Here's how much school Wisconsin students missed last school year

Data published on Thursday show school attendance rebounded slightly in Wisconsin after dropping in the first two years of the pandemic.

Here's a look at the numbers.

What was Wisconsin's school attendance rate in the 2022-23 school year?

In the 2022-23 school year, Wisconsin students collectively attended about 92% of total school days, according to public school data from the state Department of Public Instruction.

That's up slightly from a 91% attendance rate in the 2021-22 school year, a low point for attendance. Before the pandemic, the statewide attendance rate was about 94%.

How many Wisconsin students were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year?

About 20% of Wisconsin students were considered chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year. That's down from 23% the prior year, but still above pre-pandemic levels of about 13%.

Students are counted as chronically absent if they miss over 10% of school days.

What is the attendance data for Milwaukee Public Schools?

Students at Milwaukee Public Schools collectively attended about 82% of school days in the 2022-23 school year, data show. That's up from about 79% the prior year but below the pre-pandemic rate of 87%.

About 50% of MPS students were considered chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year for missing over 10% of school days. That's down from 58% the prior year but still higher than the pre-pandemic level of 37%.

MPS classes were virtual for most of the 2020-21 school year. Throughout the 2021-22 school year, the district closed individual schools temporarily during COVID outbreaks. The 2022-23 school year was the first since the start of the pandemic without COVID-related closures.

MPS officials have said attendance continued to improve this fall, though official data for this school year won't be released until next March. In November, the district reported the attendance rate for the school year at that point was about 86%. and about 39% of students had been chronically absent.

Why has school attendance been so low since the pandemic?

The pandemic caused a range of challenges for students that are still being accounted for. Students have fallen ill, lost loved ones, had to care for siblings, struggled to get to school, endured isolation and mental health challenges, watched family members lose jobs and gotten jobs themselves.

A Stanford University study published last year found that youth assessed in the two years after the onset of the pandemic showed more severe mental health problems and advanced brain aging, as compared to youth assessed before the pandemic.

In a fall 2021 survey, about 52% of Wisconsin high school students said that in the past year they had significant problems with feeling very anxious, nervous, tense, scared or like something bad was going to happen. At the same time, students were also less likely to say they were able to get the emotional support they needed — especially students of color and LGBT students.

Also on that survey, about 54% of Wisconsin high school students said they knew at least one person who was hospitalized or killed by COVID.

About 25% of Wisconsin high school students said their parent or another adult in their home lost their job during the pandemic, out of those whose parent or other adult had a job before the pandemic.

At the same time, about half of Wisconsin high school students said they worked jobs during the pandemic. About 37% of Milwaukee County high school students said they worked at least one hour per week, including 10% who worked 10-19 hours per week, and 7% over 20 hours per week.

When an October Wisconsin Policy Forum report found about 1% of Wisconsin students seemed to be missing from school headcounts, researchers said some of them might have fully dropped out of school or been absent so often that they weren't counted by their schools on any of the headcount days.

Those researchers did point to one program they said has helped and could continue to help: ENGAGE Wisconsin. State lawmakers used $5 million of pandemic relief funds to contract with Graduation Alliance to support chronically absent students in school districts that opt into it. School districts have called on state lawmakers for more resources to engage students, particularly as federal pandemic relief funds will expire.

How do I find the attendance rate for my school district?

You can find attendance rates for any school district or public school on WISEdash, a website run by the state Department of Public Instruction. Data can be filtered by school, year and demographics.

Contact Rory Linnane at rory.linnane@jrn.com. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @RoryLinnane. 

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Here's how much school Wisconsin students missed last school year