Districts across Wisconsin saw students struggle with regular attendance in the years after transitioning back from virtual learning during the pandemic.
There’s a plethora of reasons why a student may miss school, but mental health has increasingly become a barrier to students showing up each day.
Almost half of high schoolers in the Appleton Area School District were chronically absent meaning they missed at least 10% of school — about 18 days — in the 2021-22 school year. That number improved significantly last year, but the district said attendance is still a priority.
For the 2021-22 school year, almost 23% — roughly a quarter — of all students statewide were chronically absent, according to the most current data from the state Department of Public Instruction.