The Attendance Report shows the aggregate attendance rates for students in three categories:
- All students
- Chronically absent
- Not chronically absent
Regular attendance is critical to student success. This report can give an overview of attendance rates for all public K-12 students in Michigan or compare rates for different locations, grade levels or demographics.
The data used for this report do not differentiate between excused and unexcused absences, and therefore do not reflect truancy rates.
The report is updated annually in early fall. See the Recently Posted Reports page for when the report was last updated.
Historical Changes
- Many schools used an extended COVID-19 Learning Plan during school year 2020-21, using a remote learning method of instruction. Days attended were counted by using two-way online interactions between staff and students. Two of these interactions during a week counted as the student having been in attendance for 5 school days.
- Prior to school year 2017-18, a student was counted as absent only if they missed a full day of school. Beginning with 2017-18, that rule was changed to count students as absent if they miss more than 50 percent of the school day. This aligns with Every Student Succeeds Act
- Michigan originally defined students as chronically absent if they missed more than 10 days in a school year. Beginning in 2017, the U.S. Dept. of Education defined chronically absent as students who miss 10 percent or more days, including only students who were enrolled in a district for at least 10 consecutive days. The Attendance report reflects that new definition beginning with school year 2015-16. The historic definition of 10 days or more missed remains for years prior, and appears under the Chronically Absent columns of the data table. When viewing the trend chart, there will be a break between 2014-15 and 2015-16 to illustrate this change.
- The attendance rate for all students was added to the report beginning with the 2011-12 school year, so trend lines for Attendance Rate (All) begin with that year.
- The total number of chronically absent students in the state includes Grade 14 for school years prior to 2015-16, but Grade 14 is not included in the By Grade report category. Beginning with school year 2015-16, Grade 14 is excluded from the report.
Use the Location and Report settings to review attendance rates by different categories such as school year and grade level, and by different demographic factors like gender, race and ethnicity. Data can also be filtered by categories such as economically disadvantaged, English learners, students with disabilities, homeless, and migrant students.
Data view options include:
- Snapshot (a graph and table of the selected data)
- Trend (a graph and table show changes in attendance data over time; available beginning with the 2009-10 school year)
- Entity Breakdown (a table shows the data for the selected entity and related entities; if you’ve selected a particular district, the Entity Breakdown would show data for that district, ISD and individual buildings within the district)
See the MI School Data Quick Start Guide for the basics of navigating the site and customizing a report.
Location Options
Locations Setting options: Statewide, ISD, District and School
Use the Add Comparison Location option to compare your selected location with data for the State of Michigan, a specific location within Michigan, system-generated peer districts or peer districts by distance. System-generated and distance peer comparisons are available for district-level comparisons only.
Data for the Attendance report come from the Michigan Student Data System. Districts report total days attended and total possible attendance (the number of days students could have attended from the first day of school, the date of new enrollment or the beginning of a program) for each student at the end of the year, or upon creating an exit record for the student during the year.
For more information on the MSDS and reporting rules, please see the MSDS Collection Details Manual on the CEPI website.
If you have questions not addressed here or in the linked resources, please contact CEPI customer support at cepi@michigan.gov.
Disclosure Avoidance
To protect the privacy of individual students, CEPI applies data suppression rules to sensitive data when report settings would yield fewer than 10 students in a given group. Complementary groups may also be suppressed. In some cases, values less than 10 may be shown when there is no risk of identifying individual students. Secure users can log in to view unsuppressed data for their authorized location. Please see How CEPI Protects Education Data for more information.
Report Labels
See the glossary for additional terms and acronyms used on MI School Data.
Chronically Absent:
School year 2014-15 and prior: Students with 10 or more absences during the scheduled school year.
School year 2015-16 and after: Students who missed 10 percent or more possible days during the scheduled school year, and were enrolled in a district or building for at least 10 consecutive days.
Not Chronically Absent: Students who missed less than 10 percent of possible days during the scheduled school year and were enrolled in a district or building for at least 10 consecutive days. (Available beginning with school year 2015-16.)
Total Count (All Students): K-12 students for whom attendance was required to be reported in MSDS, and who were enrolled in a district for at least 10 consecutive days.
Data Calculations
Attendance rates are calculated by dividing the reported days attended by total possible attendance. For details on this reporting, exemptions and other information, please see the Attendance Component section of the MSDS Collection Details Manual on the CEPI website.
Student records are deduplicated in cases of shared enrollment. Beginning with 2013-14, student count is based on the operating entity, or the entity where the students are seated; in most cases, the Primary Education Providing Entity and operating district are the same.
Rates are calculated for a school or district by dividing aggregated total days attended by aggregated total possible attendance. Using a simplified example, imagine a school with only three students. Their attendance was reported as:
- Student 1: 45 days attended; 50 days possible (chronically absent)
- Student 2: 175 days attended; 180 days possible (not chronically absent)
- Student 3: 32 days attended; 176 days possible (chronically absent)
Attendance rates would be calculated like this:
All Students: (45+175+32)/(50+180+176) = 252/406 = 62 percent
Chronically Absent: (45+32)/(50+176) = 77/226 = 34 percent
Not Chronically Absent: 175/180 = 97 percent
