As states continue to confront abysmal post-pandemic attendance patterns, understanding why students miss school has become increasingly important. A recent study published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) examines how reasons for student absences have shifted before, during, and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Panorama survey, administered annually in Rhode Island, captures student experiences with school climate, engagement, learning, and other topics. The state’s chronic absenteeism measure asks students “Why have you been absent from school?” followed by a predetermined list of reasons including bullying, taking care of family, and illness. Students could select one or more reasons from the list.
Using self-reported responses from more than 660,000 Rhode Island students in grades 3–12 between 2017 and 2024, the researchers compared the pre-pandemic period (2019–20) with the post-pandemic (2023–24). They disaggregated reasons for absence by grade level, gender, race/ethnicity, and school characteristics (e.g., poverty level, achievement rating), and explored how different reasons for absence may be correlated.
The research team presents many different findings. Illness remained the most common reason for missing school before and after the pandemic (75 percent of all absences). Illness-related absences declined sharply during remote learning but rebounded to pre-pandemic levels once students returned to classrooms, increasing between 2020 and 2024 by 3.6 percentage points among elementary students, 2.4 among middle schoolers, and 3.2 among high schoolers. It is worth noting that illness is not cited more frequently post-pandemic than pre-pandemic, contrary to some assumptions that illness-related absences would surge after the pandemic.
Lack of sleep was the next most common reason for missed school, cited by about one in four students. Post-pandemic, sleep-related absences rose among elementary (+1.9 points) and middle (+4.3 points) school students but declined slightly among high schoolers (-1.3 points).
Reports of boredom and “giving up” increased among younger students and fell among older ones, suggesting disengagement has become more concentrated in the early grades. Safety-related absences—feeling unsafe, bullying, or rumors—increased slightly among elementary and middle schoolers while remaining stable in high school.
The study also examined how particular reasons for absence tend to cluster. The strongest correlations were between “bullied” and “rumor” (r = .42) and between “bullied” and “not safe” (r = .37), suggesting that students who report one safety-related concern commonly report others. In contrast, “rumor” and “sick” were nearly unrelated (r = .01), indicating that illness-driven absences are largely independent of safety and mental wellbeing issues.
Patterns differed across demographic groups. White students were more likely than students of other racial and ethnic backgrounds to cite illness as a reason for missing school, while students of color more often reported engagement or safety-related reasons. Among younger students, boys more often reported lack of sleep and boredom, whereas among older students, girls more frequently cited lack of sleep and “giving up.”
Furthermore, students in low-achieving, high-poverty, or high-minority schools reported substantially higher rates of absences for nearly every reason except illness. For example, absences due to “caring for others” were three times as common in low-performing schools (18.5 percent) as in high-performing ones (6.3 percent).
While the findings are descriptive rather than causal, they highlight important shifts in why students miss school—and where interventions might focus. Rising disengagement and safety-related absences among younger students suggest that attendance initiatives must address not only health but also the broader challenges in school climate, student engagement, and day-to-day experiences. At the same time, persistent sleep-related absences point to health and family-life factors that schools cannot ignore.
The study’s limitations are also important. The Panorama survey is anonymous, so researchers cannot link reasons for absence to individual attendance records or determine how many days a given student actually missed. In addition, some survey categories are overly broad: “Lack of sleep” reflects a wide range of underlying causes, from late-night work to anxiety or technology use. Without a clearer understanding of root causes, designing targeted solutions becomes challenging.
The findings also show that the factors driving absences vary widely across schools, suggesting that one-size-fits-all approaches to reducing absences are unlikely to succeed. Recognizing contextual differences is critical: Schools serving different populations face distinct barriers, and solutions must be tailored accordingly.
Ultimately, the findings underscore that absenteeism reflects a complex mix of health, engagement, and environmental factors that evolved in the wake of the pandemic. Understanding these dynamics is essential for crafting equitable, data-driven strategies to improve attendance and ensure students are present, supported, and ready to learn.
SOURCE: Kevin A. Gee, Peter Yu, and Arya Ansari, “Why Were You Absent? Students’ Reasons for Missing School Before and After the Pandemic,” American Enterprise Institute (October 2025).
