19 Vermont Districts Improved Their Chronic Absenteeism Every Year Since the 2022 Peak

Thu, 14 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

One number in Vermont's chronic absenteeism data stands out for the right reason: 19 of 26 districts with complete three-year data improved their chronic rate every single year from the 2021-22 peak through 2023-24. That is a 73% consecutive-improvement rate. The size of the gains varied widely, but roughly three-quarters of districts moved in the right direction without interruption.

Who improved, and by how much

The spread is wide. Kingdom East SD^↗ leads with a 28.1 percentage point improvement, dropping from 50.6% to 22.5% in two years. White River Valley SU fell 25.5 points (45.9% to 20.4%). St. Johnsbury cut 23.9 points. Springfield cut 22.3. These are large reductions: rates that were above 45% are now in the low 20s.

At the other end, Mt. Abraham Unified School District improved by 4.3 points (20.2% to 15.9%). Montpelier Roxbury fell 6.9 points. Addison Northwest dropped 9.6. These are smaller gains, but in the context of a persistent statewide problem, sustained improvement of any magnitude is notable.

The pattern across all 19 is consistent direction, not consistent magnitude. What unites Kingdom East's 28-point drop and Mt. Abraham's 4-point drop is that both districts got better in 2023 and then got better again in 2024, without stalling or reversing in between. In a problem as complex as chronic absenteeism, sustained directional improvement may matter more than the size of any single year's gain.

Still above the line

Improvement is not recovery. Of the 19 districts that improved every year, 7 still have chronic rates above the statewide average of 24.3%. Rutland City SD^↗ improved from 66.6% to 56.7%, a 9.9 point drop, and remains the highest-rate district in the state. Southwest Vermont SU^↗ fell from 51.9% to 37.0% and still has more than a third of its students chronically absent.

The other 12 improvers have already pulled below the state average. They include some of Vermont's larger operations: Champlain Valley SD^↗ (9.9%), Harwood Unified Union (17.0%), Mt. Abraham (15.9%), and Addison Northwest (17.0%). These are predominantly Chittenden and Addison County districts, the state's more affluent corridor.

The seven that did not

Seven districts either stalled or reversed. Winooski SD^↗ saw the sharpest move: its rate jumped from 29.2% to 52.5% in a single year. Hartford SD^↗ rose from 32.0% to 37.0%. Essex North SU, a small career-technical district, fluctuated. The remaining four showed mixed trajectories: improvement one year, regression the next.

The divergence between the 19 improvers and the 7 non-improvers does not map neatly onto any single variable. Size, geography, poverty level, and urbanicity are all mixed. Winooski's reversal appears connected to immigration enforcement anxieties specific to its diverse community. Hartford's increase has no similarly clear external driver.

The deceleration within improvement

Even among the 19 consistent improvers, the pace is slowing. Many showed large drops between 2022 and 2023 but smaller drops between 2023 and 2024. Southwest Vermont: -14.0 points then -0.9 points. Two Rivers: -11.4 then -0.1. Central Vermont: -11.2 then -1.4. The easy gains are exhausted. What remains are the students whose attendance barriers are more deeply rooted: medical, economic, familial, or psychological.

This mirrors the statewide pattern: a 10.5-point improvement in the first year of recovery, a 2.6-point improvement in the second. The 73% consecutive-improvement rate shows Vermont districts are making real progress. The deceleration suggests the students still above the 10% threshold face attendance barriers that do not yield to the same interventions that brought the first wave back.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

Winooski's 23-Point Chronic Absenteeism Spike Coincides With Immigration Crackdown

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Winooski^↗ is a one-square-mile city entirely surrounded by Burlington, home to about 7,300 people and a single school district. It is Vermont's most racially diverse community: 57% of students are people of color and 33% receive multilingual services. In 2022-23, the district was heading in the right direction. Its chronic absenteeism rate had fallen from 38.2% to 29.2%. Then something broke.

In 2023-24, Winooski's chronic rate surged to 52.5% — a 23.3 percentage point increase that is, by a wide margin, the largest one-year spike of any district in Vermont. Of 770 enrolled students, 404 missed at least 10% of school. Winooski is now the only district in the state whose chronic rate is higher than it was at the 2021-22 pandemic peak.

The numbers in context

While Vermont as a whole improved from 26.9% to 24.3% between 2022-23 and 2023-24, Winooski moved in the opposite direction by a factor that defies normal year-over-year variation. The next-largest increase in the state was Hartford SD^↗'s 5.0 percentage point rise. Winooski's jump was nearly five times that.

Among districts of similar size — 500 to 1,200 students — Winooski's rate is an outlier by roughly 20 points. Springfield SD^↗, with 1,201 students, sits at 30.5%. Slate Valley^↗, with 1,215, is at 21.7%. Winooski, with 770, is at 52.5%.

What happened in 2023-24

The data alone cannot prove causation, but the timeline aligns with a period of intensifying federal immigration enforcement that directly affected Winooski's community. Teachers in the district documented student anxiety about ICE. The district's superintendent was detained by federal authorities. Families with precarious immigration status faced a choice between visibility and safety.

In February 2025, Winooski became the first district in Vermont to pass a "sanctuary school" policy by a 4-0 board vote, formally committing to protect student information from federal agencies and to not allow immigration enforcement activities on school grounds. The Vermont Agency of Education issued a statement supporting the district.

The sanctuary policy postdates the 2023-24 attendance data by several months. It was a response to conditions that were already affecting families — conditions the chronic absenteeism data now quantifies.

The count tells the human story

In 2022-23, 230 of 787 Winooski students were chronically absent. In 2023-24, that number nearly doubled to 404 of 770 — an increase of 174 students in a district that shrank by 17. The swing means that roughly 190 students who were attending regularly one year crossed the chronic threshold the next.

In a district this small, 190 students is not a statistical abstraction. That represents a shift in which specific children show up at specific schools. It means teachers notice. It means the cafeteria is emptier. It means the attendance phone calls stack up.

The missing dimension

Vermont's chronic absenteeism data does not include race or ethnicity breakdowns. The state reports by gender, income status, special education, and English learner status, but not by the demographic dimension most relevant to Winooski's story. Whether the spike concentrated among immigrant families, among specific language communities, or spread broadly across the district cannot be answered with public data.

Statewide, LEP students saw only an 8.5% reduction in chronic absence from the 2022 peak to 2024, compared to 36.2% for the overall student body. Winooski's LEP population is large enough that this statewide pattern likely plays a role locally.

What comes next

Winooski's 2024-25 data will be the first test of whether the sanctuary policy has begun to reverse the spike. The policy was adopted in February 2025, midway through the school year. A drop would not prove causation. But a second year above 50% would mean the barriers in Vermont's most diverse district have shifted from episodic to structural, and that the sanctuary policy alone is not enough.