Post-Pandemic Attendance in Philadelphia Schools
In this Leading Indicator, we analyze data from the School District of Philadelphia on student attendance, absenteeism, and benchmark it against national data to ascertain whether the School District of Philadelphia’s (SDP) absenteeism and attendance rates are reflective of national trends or not.
Chronic absenteeism, a key indicator of school performance and student academic opportunity, is defined by the U.S. Department of Education as missing 15 or more days in a school year (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2016). This equates to approximately 10% of a typical 180-day academic year. According to the same report, students who meet this threshold are at higher risk of falling behind academically, highlighting the importance of regular school attendance.
Nationally, rates of chronic absenteeism rose substantially among public school students since before the Covid-19 pandemic. The proportion of chronically absent students increased by 15% from 2016 to 2021, reaching 26% of all public-school students [1]. Research has consistently shown that absenteeism rates tend to be higher in larger and poorer school districts [2]. Students facing poverty or housing insecurity often encounter numerous obstacles in getting to school regularly, such as unreliable transportation, health issues, or family responsibilities [3]. These challenges can contribute to higher rates of chronic absenteeism in urban and low-income areas.
Furthermore, a study by the American Educational Research Association found that districts that spent more time in remote learning during the pandemic experienced higher increases in chronic absenteeism [4]. Specifically, for every additional week of remote instruction, the chronic absence rate increased by 0.21 percentage points [4]. This suggests lasting effects of the pandemic on student attendance, possibly due to rising anxiety among young students and changing parent attitudes about the importance of in-person instruction [1].
It is important to note that while these national trends provide context, local factors can significantly influence absenteeism rates in specific school districts like Philadelphia. Analyzing Philadelphia's data considering these national trends offers a chance to identify the city's unique challenges and opportunities for improving student attendance.
What You Need to Know:
- As of the 2022-2023 school year, the percentage of Philadelphia students attending at least 95% of school days is 37.6%, a ten-year low. In comparison, in 2018-2019, the last full year before the pandemic, 47.6% of students attended 95% of school days.
- Additionally, 36.6% of students were considered chronically absent, missing at least 10% of school days, while 15.2% missed at least 20% of school days.
- The 2022-2023 attendance rates were reported to be the lowest amongst high-school students, as well as Black, Latino, and American Indian students.
Attendance Rates by Student Age Group: Philadelphia schools maintained steady attendance patterns for a decade, with middle schools leading, until COVID-19 disrupted this trend, driving elementary and middle school attendance to ten-year lows.
Longitudinal attendance data for the SDP illustrates the percentage of students attending at least 95% of instructional days each year. While this metric does not reflect the definition of chronic absenteeism, it still provides a useful depiction of year-over-year trends1.
Figure 1 illustrates the percentage of students in elementary, middle, and high schools meeting the 95% or more attendance rate over the last ten years. Note that both the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years reflect anomalous attendance records - the attendance data for 2019-2020 only captures in-person attendance through March 2020, while the 2020-2021 data captures attendance from a hybrid schedule [5].
Data shows that the three school groups follow similar trendlines, with middle schools maintaining the highest percentage and high schools the lowest percentage of students with high attendance. The atypical peak in high school attendance in 2020-2021 may be reflective of different methods of capturing virtual attendance. For all three school groups, attendance rates in 2021-2022 fell below pre-pandemic levels, reaching a ten-year low for elementary and middle schools.
Race and Attendance: Racial disparities in Philadelphia school attendance persisted and worsened post-pandemic, with Black and Latino students experiencing the lowest attendance rates.
Figure 2 illustrates the same year-over-year data on attendance, aggregated by race or ethnicity. As above, most groups follow a similar path of improving attendance rates between 2013-2014 and 2020-2021 before a large drop in 2021-2022. Notably, of all groups shown in the data, only Black students had a decreasing attendance rate from the in-person portion of 2019-2020 to the hybrid year of 2020-2021. Overall, Asian, and White students have consistently held the highest attendance rates, while Black and Latino students have held the lowest.
Excluding the partially or completely remote school years of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, we draw a comparison between 2018-2019 and 2021-2022 to see the effects of the pandemic. Overall, the percentage of students attending at least 95% of instructional days fell by 11 percentage points over the three-year period. There was an even larger decrease in students meeting this attendance metric amongst American Indian (by 24%), Black (by 13%), Latino (by 13%), and Pacific Islander (by 16%) students. In comparison, national estimates indicate that chronic absenteeism increased from 14% to 29% between 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 [6], a 15-percentage point change. However, chronic absenteeism amongst Black students rose by 20 percentage points, increasing from 19% to 39%, and chronic absenteeism amongst Hispanic students rose by 21 percentage points, from 15% to 36%. In contrast, chronic absenteeism rose by only 13 percentage points for white students and 9 percentage points for Asian students.
Latest nuanced trends in Chronic Absenteeism: Chronic absenteeism in Philadelphia schools spiked post-pandemic, reaching 39.5% in 2021-2022, before slightly decreasing to 36.6% in 2022-2023; all mirroring the pattern seen at a National Level.
While the District’s archived attendance data only illustrates the metric explored above, more detailed data is available for the most recent school years. Figure 3 shows the percentage of students who met different ranges of attendance over the last three years. Here, the uppermost bracket aligns with the metric shown in Figures 1-2, the percentage of students attending at least 95% of school days. Chronically absent students are represented by the lower three brackets.
Figure 3 indicates that a total of 28.5% of students were chronically absent in 2020-2021, the hybrid school year with anomalously high overall attendance. The chronic absenteeism rate then rose sharply to 39.5% in 2021-2022 as schools fully reopened, before falling slightly to 36.6% in 2022-2023. This trend reflects the complex transitional challenges faced by students and families as they navigated the evolving phases of the pandemic and the return to in-person schooling. At the same time, it is critical to note that the magnitude of absenteeism is much larger than what has been observed at a national level, calling for an urgent need for a more in-depth investigation.
Conclusion
Philadelphia public schools’ low attendance rates reflect recent national trends. As a large city with 23% of the population living below the poverty line [7], Philadelphia is especially likely to exhibit impacts of the pandemic on school attendance. The data reveals persistent racial disparities in attendance rates, with Black and Latino students consistently showing lower attendance. The pandemic has exacerbated these disparities, highlighting the need for targeted interventions.
Sources
[1] New York Times. (2024). Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere
[2] Attendance Works & Everyone Graduates Center. (2017). "Portraits of Change: Aligning School and Community Resources to Reduce Chronic Absence."
[3] Urban Institute. (2022). "Student Absenteeism: Who Misses School and How Missing School Matters for Performance."
[4] American Educational Research Association. (2023). "The Pandemic's Effect on School Attendance: A Research Synthesis."
[5] The School District of Philadelphia. (2021). District Officially Rings the Bell to Open the 2021-2022 School Year
[6] American Enterprise Institute. (2024). Long Covid for Public Schools
[7] Pew. (2023). Philadelphia 2023: The State of the City