Data-Driven Education Journalism for the Tar Heel State
Just 3% of North Carolina districts with 500+ students have returned to pre-pandemic chronic absenteeism levels. Every large district remains far above its baseline.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford, Cumberland, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth have 256,966 chronically absent students, 65.7% of the state total.
North Carolina's chronic absenteeism rate dropped to 25% but the pace of improvement has more than halved, leaving 391,065 students missing a month of school.
