2,088. Active California elementary schools at high or extreme chronic absence in 2025-26. High is 20 percent up to, not including, 30 percent. Extreme is 30 percent or more. Counted from CDE’s 2025-26 download joined to the public schools directory.
A school list. Not a Dashboard color. Start there.
What the 2,088 is, and what it is not
PACE and Attendance Works used those bands through 2024-25 and counted 2,350 elementary schools. The calendar still had 2,350. The 2025-26 file is out, so I ran the bands on the new rows.
Method: school-level TA rows from chronicabsenteeism26, joined on CDS to the directory export, Status Type Active, EILName Elementary, numeric rate only. Stars are suppression, per CDE. High: 1,433 schools. Extreme: 655. Together: 2,088.
Those campuses account for 268,220 chronically absent students and 963,642 eligible enrolled. Statewide DataQuest still counts 1,063,306 kids. Elementary is not the whole problem. It is the largest pile of schools.
Same method on CDE’s 2024-25 download gave 2,360, not the 2,350 in PACE and Attendance Works. Ten schools. Close enough. 2,088 is this year’s count from CDE’s file plus CDE’s directory. PACE has not published a 2025-26 school total.
Three languages for "high"
| Language | What it counts | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| This post | School rate of 20 percent or more on the 2025-26 CDE download. Elementary as CDE labels EILName. | A site list you can start this week. |
| PACE 2024-25 | The same 20 / 30 percent bands. 2,350 elementary schools in 2024-25. | Trend against last year's published figure. |
| Dashboard | A color from status plus change, TK-8 only. Recovered days out. CDE 2026 indicator flyer. | Accountability. Not this school count. |
Dashboard High is not Attendance Works high. Do not retitle a color as 2,088 schools.
I did not total Dashboard colors. Pull those from the Dashboard and label them.
Start with the sites, not the state rate
A statewide rate does not assign the next conference. A site rate does. Pull the list with California’s 2025-26 Chronic Absence Data. Last year’s kid count is 1,143,668 Kids.
Then pick a statute per absence. Attendance Recovery can offset a day under Education Code 46211. It cannot be the punishment. SARB is a different clock.
Partner districts that moved a board used a list of schools and a count of names, not a color. Your SIS is the system of record. Attendly is the system of action.
To rebuild this list for your county: take school-level TA rows from the 2025-26 download (Aggregate Level S, Reporting Category TA, Charter and DASS Yes or No). Filter to your County Code or County Name. Import County Code, District Code, and School Code as text. Pad them to 2, 5, and 7 digits, then concatenate. Do not pad only the combined 14-digit string. Import CDSCode from the directory export as text, then join. Keep Status Type Active and EILName Elementary. Keep rates of 20 percent or more.
The 2,088 used the live directory export on 10 Nov 2026. CDE does not post a dated snapshot there. A later pull can move schools.
Sources
- CDE chronic absenteeism downloadable files,
chronicabsenteeism26(updated 26-Oct-2026) andchronicabsenteeism25 - CDE file structure: Chronic Absenteeism Data
- CDE public schools and districts data files and the directory text export (live file, pulled 10 Nov 2026 for this count)
- CDE DataQuest, 2025-26 Chronic Absenteeism Rate, state
- PACE and Attendance Works, February 2026 (PDF)
- CDE Chronic Absenteeism Indicator, Dashboard toolkit (PDF)
- California School Dashboard
- Education Code 46211
Where Attendly fits
