The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has set audacious goals to improve reading and math. But missing from the equation is a time-proven strategy: Make sure kids come to school.
The district’s latest assessment of how well SFUSD is reducing chronic absences makes me see red … lots of it. Red is the color we use for stop signs. Red is the color of emergency vehicles. And in the world of education, red is the color schools use to indicate something is not working.
SFUSD chronic absences
Statewide chronic absences
Red warnings on chronic absences have been frantically waving at SFUSD for way too long. Below is the official 2025 report on SFUSD’s performance. That long, vertical red column below the heading “Chronic Absenteeism” shows that, in nearly every student group, SFUSD is failing.
Are you starting to see red?
Let’s see … if students are not attending school, they won’t be able to do well in meeting their math and literacy goals.
Look again at the table above. Move your eye from the long red chronic absenteeism column to the red tables to the right that show how well kids are doing in English and math. Red. Red. Red for lots of kids who are chronically absent.
It’s not as though there is a highly confidential list of which groups of kids and schools are struggling. It’s publicly available to anyone who cares to check. Here is the link for schools.
And for those who want the latest data, it shows that things are getting worse, not better. The chart below shows the trend of SFUSD’s increased chronic absences.
So what’s the plan?
I won’t put words in the district’s mouth. Here is an exact quote from SFUSD:
SFUSD’s chronic absenteeism rate increased from 2023-24 to 2024-25, from 23% to 24%, missing the 20% target….The loss of progress followed an significant drop in the preceding year, from 26% to 23%, and likely resulted from a substantial reduction in staff and resources devoted to improving attendance. The resources have not been restored for the current school year.
That’s not a plan. That’s waving a white flag of surrender and giving up.
Confused by this approach? I called it “puzzling” just to gain your attention. But what would you call it?
In the 2024–25 school year, SFUSD students lost an estimated 4.4 million hours of learning, resulting in over $60 million in lost state funding due to student absences. In California, school funding is based on attendance. If a student does not show up, the district loses money.
If San Francisco could cut the chronic absence rate in half, it could be about $30 million ahead. That’s not small change for a district struggling to balance its budget.
We must not give up on these kids and these schools.
