Chronic absence in Iowa

Where things stand, what state rules ask of each role, and what is changing. For school and district leaders.

School year 2024-25

15.8%

of students were chronically absent¹

Chronically absent means missing 10% or more of scheduled school days or instructional hours, regardless of the reason for the absence.¹

U.S. rate: 22.6% (2024-25)²¹

Five-year trend

Iowa, year by year

Iowa chronic absence by school year
School year	Chronically absent
2018-19	12.7%
2021-22	25.6%
2022-23	22.6%
2023-24	21.6%
2024-25	15.8%

Dashed bars mark years the state did not publish a rate.

Where things stand

The numbers

In 2024-25, 15.8% of enrolled Iowa students were chronically absent, based on the state's spring student data collection¹.
That is down 5.8 percentage points from 2023-24, when the rate was 21.6 percent^2,3.
The rate reached 25.6 percent in 2021-22; the state reports a 9.8 percentage point drop over the past three years^3,2.
Iowa is still above its pre-pandemic level: 12.7 percent of students were chronically absent in 2018-19³.
Iowa is now well below the national picture: across reporting states, 22.6% of students were chronically absent in 2024-25, which AEI labels 2025²¹.

Requirements by role

What state rules ask of each role

Teachers

All school officers and employees must promptly report any violation of the truancy law they know about to the secretary of the school corporation; the secretary informs the board president, who calls a board meeting if necessary⁸.
State guidance says a student is absent if not physically on school grounds or not taking part in an expected, school-directed activity under the direction, supervision or instructional guidance of educational staff at an approved off-grounds location¹.
State guidance makes building staff responsible for using an exemption accurately, consistently and objectively when reliable and credible evidence exists¹.
Absences that fall under a state-law exemption are still marked and reported as absences, per the state's coding guidance¹.

Counselors

Iowa law assigns these steps to a "school official": an employee of a public school whose job duties involve identifying children who are at risk for becoming chronically absent, creating interventions to limit the rate of student absenteeism, and participating in the legal process related to student absenteeism⁶.
Except for a child receiving competent private instruction or independent private instruction, if a child is absent for fifteen percent or more of the days or hours in the grading period, a school official must try to find the cause; if the absences are negatively affecting the child's academic progress, the official must start and take part in a school engagement meeting⁶.
A school official may hold that meeting before the child reaches fifteen percent; its purpose is to identify the child's barriers to attendance and interventions that may improve it⁶.
The child, the parent (unless the child is an emancipated minor) and a school official must take part and must create and sign an absenteeism prevention plan that names the causes of the absences and each participant's future responsibilities; each signer gets a copy, and participants may make referrals to services or counseling⁶.
If the participants do not enter into a plan, or the child or parent violates it or does not take part in the meeting, the county attorney may start a proceeding under section 299.6, which makes violating the plan or refusing to take part in the meeting a public offense^6,8.

Attendance team

A child is chronically absent under state law after absences of more than ten percent of the days or hours in the grading period; absences for a religious instruction course under section 299.1D do not count⁶.
When a child becomes chronically absent, a school official must send a notice by ordinary mail or email to the county attorney of the county where the school's central administrative office is located, and a notice to the parent (or to the child, if an emancipated minor) about the absences and the policies and disciplinary processes for additional absences⁶.
The parent notice may go by ordinary mail, email or electronic message, or in person, and the school must keep a copy until the child graduates, turns 21 or is no longer enrolled, whichever occurs first^6,7.
A school official may send the notice before a child becomes chronically absent if the county attorney and the school board agree on the number of absences that triggers it and that number is in the student handbook⁶.
After a prevention plan is signed, a school official must monitor compliance and contact the participants at least once each week for the rest of the school calendar⁶.

Principals & districts

Each district board must adopt a policy on absenteeism and truancy, which may be stricter than state law, and a policy or rules on chronically absent children that explain how the board decides a child is chronically absent, the interventions it may use and the penalties⁵.
That chronic absence policy must not apply to a child who has graduated or holds a high school equivalency diploma, is excused by a court or judge, is at religious services or instruction, or cannot attend for legitimate medical reasons⁵.
Nor does it apply to a child whose individualized education program or Section 504 plan affects attendance, who is in military entrance processing or military service, who is traveling to a funeral or wedding, or who is in a religious instruction course under section 299.1D; the policy must explain how a child can meet these exceptions and must give reasonable consideration to travel time⁵.
Under Senate File 2219 (2026), each district board, charter school governing board and accredited nonpublic school must also adopt a policy that grants an exempt absence for a student's involvement in a school-sponsored activity, program, competition or project and lets the student make up missed classwork^7,9.
A child of compulsory attendance age who is not covered by those exceptions or the general exceptions to compulsory attendance, and who is absent for any reason for at least twenty percent of the days or hours in the grading period, is a truant; that finding alone does not make the child a child in need of assistance, and the board must set reasonable rules for punishing truants⁸.

Recent changes

What changed lately

Senate File 2435 (2024 Iowa Acts, chapter 1152), approved May 9, 2024, set up statewide notices to families, school engagement meetings and absenteeism prevention plans, and repealed the old mediation section^7,12,2,8.
The law took effect July 1, 2024⁴.
Senate File 277 (2025 Iowa Acts, chapter 52), approved May 6, 2025, added exceptions for military entrance processing or service and for travel to a funeral or wedding, and required the state education department to develop, with the county attorneys association, a model policy that county attorneys may reference when deciding whether to enforce the attendance law^7,5,13.
Under the 2024 version, the parent notice went by certified mail and an engagement meeting was required at fifteen percent; now the parent notice may go by ordinary mail, email or electronic message, or in person, and a meeting is required only if the absences are negatively affecting the child's academic progress^12,6.
House File 870 (2025 Iowa Acts, chapter 143), approved June 6, 2025, requires schools, on request, to excuse a child for at least one hour but not more than five hours per week for a religious instruction course run by a private organization, if all of the law's conditions are met^7,5,14,8.
Senate File 277 and House File 870 took effect on the first day of July 2025, Iowa's default date for acts passed in a regular session that name no other date^7,13,14,11.
Senate File 2219 (2026) requires each district board, charter school governing board and accredited nonpublic school to adopt a policy that grants an exempt absence for a school-sponsored activity, program, competition or project and lets the student make up classwork^7,9.
The Governor signed Senate File 2219 into law, and it took effect on the first day of July 2026 under the same default rule; state guidance dated July 2026 lists it among the laws that set Iowa's attendance rules^10,11,7.
The 74 reports that, starting with the 2025-26 school year, the state requires all districts to use the same method to count attendance, after the 2024 legislation showed that different methods made statewide comparisons impossible¹⁵.

Accountability

How the state holds schools to it

Chronic absenteeism and a new attendance growth indicator are part of Iowa's unified school accountability system, approved by the U.S. Department of Education in 2024^17,16.
Schools earn rate points in proportion to students not chronically absent: a school with a 20 percent rate gets 80 percent of the possible points¹⁸.
For ratings, a student is chronically absent after missing 10 percent or more of the school year; the rate covers grades K-12 and students enrolled for at least 10 days¹⁸.
Attendance growth measures the change in attendance rate, between 2023-24 and 2024-25, of students who were chronically absent in 2023-24¹⁸.
For a district, school or student group to receive a score, the minimum N-size must be met (N ≥ 20) for each required measure, including chronic absenteeism. If a school does not meet the criteria to receive a score, the standard practice is for that school to inherit the score and rating category of the school that the majority of its students feed into upon exiting; for a small number of schools and districts where this is not possible, scores are calculated utilizing a lower minimum N-size threshold¹⁸.
The state law's student-level steps use only non-exempt absences, while the federal accountability rate counts all absences, according to the state's model policy¹⁹.
Iowa has answered a national challenge to cut chronic absenteeism statewide by 50 percent over five years³.

What’s working

Efforts with results

Davenport, home to roughly 13,000 students, saw its chronic absenteeism rate fall from 42.5% in 2021-22 to 33.2% three years later, according to state data reported by The 74²⁰.
Even so, The 74 notes this is still one of the highest rates in the state²⁰.

Working on chronic absence in Iowa?

Agenteach helps counselors, teachers, and attendance teams follow up with students who are missing school, and keeps a record of every step.

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Sources

Iowa Department of Education. Attendance Coding (July 2026) (opens in a new tab) (2026-07)
Iowa Department of Education. Iowa delivering remarkable results for students across five key measures (fact sheet on 2024-25 results) (opens in a new tab) (undated; accessed 2026-10-13)
Iowa Department of Education. Student attendance steps into the spotlight at Council Bluffs schools (headline story) (opens in a new tab) (2025-02-26)
Central Rivers Area Education Agency (a state regional education agency). Understanding Iowa's new chronic absenteeism law (opens in a new tab) (undated; accessed 2026-10-13)
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code 2026, section 299.1 Attendance requirements, attendance policies (opens in a new tab) (Iowa Code 2026; accessed 2026-10-13)
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code 2026, section 299.12 Failure to attend (opens in a new tab) (Iowa Code 2026; accessed 2026-10-13)
Iowa Department of Education. Attendance and Chronic Absenteeism Summary for Schools (July 2026) (opens in a new tab) (2026-07)
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code 2026, chapter 299 Compulsory education (opens in a new tab) (Iowa Code 2026; accessed 2026-10-13)
Iowa Legislature. Senate File 2219, Ninety-first General Assembly (2026 session), enrolled text (opens in a new tab) (2026; accessed 2026-10-13)
Iowa Farm Bureau. Governor signing Senate File 2219 (published 5/25/2026) (opens in a new tab) (2026-05-25)
Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code section 3.7 Effective dates of Acts and resolutions (opens in a new tab) (accessed 2026-10-13)
Iowa Legislature. 2024 Iowa Acts, chapter 1152 (Senate File 2435), Division VII Chronic absenteeism (opens in a new tab) (2024-05-09)
Iowa Legislature. 2025 Iowa Acts, chapter 52 (Senate File 277), Compulsory education, truancy, and chronic absenteeism (opens in a new tab) (2025-05-06)
Iowa Legislature. 2025 Iowa Acts, chapter 143 (House File 870), Religious instruction courses, student absences (opens in a new tab) (2025-06-06)
The 74. Absenteeism Is a Major Problem. So Why Can't Schools Agree on How to Measure It? (opens in a new tab) (2026-08-10)
Iowa Department of Education. Iowa Department of Education releases new school performance ratings (press release) (opens in a new tab) (2025-09-18)
Iowa Department of Education. Iowa Department of Education receives federal approval of unified statewide school accountability plan (press release) (opens in a new tab) (2024-09-12)
Iowa Department of Education. Iowa School Performance Profiles Technical Guide (December 2025) (opens in a new tab) (2025-12)
Iowa Department of Education and Iowa County Attorneys Association. School Attendance, Chronic Absenteeism and Truancy model policy (opens in a new tab) (undated; accessed 2026-10-13)
The 74 (reporting Iowa Department of Education data). Iowa Declared War on Chronic Absenteeism. Now It's Gaining Some Ground (opens in a new tab) (2026-06-22)
American Enterprise Institute (Nat Malkus). From Attendance Crisis to Chronic Condition? Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2025 (opens in a new tab) (2026-06-30)