within the 10 days, and by no more than an additional five days^13,14.
From the tenth absence on, an absence is excused only for the listed reasons: student illness verified by a licensed medical professional, a religious holiday, a death in the family or other emergency beyond the family's control, a mandated court appearance (with additional documentation), missing transportation normally provided by another district, or an extraordinary educational opportunity pre-approved by district administrators in line with state guidance¹³.
Boards must let students in kindergarten to grade twelve take two mental health wellness days a school year, never on consecutive school days. State guidance says these should always be excused when parent or guardian permission is documented, should be left out of truancy reporting and referrals, and do count toward chronic absence^8,9.
A child aged five to eighteen, enrolled in a public or private school, whose parent or legal guardian is an active duty member of the armed forces and has been called to duty for, is on leave from, or has just returned from deployment to a combat zone or combat support posting must be granted ten days of excused absences in any school year, plus more at the board's discretion, to visit that parent or guardian; the child and parent must get assignments from the teacher beforehand and see that they are done before the child returns⁵.

Counselors

Since July 1, 2023, district truancy policies must require an appropriate school mental health specialist, as defined in section 12 of Public Act 22-47, to evaluate each truant child to determine if additional behavioral health interventions are necessary for the child's well-being⁵.
District truancy policies must include telling the parent of a truant child about the 2-1-1 Infoline program and other pediatric mental and behavioral health screening services and tools⁵.
District truancy policies must include coordinating services with, and referring children to, community agencies that provide child and family services⁵.
Starting with the school year that began July 1, 2023, a student aged eighteen or older may withdraw from school by signing a withdrawal form in person at the district office. The form must include an attestation from a guidance counselor, school counselor or school administrator that the district gave information on educational options¹⁰.
A parent may withdraw a child aged seventeen to enroll in an adult education program, by signing an adult education withdrawal and enrollment form in person at the district office. The form must include an attestation from a school counselor or school administrator that the district gave information on educational options, and the parent's attestation that the child will enroll in adult education¹⁰.

Attendance team

A truant is a child aged five to eighteen, enrolled in a public or private school, with four unexcused absences in any one month or ten in any school year. District truancy policies must include a meeting with the truant child's parent and appropriate school staff to review and evaluate the reasons, held no later than ten school days after the fourth unexcused absence in a month or the tenth in a school year⁵.
District truancy policies must include a system to monitor unexcused absences in kindergarten to grade eight: when a child in those grades misses a regularly scheduled school day and school staff have no sign the parent knows, school staff or volunteers they direct must make a reasonable effort to notify the parent by telephone and by mail. Anyone who gives or fails to give this notice in good faith is immune from civil or criminal liability⁵.
A board must set up an attendance review team for the district if its district chronic absenteeism rate is ten percent or higher, and at a school whose rate is fifteen percent or higher. If more than one school is at fifteen percent or higher, or the district is at ten percent or higher and one or more schools are at fifteen percent or higher, the board must set one up for the district or at each such school. Both rates are based on the previous school year⁶.
Attendance review teams may include administrators, guidance and school counselors, social workers, teachers and community program staff. Each team must review the cases of truants and chronically absent children, discuss school interventions and community referrals, make any added recommendations, and meet at least monthly⁶.
Boards may appoint attendance officers, who can prosecute attendance law violations. They are sworn, work under the principal or superintendent, investigate absences, get absent students to attend regularly, and present cases needing prosecution to prosecutors¹¹.

Principals & districts

Each local and regional board of education must adopt and carry out truancy policies and procedures; boards may go beyond the state minimum. These rules do not apply to a child receiving equivalent instruction elsewhere⁵.
Every year at the start of school, and whenever a child enrolls during the year, district policies must include notifying parents of children in kindergarten to grade eight in writing of their obligations under the compulsory attendance law (§ 10-184), and getting a telephone number or other way to reach the parent during the school day⁵.
By August 15, 2018, district truancy policies had to include a state-identified truancy intervention model in any school with a disproportionately high truancy rate, as the Commissioner determines. By September 1, 2023, they had to adopt and carry out the state's truancy intervention model that accounts for mental and behavioral health, or a similar plan that meets all of that model's requirements⁵.
The State Board defines excused, unexcused and disciplinary absence for districts to use in carrying out truancy policies, reporting truancy and calculating chronic absenteeism rates; districts may keep separate definitions for internal uses such as grading^7,13.
Each board must send the state an annual strategic school profile report for each school, each alternative education school or program, and the district as a whole, including the number of truants and chronically absent children. The superintendent presents it at the next regular public board meeting after each November first¹².

Recent changes

What changed lately

Since July 1, 2023, district truancy policies must require an evaluation of each truant child by an appropriate school mental health specialist, and by September 1, 2023, boards had to adopt a truancy intervention model that accounts for mental and behavioral health⁵.
Effective July 1, 2026, Public Act 25-168 puts the state's home-visit attendance program into law. Beginning in fiscal year 2027, subject to funding, the state will award grants for home visits, with priority to districts with the highest chronic absence, to at least ten districts in any year it awards them¹⁵.
The state must report on the home-visit program's implementation starting no later than December 31, 2028¹⁵.

Accountability

How the state holds schools to it

Chronic absenteeism is an indicator in Connecticut's Next Generation Accountability System, measured for all students and for students with high needs^2,16.
Schools and districts earn all available points on this indicator if the rate is 5% or less, and none if it is 30% or greater¹⁶.
For a district, the indicator is worth up to 100 of the 1450 points in the accountability index; at the school level, the available indicators and points vary by grades served¹⁶.
In 2024-25, the statewide indicator stood at 17.2% for all students and 24.8% for students with high needs².
The state did not report accountability results for 2019-20 and 2020-21 because of the pandemic².
The state also tracks and reports attendance monthly on a public attendance dashboard².

What’s working

Efforts with results

University researchers studied the state's home-visit program for chronically absent students across 15 districts, where 8,690 students received visits¹⁷.
Outside New Haven, attendance rates rose about four percentage points in the month after the first visit¹⁷.
For students visited during 2021-22, the average gain reached nearly 15 percentage points in the 6 months or more after the visit¹⁷.
In New Haven, which did not run the program as designed, the visits appeared to have no impact on attendance¹⁷.

Working on chronic absence in Connecticut?

Agenteach helps counselors, teachers, and attendance teams follow up with students who are missing school, and keeps a record of every step.

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Sources

Connecticut State Department of Education. Connecticut Test Scores and Attendance Continue to Improve (press release) (opens in a new tab) (2026-08-31)
Connecticut State Department of Education. Condition of Education, 2024-25 (opens in a new tab) (2025-26)
Connecticut State Department of Education. Connecticut Students See Gains in Test Scores and Attendance (press release) (opens in a new tab) (2025-08-28)
American Enterprise Institute. From Attendance Crisis to Chronic Condition? Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2025 (opens in a new tab) (2026-06-30)
Connecticut General Statutes (via FindLaw). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-198a. Policies and procedures concerning truants (current as of January 01, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-01-01)
Connecticut General Statutes (via FindLaw). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-198c. Attendance review teams (current as of January 01, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-01-01)
Connecticut General Statutes (via FindLaw). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-198b. State Board of Education to define “excused absence”, “unexcused absence” and “disciplinary absence” (current as of January 01, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-01-01)
Connecticut General Statutes (via FindLaw). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-198f. Mental health wellness days (current as of January 01, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-01-01)
Connecticut State Department of Education. Mental Health Wellness Days (memo to superintendents) (opens in a new tab) (2022-01-24)
Connecticut General Statutes (via FindLaw). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-184. Duties of parents. School attendance age requirements (current as of January 01, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-01-01)
Connecticut General Statutes (via FindLaw). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-199. Attendance officers. Duties (current as of January 01, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-01-01)
Connecticut General Statutes (via FindLaw). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-220. Duties of boards of education (current as of January 01, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-01-01)
Connecticut State Board of Education / State Department of Education. Guidelines for Implementation of the Definitions of Excused and Unexcused Absences (April 2013), incl. Attachment A: State Board of Education Definitions of Excused and Unexcused Absences, adopted June 27, 2012 (opens in a new tab) (2013-05-15)
Connecticut General Statutes (via FindLaw). Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-210. Notice of disease to be given parent or guardian (current as of January 01, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-01-01)
Shipman & Goodwin LLP (law firm legislative summary; statute text on cga.ct.gov not reachable). 2025 Education Legislation Summary (opens in a new tab) (2025)
Connecticut State Department of Education (EdSight). Next Generation Accountability System: Indicator Overview (table columns: indicator, brief explanation, max points for a district) (opens in a new tab) (undated (accessed 2026-10-13))
Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration (researchers from Wesleyan University, Central Connecticut State University and the University of Connecticut). An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Home Visits for Re-Engaging Students Who Were Chronically Absent in the Era of Covid-19 (opens in a new tab) (2022-12-31)