Flerentin “Flex” Jean-Baptiste missed so much school he had to repeat his freshman year at Medford High outside Boston. At school, “you do the same thing every day,” said Jean-Baptiste, who was absent 30 days his first year. “That gets very frustrating.” Then his principal did something nearly unheard of: She embraced a possible solution to chronic absenteeism, letting students play organized sports during lunch — if they attended all their classes. In other words, she offered high schoolers recess.

“It gave me something to look forward to,” said Jean-Baptiste, 16. The following year, he cut his absences in half. Schoolwide, the share of students who were chronically absent declined from 35% in March 2023 to 23% in March 2024 — one of the steepest declines among Massachusetts high schools.

Years after COVID-19 upended American schooling, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance, according to data collected by The Associated Press and Stanford University economist Thomas Dee.

Roughly 1 in 4 students in the 2022-23 school year remained chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year. That represents about 12 million children in the 42 states and Washington, D.C., where data is available.

Before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school.

Society may have largely moved on from COVID, but schools say they are still battling the effects of pandemic school closures and looking for solutions to chronic absenteeism. After as much as a year at home, school for many kids has felt overwhelming, boring, or socially stressful. More than ever, kids and parents are deciding it’s OK to stay home, which makes catching up even harder.

In all but one state, Arkansas, absence rates remain higher than they were pre-pandemic. Still, the problem appears to have passed its peak; almost every state saw absenteeism improve at least slightly from 2021-22 to 2022-23.

Schools are working to identify students with slipping attendance, then providing help. They’re working to close communication gaps with parents, who often aren’t aware their child is missing so much school or why it’s problematic.

Read the full article about solutions to chronic absenteeism by Jocelyn Gecker, Bianca Vásquez Toness and Sharon Lurye at Chalkbeat.