Correction (July 21, 2026): The original article understated the 2018-19-to-2024-25 special-education improvement as 0.5 percentage points instead of 0.6. It also said special education was the only subgroup below its 2019 rate even though homeless students were 3.6 points below theirs; understated a constructed charter-entity rate as 16.7% rather than 17.4%; and reported a ninth-grade rate that the current state-level query does not return. This version corrects the state and subgroup comparisons, removes the charter and grade claims, and removes causal explanations that the aggregate attendance file cannot test.

Delaware's chronic-absence rate for students with disabilities fell below its pre-pandemic baseline in 2024-25. The state reported 7,031 chronically absent students among 29,815 students in the special-education group, a 23.6% rate.

In 2018-19, the state reported 6,140 chronically absent students among 25,428 in the group, or 24.1%. The latest rate was 0.6 percentage points lower, even as the reported special-education population grew by 4,387 students.

A 10.4-Point Decline From the Peak

Special-education chronic absence reached 34.0% in 2021-22: 9,340 chronically absent students among 27,476. The rate then fell 3.6 points in 2022-23, 3.1 points in 2023-24 and 3.7 points in 2024-25. By the latest year, it was 10.4 points below the 2021-22 peak.

The all-student rate followed the same broad rise and decline but did not return to its 2018-19 level. It was 15.1% in 2018-19, 25.7% in 2021-22 and 17.1% in 2024-25. That left the latest all-student rate 2.0 points above baseline.

Average days absent tell a similar story. Students in the special-education group averaged 11.1 days absent in 2018-19, 14.9 in 2021-22 and 11.6 in 2024-25. The comparable all-student averages were 8.7, 12.4 and 9.6 days.

Special Education Was Not the Only Subgroup Below 2019

Among the reported groups in this comparison, two finished 2024-25 below their 2018-19 chronic-absence rates. Homeless students were 3.6 points below their baseline, while special-education students were 0.6 points below. Foster-care students were 0.1 points above their baseline.

Those comparisons describe changes within each reported subgroup. They do not identify why rates changed, whether group membership changed or whether the same students appeared in both comparison years.

The Gap Narrowed to 6.4 Points

The special-education rate was 9.0 points above the all-student rate in 2018-19. The gap was 8.3 points in 2021-22 and 6.4 points in 2024-25, a 2.6-point narrowing from baseline.

The gap compares an included subgroup with the overall student population, not with students outside special education. It is therefore a descriptive difference between two published state rates, not an estimate of the effect of disability status.

District Results Varied Widely

Woodbridge^↗ET reported the largest decline among the district rows highlighted here, from 27.7% in 2018-19 to 6.7% in 2024-25, a 20.9-point improvement. Seaford^↗ET fell from 22.0% to 13.7%, an 8.4-point improvement.

Red Clay Consolidated^↗ET fell from 29.6% to 24.4%, a 5.3-point decline, while Smyrna^↗ET fell from 20.0% to 14.8%, a 5.2-point decline.

Other districts moved in the opposite direction. Christina^↗ET rose from 21.9% to 24.2%, a 2.4-point increase. Colonial^↗ET rose from 26.5% to 30.9%, a 4.5-point increase, and Capital^↗ET rose from 26.5% to 31.6%, a 5.2-point increase.

The district comparison includes rows with at least 50 special-education students in each comparison year. The chart further limits the display to districts with at least 100 students in the group in 2024-25. These aggregate rates do not show which programs or practices contributed to the changes.

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