Grand Canyon Times

The Arizona Department of Education has announced that State Superintendent Tom Horne is advocating for "radical efforts" from local schools to tackle the high rates of chronic absenteeism among public school students. This announcement was made in a press release on February 24, 2025.

According to the Arizona Department of Education, Horne recommends that students with nine unexcused absences should fail the course and that five tardies should count as one absence. A presentation by the Phoenix-based Helios Foundation at the State Board of Education meeting revealed a significant increase in chronic absenteeism across grade levels during the 2022-23 school year compared to pre-pandemic rates.

The Helios Foundation data indicates that absenteeism rates for all grade levels were approximately nine percent in the 2019-20 school year but rose sharply to 30 percent in the 2022-23 school year. Arizona defines chronic absenteeism as missing 10 percent or more of the school year, equating to missing 18 days in a typical 180-day school year.

"The idea that a third of our students are missing 18 days of school or more is a real catastrophe and an emergency for our state," said Horne. "We need radical efforts to solve this problem. We have to create a motivation for parents to be sure their children go to school. Parents don’t want their kids to fail courses or to miss out on graduating on time, and if schools would adopt those kinds of policies, we would see the parents motivated and a radical drop in absenteeism. As a result of that we would see better academic results."

Horne has served for 24 years on the board of Arizona’s third-largest school district, including ten years as president. He also served in the Arizona Legislature and as chair of the academic accountability committee. Previously, he was state superintendent of schools from 2003 to 2011 before being elected as State Attorney General.