Rochester Public Schools (RPS) is continuing to face challenges with student attendance, as only about 65% of students regularly attended classes during the 2024–25 school year. The issue was discussed during a school board meeting on Tuesday, October 21, where officials reviewed attendance data and ongoing efforts to address chronic absenteeism.
According to RPS Director of Positive Behavioral Supports, Angi McAndrews, schools have been working hard to support students and find ways to keep them in class, but the problem remains widespread. “Our buildings all have good practices in place,” she said. “But sometimes there are so many students who are chronically absent that it’s hard to intervene for everyone.”
A student is considered to have “consistent attendance” if they are present for at least 90% of school days, whether the absences are excused or not. This means the 64.9% attendance rate recorded last school year reflects students who met that threshold. The figure is nearly identical to the previous year’s 64.8%, showing little improvement.
The state average for consistent attendance in 2023–24 was 75.5%, more than ten percentage points higher than Rochester’s rate. Statewide data for the 2024–25 year has not yet been released. Like many other districts, RPS has been struggling to rebuild attendance levels after the COVID-19 pandemic, when numbers dropped sharply. In 2021–22, just 53.5% of RPS students were consistently attending school.
To help address the problem, RPS joined a statewide pilot program that includes 11 other districts such as Mankato, Minneapolis, Moorhead, Burnsville-Eagan-Savage, and Northfield. The program’s goal is to develop strategies to reduce chronic absenteeism and standardize attendance reporting. As part of the effort, RPS recently hired a truancy coordinator to focus specifically on improving attendance.
McAndrews said one key part of the work has been making sure attendance data is consistent across schools and districts. “In Minnesota, there’s quite a bit of variation in how attendance codes are used and interpreted,” she explained. “We needed to go back and correct our data so that our baseline is accurate as we move forward.”
Currently, the district uses a special attendance code called “M” for students who miss part of a class but not all of it. For example, a student who arrives more than five minutes late to class at the secondary level is marked with an “M.” However, even though the student attended some of the class, that code still counts as an absence in the district’s overall attendance reports.
John Marshall High School Assistant Principal Angela Rodgers said the “M” code helps schools get a clearer picture of what’s happening with attendance rather than simply labeling students as present or absent. “It helps us figure out what the story is and focus on what’s really going on,” she said.
Still, the question of how much class time a student must miss to receive an “M” remains open for discussion. Earlier that day, Superintendent Kent Pekel met with the district’s student school board, a group of high school students representing schools across the city. One student brought up the issue of the “M” designation, and Pekel agreed it’s something the district needs to clarify. “This issue of the ‘Ms’ is a really big one,” he told the students. “It’s the kind of detail we need to figure out to develop a solid attendance policy.”
The district hopes that with clearer data, consistent definitions, and more focused interventions, it can start improving student attendance rates. But for now, officials acknowledge that getting students back into classrooms regularly remains one of their biggest challenges.
