Green Mountain State Education Coverage, Driven by Data
Education News & Data
Local education reporting from every corner of Vermont, grounded in Vermont Department of Education data.
Kingdom East and St Johnsbury went from majority-absent to below the state average in two years, achieving the largest turnarounds in Vermont.
Harwood (17% chronic rate) and Rutland City (56.7%) enroll nearly the same number of students, but a 39.7 percentage-point gap separates their attendance outcomes.
Students receiving special education services make up 25.4% of Vermont's chronically absent and recovered just 24.8% from the COVID peak, far less than their peers.
Three-quarters of Vermont districts with complete data cut their chronic rate in consecutive years, though many remain well above pre-COVID baselines.
Vermont's Northeast Kingdom district went from 50.6% to 22.5% chronic absenteeism, the largest turnaround in the state, with nearby St. Johnsbury showing a similar pattern.
Vermont's chronic absenteeism among students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch fell from a 2023 peak, but recovery has been slower than for their peers.
Rutland City at 56.7% and Winooski at 52.5% are Vermont's only districts where a majority of students miss 10% or more of school days.
Vermont's largest district dropped chronic absenteeism from 21.3% to 9.9% in two years, using student engagement surveys to guide its approach.
Winooski SD, Vermont's most diverse district, saw chronic absenteeism surge from 29% to 53% in one year as immigration enforcement heightened student anxiety.
Vermont's chronic absenteeism peaked at 37.4% in 2022 and has recovered only 59% of the way back. The improvement decelerated from 10.5 points to 2.6 points in one year.
