Vermont's 40-Point Attendance Gap: Same Size, Opposite Outcomes

Thu, 28 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Correction (May 29, 2026): An earlier version stated that the chronic absenteeism range among mid-sized districts spanned "from Harwood's 17.0%." The lowest rate in that group belongs to Mt Abraham at about 16%. The passage has been corrected.

Harwood Unified Union Supervisory District^↗ enrolls 1,794 students. Rutland City SD^↗ enrolls 1,931. They are nearly identical in size, both supervisory districts in rural Vermont, both serving communities of similar scale. In 2023-24, Harwood's chronic absenteeism rate was 17.0%. Rutland City's was 56.7%. The gap between them is 39.7 percentage points.

That is not a rounding error or a temporary fluctuation. It is a structural divide that persists across years and resists simple explanation.

The comparison

At Harwood, 305 of 1,794 students missed at least 10% of school. At Rutland City, 1,095 of 1,931 did. Roughly the same number of families, the same state education system, the same pandemic. The outcomes could not be more different.

Add a third point of comparison: Addison Central SD^↗, 30 miles southwest of Harwood and geographically closer to Rutland. Addison Central enrolls 1,757 students and posts a 19.0% chronic rate. Three districts, all between 1,700 and 1,950 students, with rates of 17.0%, 19.0%, and 56.7%.

The trajectories deepen the comparison. All three spiked in 2021-22: Harwood to 26.2%, Addison Central to an unknown figure (no reliable 2022 data), and Rutland City to 66.6%. But the recovery paths diverged. Harwood dropped 9.2 points in two years. Rutland City dropped 9.9 points, slightly more. Yet the starting points were so far apart that Rutland's faster improvement did not close the gap.

Size is not the explanation

Vermont's chronic absenteeism data shows almost no correlation between district size and chronic rate. The largest districts have some of the lowest rates (Champlain Valley^↗ at 9.9%, Essex Westford^↗ at 11.7%) and the highest rates belong to mid-sized districts. The problem is not scale. Districts with 770 students (Winooski^↗, 52.5%) and districts with 3,166 students (Southwest Vermont^↗, 37.0%) struggle equally.

Among mid-sized districts, those with 1,000 to 2,500 students, the range runs from about 16% (Mt Abraham, the lowest) up to Rutland City's 56.7%. Harwood sits near the bottom of that range at 17.0%. No variable visible in the data fully accounts for the spread.

What the gap reflects

The most likely drivers are the ones the state's chronic absenteeism data does not measure directly: poverty rates, housing instability, access to healthcare, substance use in the community, and the availability of adults who can ensure a child gets to school each morning.

Rutland has struggled with opioid addiction at rates that exceed most of Vermont. The region's economy has contracted as marble quarries and rail operations declined. Housing costs have risen while wages have not kept pace. These are conditions that make school attendance harder, not because families do not value education, but because the logistics of daily life are more precarious.

Harwood, by contrast, sits in the Mad River Valley, a tourist economy with ski resorts, small farms, and a population that skews toward outdoor recreation. The community is not wealthy in Vermont terms, but it has different economic dynamics. More two-parent households. More access to transportation. Different public health challenges.

Why it matters

A 40-point gap between equally-sized districts in a state of 80,000 students undercuts any statewide intervention strategy. A policy designed to reduce chronic absenteeism from 24% to 15% may work in Harwood, where the remaining challenge is nudging an already-reasonable rate lower. It is unlikely to have the same effect in Rutland City, where the majority of students are chronically absent and the root causes extend far beyond school walls.

Vermont's advantage has always been its smallness: districts where superintendents know families, where school communities are tight-knit. The 40-point gap suggests that this advantage has limits. Knowing the families does not solve transportation barriers. Tight-knit communities do not overcome generational poverty. The data does not tell Vermont how to close the gap. It tells Vermont the gap exists, which is the prerequisite for any honest conversation about what it would take.

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

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.