New Haven UnifiedET, a 10,300-student district in the East Bay, had a 48.4% chronic absenteeism rate before the pandemic. In 2024-25, it posted 20.5% -- a 28-point improvement that puts it among the most improved districts in California. Forty miles southeast, Duarte UnifiedET went the other direction: from 8.2% pre-COVID to 37.4%, a 29-point deterioration that turned a low-absence district into one of the worst in the state.

Both trajectories are real. But New Haven's is the outlier.

The recovery that isn't

Of 607 California school districts with at least 1,000 students and comparable data across 2018-19 and 2024-25, just 45 -- or 7.4% -- have returned to their pre-pandemic chronic absenteeism rates. The remaining 562 districts are still worse off than they were six years ago.

The median unrecovered district sits 6.8 percentage points above its pre-COVID rate. That is not a rounding error. A district that went from 10% to 17% chronic absenteeism has roughly 70% more students routinely missing school than before the pandemic.

This 7.4% district recovery rate is among the lowest of any state EdTribune has analyzed. New Jersey recovered 12.9% of its large districts. Kentucky recovered over 80%. California's rate suggests something structural about the state's attendance challenge -- that the forces driving chronic absenteeism have embedded deeper here than in most other states.

Where districts stand

Most districts cluster in a narrow, unflattering band. More than half have recovered between 40% and 80% of their COVID-era increase -- enough to show progress, not enough to reach baseline.

The worst-off large districts share a few traits. Twin Rivers UnifiedET in Sacramento County (49.7%, up 26.9 points from pre-COVID) serves a high-poverty community north of Sacramento. Barstow UnifiedET (47.7%, up 25.4 points) sits in the high desert, remote from major population centers. Duarte Unified (37.4%, up 29.2 points) abuts Pasadena in Los Angeles County -- not rural, not especially isolated, but carrying a chronic rate that has more than quadrupled.

Among districts with 10,000 or more students, Twin Rivers is the worst. But the large-district list includes names that would surprise most Californians -- districts in suburban areas, coastal counties, and college towns that never had attendance problems before 2020.

Size does not predict recovery

There is no clear relationship between district size and recovery success. The scatter plot of enrollment versus excess chronic absenteeism is a cloud, not a line.

Small districts are more volatile -- some of the best and worst recoveries happen in districts under 5,000 students. But the trend line barely tilts. Tiny districts do not have a systematic advantage, and large districts are not systematically worse. The pattern suggests that district-level factors -- leadership, intervention strategy, community conditions -- matter more than scale.

The rare success stories

The 45 recovered districts are worth studying. New Haven Unified's 28-point improvement is the most dramatic, but it had an unusually high starting point (48.4%). More instructive may be districts that had moderate pre-COVID rates and drove them lower: Meridian Elementary went from 36.3% to 11.5%. Liberty Elementary dropped from 28.5% to 7.3%.

What these districts share is not obvious from the data alone. They span different regions, serve different demographics, and range in size from 2,000 to 16,000 students. Whatever they are doing to reconnect students to school, the other 562 districts have not yet figured it out.

What $4.1 billion bought

California's $4.1 billion community schools investment, launched in 2021, aimed to address the root causes of disengagement -- housing instability, food insecurity, mental health -- through wraparound services. Roughly a quarter of the state's public schools participate. The attendance data suggests these investments have not yet translated to district-level recovery at scale.

This is not necessarily an indictment of the policy. Community schools are complex interventions that take years to mature. But three years and several billion dollars into the investment, 92.6% of large districts remain above their pre-pandemic chronic absenteeism rates. The 45 recovered districts sit in the data like signal fires -- proof that the post-pandemic attendance floor is not fixed. Every other district is still looking for what those 45 found.

Data source

Analysis based on chronic absenteeism data from the California Department of Education DataQuest, school years 2018-19 and 2024-25. Large districts defined as those with 1,000+ students and data in both years. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10% or more of enrolled school days.

# See: content/ca/2026-04-27-ca-district-nonrecovery-analysis.R