Chronic absenteeism is a critically important issue in high school education. Attendance has long been a key indicator of engagement, while international and Canadian research consistently show it is highly predictive of beneficial long-term outcomes such as higher graduation rates and access to post-secondary education.
Across Canada, absenteeism rates have been surging for years, forcing governments and school boards to try to find a way to reduce them. For example, only 40 per cent of teens met the attendance standard for high school in Ontario in the 2024-25 school year.
That prompted Paul Calandra, the provincial minister of Education, to launch a plan to address the problem by tying a percentage of Grade 11 and 12 marks to attendance.
Absenteeism is rising, but the old pattern is changing
That’s problematic because it is disconnected from the evidence about the causes of absenteeism or effective interventions. It also falls short because the reasons for absenteeism are complex and reflect an interdependent mix of child, family, school and peer factors.
Recently, though, the long-standing direct relationship between absenteeism and graduation rates seems to be weakening. It’s not clear why but the data indicate governments may need to shift their approach to deal effectively with the problem.
There has been little research on the impact of steeply rising absenteeism on students’ broader academic progress.
Our team was particularly concerned about the possibility that if historical relationships between absenteeism and graduation rates hold, we could see the progress of the past decades on getting students to graduation wiped out.
To investigate, we compared data on students in a large urban school board in Ontario between the academic year 2011-12, when absenteeism rates first began to go up, and 2023-24.
We found there was a dramatic increase in absenteeism that continued past the immediate disruptions of COVID-19. For example, the overall percentage of students with extremely high absenteeism of at least three days a month more than doubled to 22.7 per cent from 9.2 per cent.
However, the school board’s rich demographic data provided the first recent Canadian confirmation that high absenteeism was not evenly distributed across the student population.
Students with individual education plans (IEPs) – often a proxy for disability – were far more likely to be absent. In 2023-24, 49 per cent of Grade 12 students with an IEP were absent more than 15 per cent of days, compared to 35 per cent of students without one.
Students in the schools with the most social challenges – i.e., low-income families with lower parental education levels – were almost twice as likely to be absent as students in the schools with the fewest challenges.
As we see in the blue line in Figure 1, there was a strong relationship in 2011-12 between the number of days missed in Grade 12 and whether a student graduated. More than 90 per cent of students missing only one day of school graduated. Only about 20 per cent of those missing 30 days graduated.
Missing school no longer predicts graduation
But that pattern changed dramatically for students missing a lot of high school in 2023-24. As shown with the orange line in Figure 1, almost two-thirds of students missing 30 days graduated. That is an enormous change. There was still a relationship between absenteeism and graduation, but it was substantially weakened.
What accounts for the change? The data do not provide answers but give us some clues.
First, there has been a major increase in overall graduation rates during the past decade or more – to 84 per cent from 73 per cent. These gains reflect the success of complex student success initiatives including identifying students and groups at risk, dedicated staff working on re-engagement, new virtual tools and curriculum initiatives such as de-streaming, dual credit or high skills majors.
Students themselves may also recognize the importance of graduation for their hopes of success in the future economy and their goals may have shifted. Historically, those factors that influenced greater absenteeism ultimately increased rates of dropping out, but current trends show a weakened connection.
Second, widely reported issues around grade inflation may also make a difference. Absenteeism is associated with lower marks. In our data, among those with failing marks, the mean absenteeism rate was 43 per cent in 2022-23, compared to nine per cent for those in the A range.
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But as mean grades increase, more students who used to get Ds get Cs and so on. As such, a greater portion of students are now receiving higher grades and fewer students are in the grade range associated with higher absenteeism.
Because grade inflation has led to higher graduation rates, the usefulness of the latter as a predictor of student success in post-secondary education and/or the workforce is weakening because grade inflation is artificial and doesn’t necessarily reflect stronger understanding and academic success.
Despite this, increased grades are leading to increased attendance and indicate increased engagement, which is key because students can’t benefit from schooling if they aren’t there.
Punishment won’t solve the attendance problem
Effective, well-resourced system-level and school-level policies can make a difference in addressing the problem, including timely data, academic catch-up for those who have fallen behind and safe, welcoming schools, as well as factors such as high-engagement activities (arts, sports and clubs.)
Given that specific high school populations, such as students who have IEPs and students with social challenges, are at a higher risk of attendance issues, it is imperative that supports are directed to these students to aid in greater academic engagement.
Above all, common messaging, emphasizing the importance of showing up – and a shift away from punishment and blame – are critical.
