ATLANTA — The closure of schools during COVID-19 caused a massive downshift in attendance as nearly one in four Georgia students simply stopped attending class, double the rate before the pandemic.
Fewer students are routinely cutting class now, but one in five were still deemed “chronically absent” last school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year, typically 180 days.
The problem has caught the attention of state lawmakers.
“That’s 360,000 school children in our public school systems in Georgia that are chronically absent, meaning they are missing 18 days or more of the school year,” said Sen. John F. Kennedy, RMacon. “They’re not going to learn to read. If they don’t learn to read, they’re not going to be literate. They’re not going to graduate, and they don’t have a chance at the Georgia Dream and the American Dream.”
Kennedy is leading a study committee on this “quiet crisis,” as he called it. That illustrates just how serious the Senate thinks it is. Kennedy was until recently the highest ranking senator, but stepped down as president pro tempore to run next year for lieutenant governor, the statewide officer who presides over the Senate.
And the Georgia House of Representatives has its own study committee on the issue.
Many states and school leaders deemphasized attendance during the worst of the pandemic. By the 2020-21 school year, 31 states and the District of Columbia had reinstated daily attendance- taking, but Georgia was not among them.
The state required attendance to be taken but not on a daily basis, the nonprofit initiative Attendance Works reported in 2021.
There is a wealth of data about the impact of missing school, starting with academic performance.
In 2024, nearly half of Georgia students who took a Georgia Milestones test in English and math scored at least proficient, but only one in four chronically absent students made that mark in English and just one in five in math.
Chronically absent students are at greater risk of dropping out, which leads to unemployment, lower lifetime earnings, and even a shorter life.
Lawmakers were given multiple reasons for the increase in absenteeism.
Students are tired because they are working a job to help the family or are effectively raising younger siblings, in some cases because a parent died or was incapacitated during the pandemic. They are falling ill and lack health care. They cannot see or hear well and lack resources for health screenings.
