by Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle
November 20, 2025
The rate of Oregon ninth graders on track to graduate in four years hit record highs during the 2024-25 school year, according to new data from the Oregon Department of Education.
But nearly 35% of those students were chronically absent, generally meaning they missed at least three weeks of classes during the 160-day school year. Oregon’s school year is already among the shortest in the country.
Roughly 40% of Oregon high school sophomores and juniors and more than half of all high school seniors were chronically absent, according to the data. That problem has persisted for high schoolers throughout the state since students returned from school following the COVID pandemic.
The data is part of the state’s At-A-Glance report cards for each district and build on state assessment data reported in October showing Oregon students have made small gains in key subjects over the last year but are still lagging behind the proficiency levels of their peers before the pandemic.
“Ultimately, this data is not just something to report — it’s an opportunity to respond. It’s a chance to continue implementing the strategies we know are effective and to adjust where needed, so every Oregon student can thrive,” Oregon Education Director Charlene Williams said in a statement.
Gov. Tina Kotek described attendance rates in Oregon schools as “unacceptable” in a statement, and said that the state has not rebounded from the pandemic quickly enough.
She pointed to initiatives at the Oregon Department of Education meant to encourage parents to send their kids to school and for schools to collect better data as moving the needle but offered little else for concrete solutions to Oregon’s persistently low school attendance.
Her housing security policies and statewide cell phone ban should help, she said, but she also cautioned next year could reveal more tenuous data because of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and the fear they’ve sown among students and families.
“We can also not underestimate the fear that Black and brown families are feeling right now, regardless of their immigration status, which is resulting in children not coming to school,” Kotek said.
Marginal gains
Regular attendance in Oregon schools since the 2021-22 school year inched up roughly 2.5 percentage points, and less than 1 percentage point since the 2023-24 school year.
That means about 3,100 more Oregon students regularly attended school in 2024-25 than in the previous school year, said Dan Farley, assistant superintendent of research, assessment, data, accountability and reporting at the Oregon Department of Education, at a Tuesday news conference.
But it still puts Oregon among the bottom of state’s rebounding from Covid absenteeism among 27 states that have reported data from the last year, according to analysis by the FutureEd think tank at Georgetown University.
The 66.5% of Oregon students considered regular attenders, who are in class 90% of school days, was roughly 15 percentage points lower during the 2024-25 school year than it was a decade ago when more than 81% of students regularly attended school.
Nationwide, the absenteeism rate is about 21%. Before the pandemic, it was about 15%.
The relatively small Port Orford-Langlois, Riddle, Crow-Applegate-Lorane, Annex and Vale school districts all had double-digit increases in regular attendance last year from the year before.
Kindergarten regular attendance increased by 2.5 percentage points.
“Kindergarten attendance is one of our areas of systemic concern, so that is good news,” Farley said. “We also saw increases in regular attendance rates for some of our students who historically have felt least welcome in our schools including the American Indian Alaska Native and black African American students.”
Those particular student groups had the greatest increase in terms of racial and ethnic student groups with 1.3 and 2.6 percentage point gains, respectively.
On track to graduate
Nearly 87% of Oregon ninth graders are on track to graduate, meaning they’ve earned at least one-quarter of their required credits for graduation in their first year of high school.
It’s been a significant improvement — about 13 points — since students returned to school following the pandemic.
The Myrtle Point, South Wasco County, Riddle, Rainier, Glendale and Woodburn school districts have seen double-digit improvements since the previous school year.
Enrollment
Data includes students enrolled in a school district on the first day in May, who have been enrolled in that district for at least 75 days.
Enrollment is down roughly half a percentage point statewide. This is driven primarily by declining birthrates, Farley said.
Enrollment declines were sharpest in small, rural schools throughout the state, but large districts such as Portland, Salem-Keizer, Corvallis, Eugene and Bend-La Pine, West Linn-Wilsonville all experienced enrollment drops of nearly 2% to 2.5%, equating to roughly 3,300 fewer students across those districts from the previous school year.
Teacher experience
Oregon teachers are on the whole highly credentialed and most are licensed, but data show the state’s high poverty schools get the least experienced teachers.
The state’s 317 high poverty schools had twice as many inexperienced teachers as the 316 low poverty schools. Inexperienced teachers are those with three years or less teaching under their belt.
Research from economists at Stanford University and Columbia University suggests that a teacher’s experience is more important than credentials. But qualified teachers tend to stay longer. Nationwide, teachers with the least pre-service preparation quit up to three times more than teachers with the most comprehensive preparation, according to research from the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Palo Alto, California.
And low-income students, students with disabilities and students learning English as their second language are the most likely to be taught by underqualified teachers, according to the institute.
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