D.C. is expanding a truancy reduction initiative to include every public high school in Wards 7 and 8 starting next school year, the District announced Tuesday.
The Truancy Reduction Program pilot, which is aimed at lowering the number of school days students miss, started at two high schools in September 2024 and gradually expanded to encompass 10 schools across four wards in D.C. Most of the schools are east of the Anacostia River, where chronic absenteeism rates are the highest in the District.
Under the program, frequently absent students are referred to the D.C. Department of Human Services for educational programming instead of child welfare services or juvenile justice authorities. The human services department teaches parents about the impact of their children missing school and offers the option to enroll in truancy case management, where human services staff checks in weekly or bi-weekly to address barriers to attendance.
The program is for high school students who have missed at least 15 days of school and middle school students who have missed at least 10.
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“Every day a student misses school is a day of opportunity lost. This expansion means more families will have the support they need to make every day count,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a Tuesday statement. “Our Truancy Reduction Pilot Program is showing that when we meet students and their families where they are, we get results.”
An analysis of the program released Friday showed 36% of students referred in its first year were still truant in the following academic term.
The program had 507 referrals in the 2024-2025 school year, and 47% of those families accepted case management services. Last school year, the program received 1,051 referrals, and 29% of families accepted further intervention.
In another effort to address truancy, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education announced a partnership with Monumental Sports and Rang Rewards last month to offer rewards to up to 10,000 D.C. students for improved attendance starting in January 2027.
D.C. has had one of the highest chronic absenteeism rates — students missing at least 10% of school — in the nation since 2018, peaking at 48% of students in 2022, according to state and federal data compiled by the Return2Learn Tracker. As of the 2024-2025 school year, 40% of students were considered chronically absent. Data is not yet available for last year.
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