This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Across the country, kids are settling into new school-year routines. Parents buy backpacks, teachers arrange desks and lesson plans, and friends reconnect.
But in recent years, empty chairs are becoming a more common sight—especially in classrooms where students are already facing the most adversity. When kids regularly miss school, it creates a ripple of consequences that negatively affect everything from grades and test scores to future education plans, career opportunities and economic mobility. Yet one group of especially vulnerable students has been largely overlooked in existing research on absenteeism: kids who have had contact with Child Protective Services (CPS).
New research from The Ohio State University, published in Children and Youth Services Review, found that students with CPS contact were more likely to be absent from school than their peers, for both excused and unexcused reasons. Teachers were also 14 percentage points more likely to contact these students' families about attendance problems, and the students reported feeling less connected to their schools than their classmates. The research, led by Arya Ansari, an associate professor of human development and family science, used data from the Future of Families Child Wellbeing Study, which tracked 3,334 adolescents across 20 urban cities from birth through age 15.
Researchers examined responses from kids who had CPS contact by age 15 relative to those who had not, including what their families reported about attendance and students' feelings about school connectedness. According to Ansari, many kids have contact with CPS at some point in their childhood. These investigations are prompted by concerns about children's safety and well-being, with reasons including suspected abuse, neglect, substance abuse or domestic violence.
In 2024, almost 3 million children were the subject of a CPS investigation. By the time they reach 18, more than a third of children in the U.S. will likely be affected by a CPS investigation, and that number is even higher for Black children—more than half of whom will have contact with CPS before turning 18. Chronic absenteeism has always been an issue in U.S. schools.
During the 2018–19 academic year, 15% of K–12 students were considered chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of instructional time. The COVID-19 pandemic drove national rates of absenteeism up to 28% in 2021–22 before declining to 24% in 2024. "Surprisingly, in the attendance or absenteeism literature, there's been very little intersection with kids or families who have had contact with CPS," said Ansari, also a faculty associate at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy.
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