Woodbridge
English Learners Lost Their Attendance Advantage
For five straight years before the pandemic, Delaware's English learner students showed up to school at higher rates than their peers. In 2016, their chronic absenteeism rate sat 2.8 percentage points...
The One Subgroup That Beat Pre-COVID Attendance
Every subgroup in Delaware's chronic absenteeism data tells some version of the same story: rates spiked during the pandemic, then came partway back. Black students recovered 84.8% of the way to their...
Only 8 of 35 Districts Beat Their Pre-COVID Absence Rates
Smyrna School District, in the heart of Kent County, has posted a chronic absenteeism rate below the state average every year for a decade. Its 2025 rate of 12.1% is among the lowest of any traditiona...
Woodbridge Cut Chronic Absenteeism by 13 Points in One Year
In a district of 2,698 students tucked into the farmland between Bridgeville and Greenwood, something changed between 2024 and 2025. Woodbridge School District went from a chronic absenteeism rate of ...
Lake Forest Crossed 90%. No District Gained More.
In 2019, Lake Forest School District graduated 78.3% of its senior class. That was a crisis number, 10 points below the Delaware state average, the worst rate Lake Forest had posted in the data window...
Seaford Cut Chronic Absenteeism by 21 Points in Three Years
In 2021-22, more than half the students at Seaford Senior High School were chronically absent. The 52.6% rate meant that in a building of 981 teenagers, 516 were missing at least 18 school days per ye...
1 in 2: Delaware's Students Who Are Homeless and the Attendance Crisis
At the Hope Center in New Castle County, Delaware's largest family shelter, more than half of the 300-plus residents are children. They sleep in converted hotel rooms, ride buses to schools across the...
Delaware Claws Back 81% of Its Attendance Crisis
Three years ago, more than one in four Delaware students was chronically absent. In 2022, 37,520 students missed 10% or more of the school year, a rate of 25.7%, more than 10 percentage points above t...
Delaware's Special Education Rate Hits 22%, Seven Points Above the Nation
Delaware added 11,546 public school students over the past decade. It added 11,728 students with Individualized Education Programs. The entire net enrollment gain, and then some, came from special edu...
One in Five Delaware Students Is Now Hispanic
In 2015, about one in six Delaware public school students was Hispanic. By 2025, it was one in five. That shift, from 21,480 to 31,113 students, represents a 44.8% increase and the addition of 9,633 s...