MSU research links mental health, school climate to attendance
Summary
Two new MSU-led studies offer fresh insight into the factors shaping chronic absenteeism pre- and post-COVID-19. Together, the findings point to actionable areas where schools and districts can intervene to improve attendance and support student well‑being. Explore the research, featuring expertise from students and alums of our K-12 Educational Administration programs and Assistant Professor Jerome Graham.
The reasons a student might miss school can be complex, and may involve individual, school or systematic factors. While it’s likely every student might miss a few days of school here or there, concerns arise when it is a chronic issue, or when students miss 10% or more of the academic year.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, absenteeism rates have increased: The 2021-22 academic year had more than double the amount of students labeled as chronically absent compared to the 2018-19 year, and while rates have trended downward in more recent years, they remain much higher than pre-pandemic norms. The number is worse in urban areas, where an estimated 30% of students can be categorized as chronically absent.
Two studies led by Michigan State University scholars examined how two variables relate to school attendance: mental health and perceptions of school climate.
It’s the first study of its kind to specifically examine urban students in pre- and post-pandemic contexts and within subgroups within their schools.
Assistant Professor Jerome Graham
The scholars — Su Yon Choi and Yashi Ye, both doctoral students in the MSU K-12 Educational Administration program, 2025 alum Yi-Chih Chiang and Assistant Professor Jerome Graham — analyzed 10 years of statewide data from Georgia for the study.
They found chronic absenteeism rates for middle and high schoolers “in Georgia almost doubled in 2020 and since then has remained well above pre-pandemic rates.” This is especially true in urban schools, where the increase was steeper than rural or suburban schools.
At the same time, another contemporaneous trend was emerging.
“Prior to the pandemic, roughly 50-60% of students report experiencing any mental health difficulties,” the research reads. “After the pandemic, the share of students reporting mental health difficulties go beyond 70%.”
Before the pandemic, schools with a higher share of students reporting mental health challenges had a higher proportion of their students flagged for chronic absence, the researchers found.
The data demonstrates a reversal in this trend since COVID-19 in urban settings.
Specifically, the researchers found, “a higher share of students facing mental health challenges is linked to lower chronic absenteeism.” This shift is mainly driven by Black and Hispanic students.
This paper doesn’t go far beyond the data affirming the change, but suggests some possible reasons why the trend has shifted. Schools might be seen as a “protective space,” or a space where, after so much distant learning, “students can reconnect with friends and adults.”
On the other hand, the researchers speculate that “attending schools could be understood as a help-seeking behavior.” In other words, students experiencing mental health challenges might come to school more as a way to seek help. Schools might also be “a source of stress,” the authors postulate, which could lead students with good attendance to “experience greater mental health challenges.”
In 2021, several organizations declared the mental health "crisis” a “National State of Emergency,” and the U.S. Surgeon General called it an “urgent public health issue.” - See sources below
School climate and absenteeism
While the role of mental health in shaping absenteeism remains nuanced and understudied, one area increasingly referenced in efforts to redress absenteeism is school climate. Despite strong anecdotal and theoretical connections, however, the evidence base supporting this relationship empirically is comparably smaller.
Thus, another paper — led by Graham and also featuring Chiang and Choi — published in the American Educational Research Journal (2026) analyzed whether students’ perceptions of school climate explained meaningful variation in absenteeism rates.
The study is one of few in the absenteeism literature that assesses how schools’ climates related to their share of chronically absent students.
The team again used Georgian data, in part because it was the first state in the United States to use school climate in its accountability system. Georgia and at least 35 other states introduced an accountability system following the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, which mandates that states implement “at least one measure of school quality or student success that is valid, reliable and comparable across the state and allows for meaningful differentiation in school performance.”
Their analysis noted “a meaningful relationship between school climate and chronic absenteeism for students on average,” with several factors contributing to this overall finding. For example, whether a student felt connected was strongly correlated to absenteeism. If they feel more connected, they’re more likely to attend; and vice versa.
But can schools make a shift in chronic absenteeism trends simply by improving school culture, connectedness and acceptances of all learners?
The data suggests yes.
Adjustments to these factors (and more, like a feeling of safety and peer support structures) suggests “significant reductions in chronic absence rates for all students.” To that end, the scholars suggest that school leaders and decision-makers should focus on interventions in these areas to shift the data, and further support students.
