States / Ohio

Chronic absence in Ohio

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

School year 2025-26

23.9%

of students were chronically absent¹

Chronically absent means missed 10% or more of their possible attendance hours, for any reason.²

U.S. rate: 22.6% (2024-25)⁹

Five-year trend

Ohio, year by year

Ohio chronic absence by school year
School year	Chronically absent
2018-19	not published
2021-22	30.2%
2022-23	26.8%
2023-24	25.6%
2024-25	25.1%
2025-26	23.9%

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

Where things stand

The numbers

In 2025-26, 23.9% of Ohio students were chronically absent, down from 25.1% the year before. It was the fourth straight yearly decline³.
That is well below the 30.2% of 2021-22, but still far above 2018-19, when the rate was just shy of 17 percent^4,6.
In 2024-25, about a fourth of Ohio students, roughly 400,000, were chronically absent⁶.
Students with disabilities continue to have higher absence rates than their peers, the state reports⁷.
Chronic absence was above 50 percent in nine districts in 2025-26, including Cleveland, Columbus, Lorain and Youngstown⁸.
Nationally, 22.6% of students were chronically absent in 2024-25, below Ohio's 25.1% that year^9,6.

Requirements by role

What state rules ask of each role

Teachers

When a child of compulsory school age withdraws from school, the child's teacher must find out why and send the withdrawal and the reason to the superintendent right away¹⁰.
If the child left because the family moved, the notice must include the new residence¹⁰.
State guidance says late arrivals and early departures are missed hours: they count toward chronic absence and, if unexcused, toward habitual truancy¹¹.
State guidance says students taking part in co-curricular activities should be marked present¹¹.

Counselors

Each district's absence policy must set up a tiered system with more intensive interventions and supports for students with more absences, including resources to help students and families address the root causes¹².
A district or school may partner with public, nonprofit or private groups to help students and families reduce absences¹².

Attendance team

Within one hundred twenty minutes after each school day begins, the attendance officer, a building's assistant, or another person the officer designates to take attendance must make at least one attempt to contact the parent of any student absent without legitimate excuse as of the start of that day¹⁵.
The contact can be a phone call, an automated call through a system that verifies each call was placed and that the call was either answered by its intended recipient or left a voicemail relaying the required information, a notice through the school's student information system, a text, an email, a home visit, or another method the board adopts. It is not needed if the parent contacts the school about the absence first, within that window, and it does not apply to students in home-based or online instruction or away for off-campus activities such as College Credit Plus¹⁵.
Each district policy must provide for one or more absence intervention teams to work with students at risk of becoming chronically absent, and their families. Since September 30, 2025, these teams are not required for habitually truant students^12,11.
At the request of the superintendent or school board, or when a case otherwise comes to their notice, the attendance officer (or other appropriate officer) must look into supposed truancy and warn a truant child and the parent in writing of the legal consequences. When a child of compulsory school age is not attending school in violation of law, the officer must notify the parent of that fact and require the parent to have the child attend school immediately. If the parent does not, the officer, if directed by the superintendent or board, must send notice requiring the parent to attend a parental education program, and may file a complaint against the parent¹⁶.
The attendance officer must file a juvenile court complaint against a student absent without legitimate excuse for thirty or more consecutive hours, forty-two or more hours in one school month, or seventy-two or more hours in a school year. But the officer must not file if the district or school determines the student and family are making satisfactory progress; if no such determination is made, or progress stops, the officer must file¹⁷.

Principals & districts

Each district board must adopt a policy to address student absences by August 1, 2026, after consulting the county juvenile court, parents and appropriate state and local agencies¹².
The policy must recognize that absences for any reason, excused or unexcused, cut into learning; name strategies to prevent chronic absence; and set procedures to notify parents after a number of hours set by the board, which may not exceed five per cent of the state's minimum hours for the school year¹².
Those minimums are four hundred fifty-five hours for kindergarten that is not all-day, nine hundred ten hours for all-day kindergarten and grades one through six, and one thousand one hours for grades seven through twelve. State guidance says the notice point is about 45-50 hours, depending on grade. That shorthand does not fit kindergarten that is not all-day, whose minimum is four hundred fifty-five hours; for every student, the legal limit is five per cent of the minimum hours for the student's school^14,11,12.
The policy must bar suspending, expelling or otherwise keeping students out of school because of their absences, as a separate law sets out: no suspension, expulsion or removal solely on the basis of absences without legitimate excuse. It must also align with any other district or school improvement plan^12,13.
When a child of compulsory school age withdraws for a reason other than a move or home education, and is not enrolled in and attending an approved diploma program, the superintendent must notify the juvenile judge in writing within two weeks¹⁰.

Recent changes

What changed lately

Under House Bill 96, Ohio attendance law changed on September 30, 2025. It shifted from a focus on unexcused absences to early help for students at risk of becoming chronically absent^12,18.
The law dropped the term "excessively absent", including the duty to notify families when a student missed 38 hours in a month or 65 hours in a year of unexcused or nonmedically excused absences¹⁸.
Habitually truant students no longer must have an absence intervention team or plan. The truancy definition and the duty to file in juvenile court stayed¹⁸.
Every district board had to adopt a new absence policy by August 1, 2026¹².
On April 15, 2026, the state announced a public attendance dashboard at attendance.ohio.gov with data updated weekly. Districts are not required to submit data to it¹⁹.

Accountability

How the state holds schools to it

State law, as amended effective October 9, 2026, requires the education department to set a performance indicator that measures chronic absenteeism in each district and school building²⁰.
The Chronic Absenteeism Improvement Indicator contributes up to five points to the report card's Gap Closing component².
A district or school meets the indicator by reaching the annual goal, which is 14.5% or lower for 2025-26, or by improving enough on the previous year².
Enough improvement means a 3 percent cut in the rate when last year's rate was below 36.7%, or a 1.1 percentage point cut when it was 36.7% or higher².
Ohio's long-term goal is a 5% chronic absenteeism rate by 2030-31; the state also aims to halve the share of chronically absent students, to 12.8%, by the end of 2028-29^2,1.
The report card rate counts students with at least 100 hours of possible attendance. It is calculated differently from the new legal definition of chronically absent, which is based on the state's minimum hours^2,18.

What’s working

Efforts with results

The state spotlights East Cleveland, where attendance is a core part of the district's recovery plan. Its chronic absence rate fell from 63.5 to 53.2 percent between 2023-24 and 2024-25^22,6.

Working on chronic absence in Ohio?

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

Book time Become a pilot school

Sources

Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Summary of Ohio School Report Cards 2025-2026, Student Wellness page (chart lists years newest first: 2025-2026 = 23.9%, 2021-2022 = 30.2%) (opens in a new tab) (2026-09-15)
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Student Absenteeism and Attendance Technical Documentation, 2025-2026 School Year (chronic absenteeism definition) (opens in a new tab) (2026-04-01)
Spectrum News 1 (Columbus). Ohio report cards show progress, but challenges remain (opens in a new tab) (2026-09-16)
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Ohio School & District Results 2022-2023 (state report card summary) (opens in a new tab) (2023)
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Summary of Ohio School Report Cards 2023-2024 (opens in a new tab) (2024)
Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Ohio still hasn't solved its chronic absenteeism problem (opens in a new tab) (2025-09-30)
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Summary of Ohio School Report Cards 2024-2025, Student Wellness page (opens in a new tab) (2025-09)
Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Fordham Institute statement on Ohio school report cards (opens in a new tab) (2026-09-15)
American Enterprise Institute (Nat Malkus). From Attendance Crisis to Chronic Condition? Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2025 (opens in a new tab) (2026-06-30)
Ohio Legislative Service Commission (Ohio Laws). Ohio Revised Code 3321.13 (effective April 9, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (April 9, 2025)
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Ohio Attendance Law FAQs (tardies and early departures) (opens in a new tab) (2025-08)
Ohio Legislative Service Commission (Ohio Laws). Ohio Revised Code 3321.191 (effective September 30, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (September 30, 2025)
Ohio Legislative Service Commission (Ohio Laws). Ohio Revised Code 3313.668 (effective April 8, 2019) (opens in a new tab) (April 8, 2019)
Ohio Legislative Service Commission (Ohio Laws). Ohio Revised Code 3313.48 (effective October 24, 2024) (opens in a new tab) (October 24, 2024)
Ohio Legislative Service Commission (Ohio Laws). Ohio Revised Code 3321.141 (effective April 4, 2023) (opens in a new tab) (April 4, 2023)
Ohio Legislative Service Commission (Ohio Laws). Ohio Revised Code 3321.19 (effective September 30, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (September 30, 2025)
Ohio Legislative Service Commission (Ohio Laws). Ohio Revised Code 3321.16 (effective September 30, 2025) (opens in a new tab) (September 30, 2025)
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Overview of Attendance Law Updates and Local Implementation Considerations (August 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-08)
WYSO / Statehouse News Bureau. Ohio launches tool for parents, taxpayers to track public school absenteeism (opens in a new tab) (2026-04-15)
Ohio Legislative Service Commission (Ohio Laws). Ohio Revised Code 3302.02 (effective October 9, 2026) (opens in a new tab) (October 9, 2026)
Battelle (manager of the Stay in the Game! Attendance Network), press release. Stay in the Game! Member Districts Show Progress Keeping Students in School (opens in a new tab) (2024-10-31)
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Stay in the Game! (Attendance Champ Spotlight: East Cleveland City Schools) (opens in a new tab) (2026)